Humans are notoriously awful at predicting the future. At least I can’t think of anyone who got it right. Some of them may have, but there are more who are still waiting for Revelations to pan out. So nowadays the whole doomsday thing is a hard sell. Oh well. Better to lead by example than try to lead a mob, I’d say.

Censorship begins, in part, with the conferring of power to speech. One must fear the effects of speech to seek to regulate it, and to do this one must suppose the speech has enough power to cause effects in the first place.

The problem is conferring power to speech is much like conferring power to kings; the only power they have is what society gives them. Speech possesses no actual, physical power, insofar it lacks the capacity to transfer more energy than any other sound from the mouth. Yet there are people who believe speech has consequences beyond the expelling of breath, that it can oppress minorities, injure or influence the weak, or lead to varying fits of societal disorder. This may be the most ubiquitous superstition of man.

To confer power to some articulated sounds but not to others is magical thinking and folk psychology at best, but at worst a kind of sophistry used to justify censorship. It is why censorship is the handmaiden of injustice, ever-erecting a false cause (speech) while continually absolving the actual ones (actions).

It is simply untrue that words possess any power over that of man. After all, he is the creator of them. So we should work to dispel that myth, defang speech, remind people of their power over and above that of words and opinions, and free ourselves from our most deep-seeded superstitions.

I fell into nominalism a number of years ago. Having banished the specters from my mental furniture, life seems much clearer these days.

Thinking is an action. A thought is the act of thinking. We do not gain mass when we perform actions, but the body does perform work.

Violent speech…one can scan the annals of medicine and not find a single case of anyone being injured by words. This is because violence is caused by certain human actions, and the act of speaking is not one of them.

“Violent speech” fits neatly into a more accurate category of speech, which is speech the censor does not like. History is replete with such magical claims against speech, used as they were in order to justify censorship. Speech “corrupts the youth” as in the trial of Socrates. Making contrary world-views explicit leads to “disorder and mischief” against the one true faith, as in the inquisition of Galileo. Nowadays laws teach us that others can be “incited”, encouraged, roused into various fits of immorality—hatred, discrimination, lawless action—by speech.

But is this true? Is the mere possibility, essentially a fantasy, of the corruption of Athenian youth a good enough reason to silence the expressions and life of a philosopher, and thereby deny posterity the insights he may have imparted otherwise?

The overestimation of the power of speech is a sin, as is the censorship applied in its name, and the untold casualties thrown to the noose and stake testify that censorship is where the violence always lies.

Isn't this comparable to saying words that form concepts in the minds of people have no possible effect on the actions of those people. Language does not shape minds? Neither can visual stimuli move us. Orchids can not dupe wasps (mindlessly) to target disperse their pollen?

You don't thing a young child, who has had a McDonalds Happy Meal and a toy, would not see a giant McDonalds billboard and then start crying out for McDonalds. But the advertisement does not cause anything to happen.

If words were able to form concepts in the minds of people we would understand a foreign language simply by reading or hearing it. Rather, one has to do the required work, put in the effort, and shape his own mind before he can utilize words. In a sense, the mind shapes the language, not the other way about.

Well yes, a young child who associates McDonalds Happy Meals with tasty food and toys will no doubt see an advertisement and remind himself of the association. But one who cannot associate it, perhaps because he does not know what McDonalds is or how their Happy Meals taste, will be unable to make that association. In each case the cause of these different effects is the child, not the words.

I'd agree with you. How does this warrant intolerance to the vast majority of trans women who aren't advantaged in this way, or those that are who wouldn't do it?

There's something self-similar in transphobic arguments: in lieu of an argument against people living their lives in a way that makes sense to them, it's always: "Well this person committed a crime while trans," and "That person got an unfair advantage while trans." So what? What does that have to do with whether the majority of trans people should be allowed to live their lives?

It doesn't warrant intolerance. I don't see how it could. But certainly some people will see it that way.

