They don't need to hide behind needles between the toes. A bullet through the head (faster, cheaper, better) and the coroner's report will still say, as you said, "cardiac arrest", or maybe if they are in a comic mood, "failure to thrive". — Bitter Crank

That's just the problem. And also with a cheaper and easier way of staging suicide, as suggested by @DingoJones.

Faster, cheaper and easier is not always the most feasible,when the Union of Assassins (Local 453) demands that higher cost methods be applied, in order to financially protect the members of the Guild. Their demand is reasonable: the high cost of assassin training for the students, in terms of text books, lab material, and tuition fees, can't be offset if employers can hire dilettante yahoos who will push you in the subway tracks for below unionized wages.

It's a closed shop. the Guild of Assassins. Add to that, if you don't give in to their demands, you can be easily replaced... the obituary will simply say, due to a sudden unexpected illness.

@ZhouBoTong, thanks for the help with the @ referencing of users.

It was very helpful.

I think you are using 'economy', when you mean 'progress of the human race'? Those brilliant people that drive progress forward actually are not the point of education...those people will be just fine. Also, what are the rest of us paying for when we go to college (can I get a decent job without a degree? can everyone?)? I am not saying you are wrong, but should the bottom 50% just shut up and eat our crappy existence because those few 'producers' deserve all the benefits of their own brilliance? — ZhouBoTong

What you are talking about, @ZhouBoTong, is a question of distribution of wealth, which is a very worthwhile topic, but COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM THE PRESENT ONE, which is the efficiency of education.

My post was strictly about why education works, very well, from the point of view of the economy as a whole.

I guess I ought to have included this as well in my previous post: The good students get a lot out of education, no matter what the methods or the methodology is. They will carry the economy (not the human progress, or not JUST the human progress, as you assumed, but the economy: the production, the distribution of goods, the money management, etc.)

Why employers need new hirees to have a degree, even for jobs on car manufacturing and other manual, unskilled labour? Because the more people are forced off the labour force, the more balanced the job/jobseekers ratio is. If you spend 4-8 years off of the labour force, it's a portion of your productive life you don't need to spend in production, which PARTIALLY SOLVES THE PROBLEM OF OVERPRODUCTION CRISIS.

I expect now a knock on my door now, and before I know it, I'll be given a lethal injection between two toes,and the coroner's report will say "Cardiac arrest".

The key is not only the immorality of governments, but also the immortality of governents.

Any government aims at what individuals can't do: immortality.

They learn from their predecessor's mistakes. The crowd control gets tighter, and more skilled, less noticable, yet more gripping and more thorough.

The only thing that can kill governments and/or systems are revolutions. But as you say, DL, whatever your name is, the ones in power

are quite good at ridding out our little temper tantrums — Gnostic Christian Bishop

They, like you said, DL, also count on our zero attention span, gullability, and easily excitable public fear that can be whipped into a frenzie of panic at any time they wish to.

The solution to the Black slaves' fate in the USA ended up in a civil war between Whites.

Maybe the poor's fate in the New America will end up in a civil war between the rich. (Race immaterial, but chances are they will be mostly White).

After that, about a hundred years later, will come the civil war to liberate the religious from the church. That will be fought between atheists.

After that will come a hundred years later the war to release the stupid from the handcuffs of education. That will be fought by Mensans.

After that will come a hundred years later the civil war in America, to liberate the masses from their fat. That will be fought by Anorexic Amazons.

After that, a hundred years later, will come the war that aims to eradicate ugly people. That will be fought by photomodels and body builders.

stuff
— god must be atheist

Best answer so far. Painfully. — Razorback kitten

Yep. I'm still smarting.

Much like humans go quiet and motionless when in the company of plants. In the circles I move in, everyone goes dead quiet when the plants come marching in into or through the room.

If induction is logically a fallacy, then how come Induction ovens work?

Furthermore, if induction was such a mistake, then how come Bob Newheart has not been inducted into the TV Hall of Fame yet?

P.s. I have not condcted proper research for the background of my post. Thus, I am not sure if Induction ovens exist, and/or if Bob Newheart is in the Tv Hall of Fame or not. But you get the gist of my intent.

It sounds deceptively easy, but I imagine that there are others out there who wish to achieve the opposite of what I wish to achieve re: eradication of poverty (!) via legislation.

Then two or more different pushes may touch the parliamentary representatives, and therefore it is very conceivable that I still don't have the power of getting my wish enacted by parliament.

