Is this the thread for horny and slightly balding single men? — Heister Eggcart

I said find, not find her and sit on her. — Heister Eggcart

So your sweeping claim is yet to be empirically tested. — apokrisis

Technology is a tool for amplifying human action. — apokrisis

I know it is your thing to play the conservative. But again, I have outlined the grounds on which I am founding a view. It is the one supported by science and philosophical naturalism. So just repeating your own paradigmatic assumptions in reply is otiose. — apokrisis

Anthropological bollocks. It over-ran its ability to control an empire. It ran out of new grain fields to occupy.

So it had a brilliant social formula - for its time. But then fell apart because it over-ran what its hierarchical organisation could contain.

So it arose on things like speed of communication, coherence of action. And fell apart after the social technologies involved could no longer cope with the scale of the task. — apokrisis

But you are arguing from your own personal vague definitions of intellect and morality. As a naturalist, I aim higher. If nature is in fact intelligible, these are things we can properly define and measure. They are not just matters of opinion. — apokrisis

All earlier examples of social collapse (as evidenced for example by Jared Diamond) were societies that didn't understand their natural basis sufficiently. — apokrisis

I'd definitely say that the West is obsessed with sexuality more than just sex. — Heister Eggcart

No, the pessimist merely acknowledges this, because he also knows that complaining about what cannot be changed is a foolish waste of time. — Thorongil

There is the long-run issue to. But a "perfect" society - that understood itself in these organismic terms - would understand such lifecycle issues and thus know how to guard against it. — apokrisis

I'm not saying it wouldn't be difficult. But in fact modern society does a pretty good job at planning for pandemics and climate resilience. It is exactly this kind of organic lifecycle thinking which is starting to be applied (if perhaps not nearly quick enough to actually save our particular neoliberal/globalised/fossil fuel based "utopia"). :) — apokrisis

So who could argue with a modern society that is producing ever smarter, fitter, better-looking and civilised folk - on average? — apokrisis

The pessimist's response is that there is no "dealing with it," in the sense of solving it. Stop immanentizing the eschaton. There will not be, and more importantly, cannot be a utopia on this planet. — Thorongil

tl:dr version: folks are hypocrites. — Terrapin Station

This is the random sexual deviancy thread, Agustino, and you are seriously missing the point here. The idea is to include in your post some form of random sexual deviancy otherwise you are in the wrong place and should bounce out of here on your presumably large and flexible dildo. — Baden

No more than if I took that smiley and shoved it up your arse. In other words, I'm sure you quite enjoy it, my lovely. — Baden

But think of the ridiculousness of your suggestion. The existence of charities at all begs the question of what underlying features of society, human nature, and the world are broken and corrupt enough that they necessitate their existence. If humans were capable of alleviating suffering through charity, then they would be capable of solving the problems that necessitate charity. But they are not and so you are chasing a fool's dream. — Thorongil

'But my nose is running!' What do you have hands for, idiot, if not to wipe it? 'But how is it right that there be running noses in the first place?' Instead of thinking up protests, wouldn't it be easier just to wipe your nose?

What would have become of Hercules, do you think, if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar - and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules

[...]

Now that you know all this, come and appreciate the resources you have, and when that is done, say, 'Bring on whatever difficulties you like Zeus; I have resources and a constitution that you gave me by means of which I can do myself credit whatever happens!' — Epictetus

Some of them do, but if you look for scholars who do work on Nietzsche, then more often than not, they ignore Schopenhauer. — Thorongil

I sleep on a pillow imported from the far east, with downy feathers and a silk cover. Some say the prince of Persia once rested his head upon its soft embrace. — darthbarracuda

but can one be sane and still think it reasonable to kill a group of people in church so that a race war will commence? — Bitter Crank

Then they are not stable. People who see that progress and stability are incompatible are different and few, and they are thought to be mad-men by everyone else. — unenlightened

First, I introduced the term 'patrilineal', and I used it in the conventional meaning rather than make up some nonsense. If you want to distort the language to suit your own prejudices then there is no possibility of communication. — unenlightened

And what is of importance is that you have zero basis for your declarations thereafter; as if other cultures have not been at least as stable and survived at least as long and flourished as well, with just as stable families. — unenlightened

And I would point out that it is just this stable family focused sexually righteous society that has degenerated into the abomination that is modern liberalism. Now how did that happen? — unenlightened

That it happens to be currently so is certainly true, though savagery is by no means confined to undeveloped societies. But I would like to see some argument as to why it is so 'by essence'. You might take the following into account, taken from here. — unenlightened

Like the stars aligned to fulfill that desire without compromise, but still wasn't good enough for this romantic idealist. That's what you get for spending years reading about romance rather than doing it. — Wosret

Even with that, my warped by fiction, ridiculously unrealistic ideas about romance, and love proved to be too insane, and I messed that up too. — Wosret

they have started to answer the op's question about other societies — unenlightened

Other people have found out how the structure of society produces its values — unenlightened

They may also have started to see how changes in the structure of western society in the last century have led to a current conflict between 'old fashioned' and 'modern' value — unenlightened

To "demonstrate the capacity to do it" for the surgeon cannot just be a portfolio of past successful operations, because the next operation is the one that could expose the gaping hole in his knowledge. — jamalrob

When I became a developer I vowed I would never become one of those guys who complained to other developers about "the users", treating them as the enemy. — jamalrob

But when people say they dislike a design it's now second-nature for me as a web developer to find out if there is anything of substance in the complaint so that I can see if I can do something about it, or if it's just people moaning about something unfamiliar or expressing their odd tastes. — jamalrob

I also miss the approval or disapproval ratings. — Maw