Agreed, though this seems incredibly short sighted on their part imo with the looming automation and AI revolution currently happening around us. We're headed for great depression style unemployment in the next few decades, and they're actively making the problem worse. How I wish we weren't ruled by clueless octogenarians. — MrLiminal

Not just that, but those migrants are going to get old too someday.

What is ironic is that many of the same people that vote for an octogenarian also label themselves as "progressive".

It certainly sounds metaphysical. It sounds like there certainly has to be something outside of language. Which I would agree with. — Fire Ologist

That is obvious. Why would we need Godel to explain something so trivial?

Is linguistics, the study of languages, outside of language? If not then what are linguists doing?

Witt said that many philosophical problems occur when "language goes on holiday", I agree. I think many "philosophers" tend to misuse and overuse language unnecessarily. It's more like they aren't trying to solve any problems or to express any realistic (useful) idea. They are simply using words in artful ways - scribble showmanship - almost like a battle of who can use scribbles in more unique and complex ways. It is a social game they are playing. But don't conflate the game with what language is primary designed to do - to inform. Language on holiday is like colors and shapes on holiday in a surreal painting.

I actually hate when it does personality. It's fake and manipulative, essentially regurgitating our style back to us to ingratiate itself and maximize engagement. — Baden

When a human says, "I'm sorry", how do we know they're not being fake and manipulative, essentially regurgitating our style back to us to ingratiate itself and maximize engagement?

The Democrats and Republicans are both complicit in the surge of migrants that illegally crossed the border. Both parties understand that a declining population means that it is going to be more difficult to fund social security in the future and the population needs an infusion of new tax-payers to continue to prop up these government subsidies. In a racist communist country, like China, they would rather use government power to influence baby-making rather than importing non-Asians.

Completeness for it's own sake is a problem. Much better to have an incomplete theory that is right that a completely wrong theory... — Banno

Which is just saying that to have a theory that is right is to have a theory that acknowledges all the relevant information and excludes all the irrelevant information.

There has to be something outside the theoretical construct in order that the activity of explanation has a place... along the lines of hinge propositions. — Banno

What exactly does this mean - that the universe needs something external to it to be able to explain the universe? What if there is nothing external to the universe?

To show that you and I are using the scribbles to inform others of some state of affairs, and by "using", I mean representing.

The scribble, "red" is no different than the red apple in that we all privately interpret what the red of an apple means and what a scribble means and how to use it (if the apple is red eat it, if it is black throw it in the trash, if the scribble is a word then you can use it to represent things in the world, if not then you can interpret the scribble as the outcome of purposeless natural processes, or art). A scribble is a thing like everything else that we privately interpret using our own senses and our own brain. You seem to be positing the existence of an omni-mind where the meaning of some scribble is contained.

I might have agreed before 2016, but the powers that be have shown they will do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening. — MrLiminal

The powers that be are not preventing you from pulling the lever for an alternate candidate nor preventing you from speaking your mind to others. The only way they could interfere with that is to control the elections and the internet - in which case we don't live in a democracy or representative republic, but an oligarchy that controls the flow of information.

Yep. Cool.

This might be the most common error made by folk attempting to critique private language - "But I do talk to myself privately!", and by mistaken defenders of private language arguments who supose that we cannot do something we indeed do.

What the argument shows is that the meaning of "red" is cannot be our private sensation of red, and that rather than looking for a meaning here as the thing that "red" refers to, we should look at how we use it to reach agreement on which apples we will purchase.

The puzzle is why the extension of "red" includes these apples and not those ones. — Banno

I don't need to agree with anyone to know when an apple is ripe and when it isn't. To know when an apple is ripe or not (and to know that red means ripe and black means rotten), I interact with the apple, not people.

Female peacocks don't need language or to agree with anyone that one male's plumage is more attractive than another's and means they would be a better mate.

Once an infant obtains the sense of object permanence, they understand that their mind is not the world and their experience of their mother does not exhaust what it means to be their mother, but is representative of what it means to be their mother, and that their representation can be maintained and talked about in the absence of their real mother.

Wow don't waste any more time indulging them. Hindu, is like Jordan Peterson. — unimportant

But I didn't identify as being like Jordan Peterson, and according to Moliere's own arguments one has to identify as such to be called as such.

Wants to argue semantics because they don't have the chops to actually add anything to the discussion and endlessly try and trip up the interlocutor with what they think are 'gotchas' and claim some victory. — unimportant

Sure, when someone wants to use a word in a different way than it is commonly used - as in conflating anarchy with socialism, then I am going to start discussing semantics, not because I wanted to but because the other is playing word games.