Then when I have decided that you say is in my power, then my decision will be enacted in Parliament / Congress? If not, what use is my decision?

P.s. Where you spelled "gas" for "has", I hadn't been able to sub it with the correct word. It was nonsensical, that's why I asked for an explanation. It was totally clear after I realized my mistake stemming from your mistake (of a simple misspelling).
I had tried ot sub "industry" "diligence" "efficiency" even "gasoline" for gas and none worked.

I have my own combined education / economic theory, which does not at all negate your bitter complaints, @fooloso4 and @ZhouBo Tong, but circumvents the failures of current teacher training.

I have two assumptions for econdomic success as far as educational preparation goes.
Assumption 1. The percentage of VERY GOOD graduates that are needed in the economy to not collapse due to inadequate training in the academic fields (engineering, accounting, medicine, technology) is steady vs the entire body of graduates per period has decreased.
Assumption 2. To allay the chronic and huge unemployment situation, a large part of the work force is pulled out of there, and put in colleges and universities.

1. Most work in the economy that requires talent is done by fewer and fewer people as a percentage of the work force. Case in point (don't tell me I did not do my research): the Apollo 11 launch employed 400,000 highly skilled and horribly high achiever talented people at their peak of intensive labour involvement. The same WORK can be accomplished by fewer than 2000 people. (As per the google clip that celebrated or commemorted the first moon landing.)

2. The talented work force carries the work of the untalented part of the work force, and no disrupiton can be noticed in the throughput of production.

So you two, @fooloso4 and @ZhouBo Tong can relax, despite the fact that grades have inflated, graduates have deflated, professors are overworked and underpaid, and teaching philosophies, methods and methodologies change like weather-vane in a shitstorm.
--------------------

IN terms of numbers: in the seventies, X percent of high school graduates went on to study in post-secondary schools. Our current rate of Y percent, where X < Y shows robust reinforcement of that policy.

However, the good students of X (GX) was a greater percentage of X than now. Similarly, the good studernts of Y (GY) are greater in numbers, than GX. Despite the huge amount of graduates that are basically good for nothing.

The economy can be driven by the good graduates, and populated by the poor achievers, who are like fillers with the mandated task to spend money but without getting in over their heads in debt..

Congratulations! You are the first person in the history of Philosophy to connect smashing toilet seats with broken shoe laces. How was this crucial connection overlooked for so long? — Bitter Crank

Nobody has done the research.

This is just one more shining example that you MUST RESEARCH EVERYTHING YOU POST.

I don't like references to supernatural things when we talk about the physical world, that's all.

Spirit already has a very well defined (albeit not spectacularly precise) definition in the language, and the common or most used usage has to do with souls, spiritual stuff. I resent even a hint that connects physical events to the supernatural. Therefore I would like you and everyone else to use words for concepts that are of the physical world that are in no way suggesting supernatural qualities.

This is a WISH of mine, and please don't misconstrue it to be an ORDER. I have no power or control over what you or anyone else (except myself) says. I can't control you, or anyone else, except myself, and I know that. This is a simple wish and desire I expressed here, not an order or directive.

Dear @Possibility,

You are absolutely right. My debate I referred to was not with you but with @pantagruel.

I am a complete dolt when it comes to non-associated rote memory stuff. I can't remember faces, names of people, and the older I get, the worse this condition gets.

Here's what I had thougth you had written, inbedded in this short post of debate fracture:

Pantagruel
65
↪god must be atheist
"This is patently false.

If you believe you have free will, but you don't, you were caused to believe that you have free will.

There is no magic about it."

That is straight up Descartes. He concludes, and I agree, this is the one thing about which you cannot be deceived. — Pantagruel

Now, if we break down matter down to its most fundamental elements, we get energy (kinetic or potential) — Noah Te Stroete

According to Razorback Kitten (if I read her post right, which is questionable) this is a lie. Whom should I believe?

Some theoretical physicists think the most fundamental elements are vibrating strings (String Theory). — Noah Te Stroete

Please name them. The physicists.

This energy or these strings (if these theoretical physicists are correct that strings are the most fundamental elements of reality) I am going to posit are also the manifestations of the consciousness (or spirit) perceiving itself on its most fundamental and microscopic level. — Noah Te Stroete

You are asserting that spirits can be seen through a microscope. That is only true if your blood spirit level is above legal limits for driving a vehicle.