A New Zealand athlete will be the first trans-woman to compete in the olympics. Until 2013 he was competing in men's competitions.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/21/olympics-tokyo-laurel-hubbard-trans-weightlifter-new-zealand

Personally I don't think any of this is fair to the women participants, because unlike the trans athlete the women did not develop as males in their formative years, but I'm interested to see how it plays out. I predict that some countries might come to abuse this loophole like East Germany did with its state doping programs.

In that respect, since there is obvious mystery, paradox and contradiction in life, how does the typical Atheist reconcile their belief system, logically?

The noun "God", or whatever name it is given, has yet to be shown to refer to anything in the universe. One can only scan certain literature to find any remnants of it, or at any rate, the existence of it cannot be shown to extend beyond our language.

Given history, it is clear the concept has sprung from the human mind as an explanatory fiction, more a product of ignorance than of experiment and reason, and not much different in form than the idea that anthropomorphic beings move waves and thunder. Such beliefs have long-since been superseded by more plausible, evidence-based models.

Advertisement, as appearances (eg. sexual selection), might have shaped more species than we can count. Don't advertisers hands/minds shape advertisements?

Sight/perception does not mediate action (force) of choice? It has no bearing on whether you bump into a pole or fall down a well, whether you go to grocery storer #1 or #2.

Is a colorful fig in some jungle an advertisement for the animals who eat figs?

From the moment the light reflecting off an advertisement hits the lens of the human eye it is manipulated by the human body. The advertisement first must be brought into focus, seen, the symbols and images upon it scanned, understood, long before the product itself is considered. At no point in this interaction or any other is the advertisement acting upon the human body, unless it falls on someone’s toe. If the advertisement cannot act upon the human body, how can it shape minds?

I’ve only ever claimed I’m a liberal.

It’s not unlike Body Integrity Identity Disorder, where people have urges to amputate healthy limbs or sever their own spinal cord. The crux of the question for me is whether one should go so far as to disfigure his body in such a way so as to satiate a mental urge. Maybe the urge is the problem and not the body.

But yes I think mutilation is barbaric and goes against the hypocritical oath.

Perhaps something like the integration you speak of would be a better and more humane goal than disfiguring the body. Therapists should move to disfigure the shadow rather than the self.

Yes, very true. I’m my own industry I rely on word of mouth.

I just can’t get over the metaphors, though. What do we mean by phrases like “shape what people desire”? Advertisements are not like hands and we like clay. When a man sees an advertisement that is the end of the interaction. Everything after that—whether he decides to buy the product or forgets about it—is caused by the man.

To me the narrative that trans-people are changing their gender or sex doesn’t adequately describe the situation, and presents a false hope. It suggests that when people are not happy with their body they should disfigure it. And that’s what this is. When a trans-person enters the realm of surgery and drug therapy they are disfiguring their body, nothing besides. I suspect that farther down the road, perhaps when we discover the cause, we’ll look back on this time in medicine as barbaric and unethical.

Advertisement is fine and harmless. It only provides information. It lets others know of the existence of your product or service, which is almost necessary these days because awareness of your product is the first step to selling it.

Advertisement is not a force, though. It cannot push people to this or that outcome, whether good or bad. It cannot create anything, let alone demand or waste or an impact on someone’s health.

But there is a fine line between advertisement and graffiti.

I’m on the same kick. I didn’t know about the C E/ CE thing. Good advice.

In Canada, we’re so wedded to the CCP that they are building a massive trade center near where I live. These efforts are a part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, which, if successful, would make CCP goods and services part of the very fabric of the global economy. I suspect it will get worse before it gets any better.

I find that scientists who rails against misinformation, dissent and wrong-think are worried more about their politics and power than any science. But put simply, their theory was yet to be proven.

It wasn't too long ago the very mention of the theory would result in censorship on social media, and those who did believe it were derided as deluded conspiracy theorists. At any rate, we were not really allowed to talk about it wherever people controlled the discourse.

I’m not aware of the Lancet study, but the one article in The Lancet that condemned the theory immediately raised my own suspicion.

I don't think that's the case about it being partisan. Many apolitical and Democrat friends and family of mine believe the lab theory. They no longer have Trump to point to them which ideas to oppose.

