That's called deterrence. But I call it bullying.

But I hold to the principle that it is both immoral and ineffective to rely on being unpleasant to one person to deter another, or to persuade by bullying and threats. — unenlightened

You take an extreme non-interventionist position. I agree, though to this extent:

What deters most people from committing crime is a good childhood, a cohesive society, a reasonable level of economic security, and good family life. It isn't that most people fear punishments so much. They just don't want to actually perform very illegal acts that can result in prison or hanging.

They don't murder people because, really, they've just never developed the habit. On a bad day they limit their rages to imagining the demise of a deserving bus load of assholes (or a stadium's worth).

As the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow once said, I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.

Come on, unenlightened: putting armed robbers in prison for 5 years isn't bullying. It's the exercise of socially approved coercion. Bullying is when the leading thug in the fifth grade beats you up and takes your lunch money, or takes every opportunity during the day to make one feel like a worm, using rougher methods than words where slugging is more amusing. The bully is operating outside social bounds.

Since we're ALL on death row and if the law is sensible may I ask what grievious crime did we commit to deserve death? — TheMadFool

i live in a state that has not had the death penalty for a long time. I am opposed to the death penalty. However...

It is one thing to be born, live on one's own terms more or less, and then die a timely death from a natural cause.

Clients of execution service providers usually spend 10 - 15 years, more or less, sitting on death row, which is not quite as luxurious as the usual prison cell. Finally, after many years of legal screwing around, they are given their passport to the hereafter and if they are lucky, the execution goes swimmingly well and they die pretty damn quickly.

Mistakes get made. Sometimes someone who said they were innocent actually was innocent. Illinois executed so many people later found to be innocent that the state gave the executioner a furlough. Sometimes the execution is botched and there is too much gasping, groaning, and squirming for polite society. ("Can't you lie still, damn it, and die quietly?")

What would an authority on ontology look like? — andrewk

Here is one of the 3 global ontology authorities:

Myrtle Krebspark of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota — andrewk

This must be the first mention of Myrtle Krebsbach (not Krebspark) in The Philosophy Forum. Myrtle is the wife of Florian Krebsbach. The Krebsbachs are members of Our Lady Of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church. Florian and his son, Carl, run Krebsbach Chevrolet in Lake wobegon.

"Nature" is neither immoral nor moral, neither bad nor good. "Nature" is perceived by us to exist as a process (which we might personify as "mother nature") but doesn't have an existence such as "knowing itself".

It is absurd to speak of nature being a moral subject.

And no I dont eat at KFC. I like to go to Subway on my lunch breaks. — Question

You eat at Subway because you are know that KFC has put batter-fried rats in their buckets of chicken. Well, let's not get huffy over that! Rat protein is as good as chicken protein. What's a little rat meat for lunch? Though, I suppose a big old rat might be a bit stringy. Young rat much better.

Something to think about the next time you all head for the fast food joint of that southern reprobate, "the colonel".

Drink more beer and dance the schottische.

Drinking beer and dancing schottisches and polkas is decidedly more holy and pleasing to God than sucking lemons and calculating whether one is predestined to salvation or damnation. Lutherans get drunk on Grace Alone but what can lighten the burden of Calvinist predestination?

IMHO.

they should be re-enslaved for their own good. You're sounding pretty close to what's called the Protestant work ethic. — Mongrel

"Protestant work ethic" is as lazy as the "derogatory black stereotype". From Luther, "all work is holy" and all work is dignified, whether it is the work of a priest or the work of the lowest class of laborer.

In the disreputable field of psychology (according to Un) Buridan's ass illustrates the 3 basic choice situations:

Attraction / attraction
Attraction / repulsion
Repulsion / repulsion

It's easy for an ass to choose when the choice is between nice fresh grass and a pile of sand. The other two are more difficult, and they illustrate a common enough human situation. Two good job offers or two bad job offers. At least with the two good job offers, you won't loose no matter which one you choose, and in the case of two bad job offers, you won't win, regardless of which you choose.

In real life, the outcome is often enough NO DECISION. One dithers too long about which of two cars to buy, and when you finally make up your mind a week later, both have been sold. Is there a solution? In balanced win/win or lose/lose situations, there isn't, if you don't find a way to tip the scale.

Reasonably intelligent people call in somebody else to help. If a second ass had come along, Buridan's ass would have lived to face even worse choices.

due to the IDIOCY of conservative politicians — Wayfarer

I'm always happy to assign blame to the IDIOCY of both conservative politicians AND their running-dog-lackey-sort-of-liberal-lick-spittle cooperating allies.