Dear Noah, I am not doubting a word you say. Your knowledge of theoretical physics is scanty at best. But so is mine. Your connecting spirits to strings, god to spirits, and in a way the pope to the end of a string, is not my cup of tea. Your connecting them I can't discuss, dismiss or debunk, for I have not enough knowledge to do so. But I am of the opinion that you are doing a lot of wishful thinking, which can't be substantiated, not even tansubstantiated.

So on the same ground that you based your assertions, (which ground is a basic level of ignorance), I reject your assertions (ie. based on my same or comparable basic level of ignorance to yours).

If you assert that I don't have the right to reject your thesis based on my ignorance, then I'll plead that you don't have the right to create a thesis based on your ignorance.

The ToE wont exist if this question isn't answered within it. — Razorback kitten

ToE? Terms of Endearment?

Is it possible I mixed you up with someone else? In that case, my deepest and most sincere apologies.

"Reality is for those who can't handle drugs." True.

"Drugs are for those who can't handle reality." True.

But what about us, my kind, who can't handle either?

Maybe... maybe I should learn how to wallow. Yep. That's the ticket.

HEY! EUREKA!!

no matter how you define it, either you have it or you do not and arguing settles not the issue. — Arne

this is true of whether god exists or not. It is true regarding our knowledge whether tomorrow will rain or not rain. But it is not true of having an infinite three-dimensional space independent of everything. And it is not true of a deterministic universe allowing non-deterministic things to happen. If you accept determinism, then you exclude free will. If you reject determinism, then you accept that things happen without causes. And this last bit is the crux of the stronghold of no-free will arguers. Everything has a cause and every cause has an effect. If you go outside of that, you must necessarily find things in our universe that would not follow physical laws, that would be random beyond explanatory possibility. And you don't find those things in our universe.

Agreed. If the illusion looks real, it may as well be regarded as real.
This is also a good psychological defense against solipsism, just in case you find that depressing, too. I do.

With absolutely no offence meant, please don't take it badly, but I also have a ton, and I mean a ton, of writings of my own that nobody wants to read. I promise not to read yours, if you agree not to read mine. I somehow think it's the best case scenario for both of us this way.

The negative potential energy of gravity exactly matches and cancels out the positive kinetic energy of stuff. — PoeticUniverse

I did not know that, although if I had paid attention, I could probably have picked that up from earlier conversations in my life.

It makes sense, but it's not an a priori truth. Also, this is the status quo, but it does not indicate a creation... and if so, what stops the system from going back to a null-and-void state, that is, losing even the appearance of possible existence? Is that what entropy does? discharge equal amounts of kinetic energy and negative gravitational energy? If I only knew...

Life is like a movie, but the pain is real.
2 minutes ago — Wayfarer

Dat true.

Bela Tarr comes to mind.

Just wait until I catch the guy who did this! — PoeticUniverse

But... but... but what if NOBODY did this? After all, in a universe in which nothing is, there is nobody either... to do things.

No scapegoat. Now, that's reeeeeally aggrevating. Now I am really angry at him, now that it's been revealed he has not got the gumption to exist.

What a way to escape the retribution of justice!

Just wait until I catch the guy who did this! — PoeticUniverse

Please let me have a few choice words with him, too, once you are finished with him. Thanks in advance.

Sting - 'we are spirits in a material world' — Wayfarer

Hence, "Ghost in the Machine". Hm.

So what is if nothing IS? Is our fate to accept that nothing is, everything only seems to be issing?

thanks, Wayfearer. I mean Welfarer! I mean Wayfaroere!!!! I mean Wai Fe-lel!!!!! I mean WAYFARER!!!!

Sorrry.

I just started a different, that is, distinct, thread, on the same principle, but expanded into the superstructure of things in this universe. There is a bit of a difference between this thread and what I started; this one concerns matter only, my thread proposes (again, with no research in the making of it), that the world is layer-upon-layer of things that look like substances, or are made of substance, but are not; and in upper layers they don't appear to be substance-like, unlike matter which does to us.

The upper layer things are "life", "love", thought, social and societal concepts, language, etc.

I proposed in this concurrent thread that the layering may be finite or infinite in both regress and progress.

@Possibility, we argued about the free will in past posts. You finally appealed to authority, saying you agree with Descartes and subscribe to his "proof" of free will.

I read his proof on Wiki. Descartes proof is a hideously laughable one, sorry to say so.
1. It hinges on having a god. But that is not proven, and there is an equal possibility as far as humans KNOW whether god exists or not. So a proof, if it is to stand, has to have elements that are acceptable to the person to be convinced.