Watch this recent exchange between Jon Stewart and Colbert. Colbert is still wedded to partisanship and anti-Trumpism and must keep up that charade, but Jon Stewart isn't chained to the myths of the last half-decade and is able to give a fresh voice to the lab-theory. Anyone who still opposes the lab theory at this point is just digging their feet in the ground and head in the sand.

I think the distinction lies between the belief that the existence of things and substances are either dependent on or independent of the mind.

I'm more of a pluralist and believe there are many things and substances rather than just one, so I cannot relate to your view of materialism. But I am certainly not an idealist.

History is replete with men who thought they could predict the future, and without much success. So more often or not we're faced with a chicken-little scenario than a prophetic one.

I am arguing to include employers as agents who can and do enforce strict obedience to their authority. In a different thread I'd argue that workers need more power to resist employers.

That’s very true, though I think it is much easier to change employers than it is to change state authority.

Individualism is the anthesis of collectivism, not morality. It also stresses that others have self-interest too, not to mention rights, feelings, desires, volition, autonomy, and often competing moralities. Anyone devoted to "The Other" might try remembering this before he ingratiates himself before another's self-interest, that is if he is still able to distinguish between one "Other" and the next.

Yes, it is. With each day more power is conferred to the state. Laws are created and enforced more than they are repealed. The government increases, never decreases. This progressive growth of state power represents a diminution of freedom.

I can’t get a general taste for the sentiment from living there, but from what I can see I think there is a corresponding, psychological effect among the citizens, and that is authoritarianism. Note the ease with which many allowed the politicians and bureaucrats to control them during the current theft of power. That is to be expected in European countries or Canada, but not in the US.

Nothing in individualism forbids addressing moral issues. And I would think any ideology that emphasizes the moral worth of individuals necessarily considers others, each with their own lives, personalities and dignity.

Thinking collectively is worthwhile for ease of thought and economy of language but piss poor for addressing moral issues. Once one starts thinking collectively he does so abstractly, considering the thoughts in his head long before manifesting any concern for the flesh-and-blood human beings outside of it. At any rate, it does not not follow that thinking generally, pluralistically, collectively leads to concern for others. More often than not it has led to the in-group/out-group, "othering" type of stuff as collectivist ideology has consistently proven.

You said I was a product of a highly-advanced society. I corrected that.

More like macrophages because we can move in our own. Still, yes. You are a product of a highly advanced society. What have you accomplished all in your own?

Unlike a macrophage I am the product of two individual mammals. Just this morning I picked 5lbs of spruce tips.

Human beings are like blood cells, then? I struggle to see it.

It was a good read.

Most of us, I think, have long lost our umbilical cords, and so too the last connection each of us have had with another human being. So there is no “real joining-together of the parties”; we really are separate entities. One doesn’t have to be a hermit or a piece of lego under the couch to see this.

Since no amount of figures of speech can replace the real connection the umbilical cord once provided, why try? A relationship can only ever manifest as relations between separate, individual entities. So why must we pretend we are connected in order to have one? I depart with Midgley on her organic model of personal relations for these reasons, and because she conflates individualism with isolation. I depart with it also because it can be extended to organic models of the state, which have already soaked the 20th century.

The social contract theory may provide the best justification for state power, at least as far as statism is concerned, but no state actually lives up to it or was formed in such a manner.

Midgley is plumbing with duct tape here.

It’s ironic because Schiff seized the phone records of Devin Nunez, Rudy Guilliani, Jon Solomon and more during the impeachment inquiry. The poor guy. The difference between Schiff’s investigation and the DOJ’s investigation is that one was investigating a crime, the other for political reasons.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schiffs-surveillance-state-11575506091

The 16th amendment to the constitution didn't occur until 1913. Until then an income tax was imposed only to prop up the state in times of war. So its not because the US is a society that there is an income tax, but because the government, inspired by competing socialist and populist forces, gave itself the right to pilfer its citizen's wealth on the specious claim that politicians knew how to better use the people's wealth than they did. We can blame human nature all we want but it does not excuse the actual perpetrators of this exploitation.

...will prevent it for the greater good.