My personal opinion is that geo-energy is a non-starter, especially since more abundant -- and sustainable -- energy is available at ground level. Except in places like Iceland.

There are several parables that speak of labor and reward. It's best to interpret these as comments on the Kingdom of God, rather than as practical policy. Should laborers hired late in the day get the same wage as people who worked all day? In heaven it doesn't make any difference; on earth, it definitely does.

Tell me, where did this source of neuroticism, which I might very well be displaying, originate from? — Question

Ultimately? I don't know--for your case or mine. We become 'neurotic' when our deep aspirations are thwarted, whatever those aspirations might be, and the experience of being thwarted is not resolved. So, the kid who expected to be the 'golden boy' who wasn't and never figured out what to make of this Big Disappointment, might react neurotically--just one example. People have all sorts of aspirations that get thwarted, and become a bit neurotic in lots of ways.

Me? I confess to having had conflicting aspirations that were and were not thwarted, were and were not resolved, and resulted in some definite neuroses that were/are problematic for me.

Where do our overly ambitious aspirations come from? Just my opinion, but I think the mainspring of our aspirations was in place before we left the trees. Our primate cousins (and we) are pretty status conscious. We, at least, have to go out of our way to avoid status competition. Those of our tribe who are "other directed" probably will pursue whatever social status games are available. Those who are strongly, and securely, "inner directed" can afford--indeed must--march to different drummers.

I don't know how or why people are inner or other directed, or in what combination of the two.

Great musicians have such gifts.

Below is Allegri's Miserere. We can thank Mozart for having the piece. Allegri had written it for one of the Popes in the 1600s, and the vatican intended to keep it as private piece (not publish it). 150 years later, Mozart happened to hear the piece at the Vatican and wrote it out when he got home. (He didn't pass it off as his own.)

A conductor received a manuscript for a concerto in the late 1800s. (Sorry, don't remember who, specifically). A few days later the manuscript was returned to the composer, and the conductor had left town. Sometime later, the composer discovered that the piece was scheduled for performance, and he was perplexed about where the conductor had gotten the score. The composer told him, "Oh, well, I read your score and remembered it. Quite beautiful."

There are stories of pianists scheduled to perform a concerto at a concert and discovering at the last minute that the orchestra is playing it in a different key. The pianist was able to transpose the piece as he went along (playing from memory).

Most of the time I can't remember a good short joke if my life depended on it.

At least in the US, and I think in England (probably some other places in Europe too) the rate at which children either remain residents in their parents homes, or leave for a time and then return, has risen substantially over the last 30 years. This isn't a problem of too much parent-child attachment, it's an economic problem (mostly the children's).

College results in debt. A failure to get hired in a job (appropriate or not) results in inability to repay debt, more debt is added, and before long the unlaunched young adult is heading home. Once home, the pressure seems to be off and the search for work might become less urgent, because in many cases the parents are carrying the child. And the fact is, jobs for certain kinds of workers are scarce.

This isn't Question's situation (apparently) but it seems to be the situation that Hanover and I were strongly reacting to. College graduates are not always realistic about the benefits of education, and of course, colleges do not always act in good faith with prospective students. Were they operating in good faith, they would discourage a good many students from attending, because a good share of the students will not benefit occupationally.

I am glad I went to college; it started me on a life-long course of learning. I am also glad I was tracked into business classes in high school. Being able to type, and being more or less willing to work as a secretary or clerk kept food on the table more often than my English Lit major did. I am very grateful I never had to go back home to live with my parents. That would have been close to the ultimate humiliation.

Thermodynamics?

I didn't see any reason for banning you, or for even closing the thread. Perhaps the physicists who run the site detected strange particles being emitted from your thread and this freaked out an anal-retentive post doc.

As to geothermal:

Just leave the Yellowstone Caldera alone. You might want to move close to Yellowstone so that your demise will be quick when it blows. KABOOM sic transit gloria Question.

In several geothermal projects water has been injected into hot rock to produce steam. But... putting relatively cold water into hot holes had the entirely predictable effect of cooling the rock off. Project went pffft.

Both in California, Oklahoma, and Switzerland, injecting liquids into rock produced earthquakes. Earthquakes make yahoos twitchy. The yodeling yahoos got their rifles out of the closet and went looking for the usual suspects.

Rather than look for exotic sources of energy, we should be more like you and live simply. Living simply would reduce our energy needs significantly.

Is the pot calling the kettle beige?