2. Descartes attacks the problem of the LORD'S foreknowledge of any future act, prior to any act, even if it is an act of free will, by saying that he, Descartes, does not know how that is possible, but he trusts that the LORD is so much smarter than he, Descartes, that the LORD has figured out a way of doing it.

That is complete bullshit, and it has no proof value, not even the value of evidence. "It must be done somehow, but I don't know how, but because i want to prove this to be true, I accept and I will you to accept too, that it is possible,otherwise I can't prove my point." That is the parallel of his argument, and it is a complete hoax; it is a null-and-void, invalid way of proving something.

There are ZERO CONSTRAINTS on the act, the range or the options of choosing whether or not to be aware, to connect or to collaborate - regardless of what your circumstances are. These are the basic, underlying decisions that I believe no-one can take away from you - your will. — Possibility

Once I argued EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE to a manager of a store when I wanted to return an item, and I suspect he was a Philosophy major, because he conceded all his prior objectoins to giving me a refund, and did issue me a refund after I presented him with this:

"in front of me there are many different kinds of bicycle computers. I take home one. I choose the one that I can afford, can use, and has all the features that I want, or the maximum features that I want. There are seventeen different kinds of bicycle computers on the shelf in your store, and in my previous trip I chose the precise one that was the ONLY ONE POSSIBLE under the constraints of what reasons went into my selection."

Here, the constraints were minimizing the price, maximizing the features, and thus finding the ideal.

I believe that similar constraints are always present whenever we are finding ourselves in a position to make a choice.

- the ACT of choosing,

- the VARIETY or range to choose from OR

- the particular OPTION to be chosen,

otherwise this could get messy. — Possibility

Hurray. I subscribe gladly to this. Until a better one comes along.

My proposal for a more precise and more rigorously defined alternative set of words to use before things get messy, is as follows:

- Variety of things available from which to choose - selection
- the act of picking one thing from th e available selection - choosing
- the thing that we decide with and consider our chosen one - realized item
- the entire process of examining, evaluating each or most or some of the items in the selection, and picking one chosen item to be the reallized item - making a choice

What is matter made of? I think a better question is, "is matter made of anything?" This is ambiguous, it sounds like a challenge to creationists.So you can use its more to the point paraphrased form: "Is matter something that comprises some thing?"

No research went into the process of thinking up my post.

do soldiers, as in every soldier, deserve respect? — SethRy

It's a hard question to decide, not only seeing the evidence laid up before us, but because some soldiers are baited to join the armed forces, some are conscripted, some are forced at gunpoint.

But speaking for myself, from an empirical viewpoint of critical analysis, I am always courteous, respectful and sucky-sucky with someone who has a bigger gun than mine.

I understood probably only the first half of the first paragraph of the OP. The rest spake eloquent Greek to me.

This post by me did not rely on prior research of the works of Kant, Popperl, or Buckler Jones.

I usually understand it to mean that one is living in peace with respect to other people. Yeah, there we go with "people". — Wallows

The heretobyfollowing are not subject to having been researched in the works of Hume, Pythagoras and Anaxagoreas.

So you can get incredibly upset and smash the toilet seat down angrily if you break a shoe-lace; a person with aquimonity can beat a work horse cruelly if the horse laughs at him behind his back; a person can teach his pet monkey to tease and aggrevate his pet turtle to a tizz, because these are not dealings with people?

I am yanking your chain (if I achieved that, I don't know). Of course, people are involved in the equiaminity of and aquiacantamous person, but they are not the only ones being involved.

No, I am not drunk. I don't drink or use street drugs. But I do drink coffee, and it has the capacity to make me giddy.

You ask nice, pertinent, valid, unanswerable questions.

My advice is wait until you die, and then PAY REAL CLOSE ATTENTION TO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

"I am a good liar, if not the best." This makes things even more uncomfortable.

And you and devil, because I DID go to the market today. I bought some spicy Thai food, ate some of it there, and brought home the rest, after playing 3 hours of Euchre with Yvette and a whole bunch of other fellers starting at 1 pm.

They can vouch for me. So it was not me who dunnit.

Make up your mind and note how little wealth gas to move to make it moral to yourself. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Meaning?

I personally believe that all happiness comes from the acceptance that there is no true happiness. — Filipe

I beleive there IS true happiness... it just does not last for very long at any time.

But hey, you have your belief, and I have mine.

And mine is not based on research, so it can be validly argued that it may or may not be a false beleif, like one in god.