So much freedom has been sacrificed on this one prognostication. The problem is they do not nor cannot know what "the greater good" is, so it is often used as a justification for megalomania.

How do you feel about worker co-ops or similar alternatives to state ownership?

I'm all for people starting whatever associations they wish so long as it is of the voluntary variety. These co-ops and the like can then serve as shining examples for these types of associations. Ironically it is only possible to do this if they embrace rather than reject capitalism.

And that is itself a fallacy: ad vericundium (?). Populum, sorry.

I evoked the 70million+ to show that your generalizations were on the hasty side, not to say that I was right.

Not true: I associate you with Republicans, not one or two fascists or racists. As pointed out, Republicans (especially including any of those 70 million) had their chance to divorce but made their bed. They are now Trumpsters. Sorry, that's on them. If they want to turn their backs on him, denounce him, endeavor to return to the community of man, they can. You can too. But you'll have to leave the Republican Party to do it.

I’m a registered independent, “unaffiliated”. I cannot vote in any primary in my home state even if I wanted to. But I wager none of this absolves me from any sweeping generalizations.

Again, using the same hatred and the same behavior does not allow you to paint me as you or them, nor do I paint myself as such. It's the thinking which is palpably different. My thinking is right, and your thinking is wrong. The simple fact that we both think does not make us alike. There is no fallacy when you are what you are. You defend Trump who is the Republican Party. I'd beseech you to leave, to come home, but I know how you feel about the community of man. You want the best of both worlds. Understandable, but so is ostracization or, less than that, remonstration.

Sure it does. Your rhetoric is one of groupthink, in-group/out-group stuff, "othering" and all that piffle. If this is how your "community of man" operates I want no part of it in any case.

Businesses are often created from the ground up at much cost and effort, and those who did so have every right to control the operation of their own creation as a matter of property rights. I can’t see anything inherently evil in this dynamic because it isn’t obligatory. One can, if she wants, create her own enterprise and run it how she sees fit.

I see evil wherever people beg those in power to force businesses to this or that end, whether it be wages, benefits, and the like. The idea that we should transfer power from the people at large to the state because we don’t want to work as much or want some sort of benefit is a greed of the highest order.

Yes, I defend Trump. Guilty as charged. So do millions of others. Over 70 million voted for him the last time I checked. But instead associating me with them you associate me with the one or two fascists you can think of.

You engage in the same species of thinking put to use by the very fascists and racists you pretend to oppose. So while I may be guilty by some tenuous association, you’re guilty of using the same fallacies, the same hatred, and the same behavior.

Like anything, it depends. I personally don't think it's healthy to have division about climate change -- that's something that should be agreed upon, as it was a few years ago before the Koch network took the Big Tobacco playbook and manufactured controversy.

But as for responsibility for legislation -- yes, which is precisely why both parties like the idea. Except for the top priorities (i.e., what their corporate constituents want), they'd prefer to have the congress dysfunctional. That's why McConnell didn't break the filibuster for major non-budgetary legislation -- because his top priority was reshaping the courts and cutting taxes. Since the Republicans have no ideas beyond that, having everything else be completely stalled -- now and in the future -- was the best bet.

Think also of the strategy of "political triangulation", taking an opponent's policies as one's own, not for any principled reason but strictly for syphoning votes and retaining power. This strategy tends to hollow out each party, shifting their principles until they are nearly indistinguishable. I fear this approach and bipartisanship results in the uniparty we are now looking at.

That is fair and a far more reasonable approach. I even agree that Trump probably, if not obviously, used the opportunity for the photo op.

It's a common fallacy and you have every right to operate in that manner. But I suspect rather than respect that opinion.

Pretty simple. No-one can prove the intention of clearing the park for his photo OP was part of Trump's input into the decision making process here. Because a) Maybe he was smart enough not to explicitly state that or b) It wasn't. We don't know. Only a clown would claim something has been proven here.

The evidence provided by the report proves quite a bit. Those who planned the operation explicitly stated their intentions and reasons for clearing the park. If any evidence to the contrary arises be sure to let me know.