A couple of points after a good nights rest. — Question

In fairness to those who some think gave you "hard advice" or were judgmental, you might have been more forthcoming in your initial request for feedback. In light of this information, I would have taken a much different tack. Like already having a degree...

I've been to college for a degree in behavioral economics — Question

...sheds much light on where you are coming from.

Maybe you have disclosed much about yourself in bits and pieces here and there, but I haven't been tracking your posts that closely. (Sorry, I'm too self-centered and egotistical, I guess.)

As for the importance of the ego, it is a watershed issue. Some people think a strong ego important (which is not being a narcissistic, egotistical asshole) and some people discount the ego (which is not the same as making of oneself an unworthy worm). Low self-esteem (your term) does point toward wishing one had a stronger ego--or something to that effect. It's perfectly acceptable to be humble and think well of yourself (to have self-esteem). Self-esteem isn't the same as pride, either, which cometh before a fall.

Now as for becoming a proper philosopher... Getting a PhD in philosophy will help you become a notable philosopher as much as getting a PhD in English Literature will help you become another Shakespeare. It won't. It can't. It never has. It never will.

By this time you either have the makings of being a significant philosopher or you don't -- the same way that I am either a potential notable author, or I am not. (Note: I am not.) That's just the way the cookie crumbled. In the mean time, you seem to be living your philosophy. Good for you. Good luck. Good afternoon.

Question himself laid out his situation and asked for feedback. Good idea? Maybe not.

There are risks in laying out one's situation and then asking people what they think about it. I wouldn't call Hanover's comments an unprovoked attack. Question is asking about a 10+ year project (PhD in anything) which might, quite possibly, not pay off well. Hanover cut to the quick. "How do you think you are going to get on in life?"

I know from my own personal experience (I started college once upon a time, long ago) that the ideas we have in our heads about the future can be terribly naive and mistaken. Later on, when I was counseling college students (this back in the 1970s) many of them had no idea of what it would take to achieve what they, or their parents, thought they wanted.

The children of the privileged upper classes (say, the top 20%) generally get fairly good direction about how to succeed in life. Their parents succeeded handsomely, they have ways and means and they make sure their children benefit from their own advantages.

80% of the people don't have these advantages, and don't have the necessary specialized knowledge to tip off their children about how to get ahead and succeed (something that most parents desire for their children).

Hanover was offering his insight. Nothing more. Not a dick.

Question "literally asked for it"

Thoughts welcome. — Question

and we only have what he offered about himself to go on.

Australia sounds like a nice place. — Question

Bingo.

Hmm, maybe Mars is where it's all at... — Question

It's not flat (Olympus Mons is 29.9 km high) and bus service to get there is really poor.

Arizona — Question

Arizona isn't flat. Nice place, but lots of bridges there.

Then, I'll move to some flatter land where there ain't no bridges to cross. — Question

Oh gawd, Kansas. Oklahoma. Western Nebraska. North Dakota. The American Outback.

I'll cross that bridge when the time comes. — Question

You are on that bridge right now.

I wasn't expecting Margaret Thatcher's "There is no such thing as society" to raise it's hideous head.

I helped pay the mortgage when I still had my money for college, payed for a new car for my mother (nothing fancy, but a good car nonetheless), bought some appliances, helped with some state programs offering discounts and help with weatherization, etc.

We both live hand to mouth — Question

Good on you for all that. The thing is, living hand to mouth does not seem to be your goal. It's a strategy to maintain the life you have, like and enjoy. And there is nothing wrong with that, in the short run. In the longer run, though, maintaining a simple life takes more and more input. Costs rise, needs become greater, small emergencies require ready cash or things get worse quickly, and so on.

What Hanover (and I) are telling you is to undertake more effort. More effort, more income will be needed in the future to maintain the freedom to live the way you want to.

I don't understand why you think Hanover was being a dick. His advice, "...you should get a real job so that you can support yourself and not live with your mother" is eminently sensible. Why is it eminently sensible? Because life is hard, and people who do not take responsibility for their own well-being and self-support are likely to find themselves in various unenviable positions later on in life when mother is no longer alive, and when one is getting a bit old to do entry level work.

Question isn't, after all, a mentally deficient ward of the state. He wants to earn a PhD in philosophy. If anybody should be able to handle eminently sensible, even hard-headed and cold-hearted advice, it's a prospective philosopher.

Is Thorongil being a dick for outlining the unpleasant realities of pursuing a PhD? What he had to say is also eminently sensible. The glory days of academic employment in the liberal arts are now the stuff of vintage memory, a time back in the Mid-Century Modern era when one could get funding for advanced degrees and go on to get decent jobs teaching the burgeoning classes of baby boomers in a booming economy.

had v bad self-esteem — csalisbury

I don't know about the past, but it seems like life as we know it just isn't good for one's self-esteem.

Also, there is nothing wrong with living with your mother. — andrewk

Unless your mother would like to get on with her own life without adult children living at home. Maybe she would like to have a torrid romance with the guy next door, for instance. Having an adult son in the next room cramps one's style.

a few points of information would be helpful:

Your age?
What metropolitan area do you live in or near to?
How much is your debt?

Age makes a difference. If you are 20, that's one thing; if you are 28, that's something else.
Where you live matters. If you live in a very expensive city but with lots of opportunity, that is one thing. If you live in a low cost dead zone, that is something else.
The size of debt matters. If you owe $3,000, that is one thing; If you owe $30,000, that is something else.

I have had low self esteem and either hopelessly vague or totally impractical plans, as one often does. So I am sympathetic with your situation.

I'm suggesting you make some changes; I'm not suggesting you become someone else. I finished graduate school and spent 40+ years in the work force, much of which totally sucked. I had some good jobs and some bad jobs. Sometimes low pay, simple work, and low stress was worth it.

One don't have to make a huge amount of money, but one does have to be thrifty if one's pay isn't high. I never made more the $35,000 a year, but I lived cheaply most of the time. I was able to save something for retirement -- not enough, but it could have been worse. I didn't live in an expensive area, and I paid the mortgage off as fast as possible. Pair up with somebody -- 2 incomes help a lot, even if neither of them is very high.

Had I to do it over, I would have pursued a purely liberal arts English major, rather than a teaching degree. Total waste of time in my case. I would take the first job more seriously, and would quit the second good job at its peak rather than hang around coasting. I didn't strike while the iron was hot.

But do consider trying my 5 year plan.

I'm at a crossroads. — Question

Whether you are in a crossroads, a crosswalk, or crosshairs is hard to say, but you definitely need to get moving. PhD? You don't have a BA in underwater basket weaving (that's an old cliché) yet, so it's premature for you to be worrying about years spent in graduate school getting a doctorate in philosophy.

Get a life! Whether you are working in a plant nursery or a infant nursery doesn't make much difference: Neither plants nor infants will disturb your low self-esteem. People build up self-esteem on the basis of actual, mostly small, accomplishments. Here's a 5 year plan: get a second job and/or a better job, pay off your debts, and move the hell out of your mother's house. Your mother may be a saint, but do your mother a favor. One of the small accomplishments you can achieve is figuring out how to support yourself on your own. You might find that being closer to debt-free and living on your own would do wonders for your self esteem.

you give every appearance of being quite intelligent. Put that brain to work on solving your life-challenges. Job, debt, independent living, self-esteem, a career path.

About which: go back to college. If you have absolutely no idea what you want to do with your life, it's about time you started to figure that out. People without specific plans should major in liberal arts fields which are considered "generally useful". Literature, philosophy, history, mathematics, etc. Stay away from exotica like Sanskrit and Gender Studies.

If you decide that you don't want to go to college, then you had better get good at making money the old fashioned way (by working for it). You need to earn enough to support yourself now and in the future -- so you have to make a decent yearly income.

Be glad that you have a decent brain between your ears. It's time to put it to more use. You strike me as an intelligent fellow who has not "engaged with life" yet. This is a common enough problem--you are not alone here--but YOU need to "get engaged with life". You need to get your ass on the bicycle and start peddling toward something specific.

Genetic markers for specific behavioral traits aren’t genetic markers for disorders. — Perrydiculous

There are not many genetic markers for specific human behaviors, or disorders. Which is to say, we haven't found them. Of course, some behavior is genetically directed, and some features as well as disorders have genetic components. We know that from various researches. However, finding which scattered set of genes trigger a specific behavior is very difficult.

The human reward system is a very odd mechanism, compared to what one would imagine. It would appear logical that doing something that goes well, would induce pleasure. However, the reward system is activated right after the response to fear. The fear-response flushes the body with adrenaline, thus making you extremely fit for fighting and surviving in life threatening situations. The fear-response is followed by a release of norepinephrine and dopamine, which is conceived as pleasurable. — Perrydiculous

I haven't read basic psychology recently and I can't remember. But I suspect your interpretation.

Ending a state of flight-or-fight-fear-indued hyper-stasis is a necessary event. Adrenaline is metabolized and norepinephrine and dopamine are excreted to return us to a state of homeostasis. We can't tolerate hyper-stasis as a steady diet.

But I don't think it's fair to call this part of the reward system.

A better example of the reward system at work is the way we respond to addictive substances like nicotine, caffeine, opiates, and stimulants like cocaine and amphetamines.

People who are addicted to nicotine experience pleasure when they smoke. They feel relaxed, released, satisfied. But nicotine is a stimulant, and it shouldn't make us feel relaxed. So what is going on? What is happening is that a dose of nicotine is overdue and the CNS is getting antsy for what has become a normal level stimulation by nicotine. When the smoker lights up, the CNS relaxes, (dose arrives, everything is back to normal). It isn't the nicotine that relaxed, however. It's just the removal of a stimulative deficit. The same thing works with caffeine. Caffeine is another stimulant. I can testify to how irrupting it is to get up in the morning without coffee on hand. But what is irritating is the lack of the accustomed dose of stimulant, not the arrival of a tranquilizer.

Most addictive substances work in the same way, whether it's a CNS depressant like an opiate or a stimulant like cocaine, or alcohol.

It might possibly be the case that ADHD or ADD are not "real" disorders in the way that some other conditions indisputably are. Certainly, some children and some adults have difficulty managing sustained attention and some people are 'hyperactive'. The problem with this condition is that it hasn't been fully determined whether it is a "brain disorder" or an artifact of the children are raised, or a side-effect of bad environment.

But not all mental "conditions" are vague and nebulous. Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis, paranoia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and so on are indisputably abnormal. That said, there are psychiatrists like Thomas Szasz and others who propose radically different interpretations of abnormal psychology. Personally, I don't believe them.

That said, I also think too many people are assigned the diagnosis of "depression". Depression definitely exists, but so do a lot of other real-life situations that leave us in turmoil and which if solved, would leave us much more functional. LIKE: too much drinking, prolonged unemployment, abusive relationships, bad work-life situations, bad environments, and so forth. Too much noise, bad architecture, low grade culture, stupid art, heavy traffic, high concentrations of idiots, morons, and imbeciles per square mile, and so forth are all contributing factors. Lots of people feel dysfunctional, and are, in fact, dysfunctional -- but they are not mentally ill. They just resent living in the shit holes they are stuck in.

Could it be that our primate-brain is what has granted our kind with social characteristics? — Perrydiculous

Of course, that is precisely the case. Primates are social creatures and the primate brain is what makes us social. We are social of necessity, since we take a long time "to become" and "becoming" is a social process as well as an individual process.

The "laws of nature" seem to be derived from observing many instances of observation from astrophysicists observing the cosmos to nuclear physicists studying sub-atomic particles, and others studying everything in between. So, the laws of nature are descriptive. Sometimes matter and energy behave in some way which effectively contradicts the law, and then the law has to be rewritten. These "legal" challenges don't occur every day, but every now and then they do.

The same laws that I described as "descriptive" can be treated prescriptively. We know how gravity, force, and mass interact, so when we launch a rocket to Mars, the laws of nature prescribe how much thrust is needed, when, for how long, and in what direction. Think of the Cassini Mission bouncing around the complex gravitational fields of Saturn and its various moons. NASA wouldn't be able to program the on board computers or alter the programs without an exquisite understanding of precisely what the laws prescribe. When NASA scientists' understanding of the laws of nature aren't quite exquisite enough, rockets miss their targets and go sailing away into the brightly light yonder. around the sun.

If you fall off the roof of a very tall building, be assured that your plunge toward earth is altogether in accordance with laws which will not be amended before you become a large splat! on the sidewalk.

Partially Examined Life — Wayfarer

I checked out The Partially Examined Life and listened to a bit of their podcast on Richard Rorty. It started out with these 4 would-be philosophers-who-thought-better-of-it introducing themselves with a bit too much male giggling for my taste, but then they got on with it. I listened to some of the podcast... points raised:

• not getting stuck in our evil national past, any sort of "original sin", which leads to passivity.
• remain an "agent" and self-loathing is something that "agents" and nations can not afford.
• have (get, maintain) hope and pride in the national project projected into the future. A complete lack of national pride also leads to passivity.
• the Left should be hopeful, not just critical, and it needs to hold onto anti-authoritarianism
• the society we work toward should be characterized by less needless suffering and more diversity in remarkable--larger fuller imaginative individual--human beings

I recommend a visit.

So how about Mr. Chopped Liver himself -- Woody Allen. Not a chance, I'm sure, but he'd be a good guest.

I was wondering if the mods had considered inviting intellectual celebrities to participate in the forum? — m-theory

So what am I, chopped liver?

It doesn't always work.