I mean, just look at your recent post to Moilere and their response:

Ok so it is not totally unfounded that anarchists have at some points in time sown discord in society. The mainstream view is not a total fabrication then. :sweat:
— unimportant

Yeh, it's not an entire fabrication -- — Moliere

So we finally have an admission that a behavior that is categorized as "anarchy" is sowing discord. Funny how you made this argument but then showed exactly what I've been asking for. :roll:

Agreed again, I just don't see a realistic way forward for that to happen. — MrLiminal

Well, being pessimistic about it - sure you won't see a realistic way forward.

I don't see a realistic way forward on many, if not most, philosophical issues, but we keep coming here and discussing them.

The realistic way forward for any philosophical idea is to actually start practicing it by not voting for Democrats and Republicans and to make your arguments to open-minded people you meet. I think that if an Independent had a decent showing in an election many people will start to jump on the bandwagon, as voting against the two-party system would be the new Progressive "call to arms".

Agreed. But 3rd parties are rarely what I would call effective at winning. I think this is a problem and at least partially due to suppression from the two major parties, but it's the reality we've been dealt. I was big into Bernie in 2016, and we saw how that went, and he wasn't even technically a 3rd party candidate. — MrLiminal

Which is why I say that the answer isn't a third, fourth, or even a fifth party, but no parties. I think the best way to obtain that is to simply stop voting for Democrats and Republicans. That would allow people like Bernie free of the group-think and the power of the heads of the party. The media would become less biased. Citizens would be forced to educate themselves about the candidates rather than looking for Ds and Rs next to people's names.

And to tie this into the subject of the thread, having no parties means that we would be less inconsistent with our concern over the inappropriate application of power when your party is in power vs the other party (selective outrage).

I think it strikes people as kind of dictatorial and goes against the example Washington set.

But you said it's a problem to have career politicians. What was the problem with FDR? FDR's best moments happened well into his 3rd term. He was a great wartime president. As long as the person has to keep getting elected, why is it bad to keep them in office? — RogueAI

Because having power over others makes it easier to keep that power by controlling the media and establishing long-term relationships with lobbyists. With new people coming in, deals would need to be renegotiated.

Instead of picking the lesser of two evils, I get to pick the more effective of two evils. — MrLiminal

There are other options on the ballot. In 2020, the argument was that you don't want to vote for the racist, DT. But Biden is also racist. There were non-racists on the ballot if that was really one's concern.

The fact that the other options didn't have a chance in that election was due more to people being uninformed of the other options. When independents outnumber Democrats or Republicans why are we not seeing equal representation in the media during the political campaigns?

My advice to your developer is that you need more training.

Why is that a problem? Lincoln made it a career and I think he was awesome. — RogueAI

Why do you think America limited the number of Presidential terms to two? I wonder why Congress doesn't do the same for themselves. They can easily write laws to control the other branches of government but can't seem to write ones that control themselves.

You provided a link to a PBS article when I'm asking for YOUR categorical observations of anarchistic, liberal and socialist behavior. Have you ever observed another person, or do you only observe internet articles? Are you an AI training bot?

I'm not a huge fan of politicians, but what you're saying strikes me as overly cynical and a kind of moral cowardice. In my life, I've seen good and bad politicians and politicians don't seem to me to be any worse than anyone else from some other similar walk of life. Doesn't saying they're all corrupt (or almost all) make it easier then to justify voting for someone you know you shouldn't be voting for? — RogueAI

When you make politics a career - that is the problem.

Is Emma Goldman not a real world example? — Moliere

of what? What did she do to qualify as such?

But then I would do the same for anarchists -- so the philosophers have been listed in this thread, and it seems to me that there are real people doing things with those theories throughout history and today so the idea that real anarchy is a total lack of order just seems ludicrous to me. And it's that picture of complete disorder that's the liberal picture -- whether you're a liberal or not, that's the general background image of the anarchist.

Or no? — Moliere

No.

So, what would a socialist call a liberal participating in an insurrection to overthrow the socialist government - fascist (since anarchists are just rebellious socialists)?

Forget about what some philosopher said. Philosophers are just humans who are trying to make sense of the world they observe. When you, Moliere, observe someone's behavior what types of behaviors would you categorize as "anarchy", "liberal", "socialist", other than them making sounds with their mouth, "I am an anarchist/liberal/socialist"? This is what I have been asking for - real world examples.

No, because you've conditioned out the context in which that is a crime. Disparaging is also a little weak to reach any kind of a legal benchmark.

He certainly could. But I highly doubt anyone would entertain that argument from someone running for President. But, as I understand the law, yes, he could absolutely sue several outlets and untold individuals for defamation. Musk could do the same. But why would they? — AmadeusD

Exactly. Conditioning out the context in which defamation is a crime is having an informed population.

Conditioning out inciting speech would also involve having an informed society. See the connection?

Eh, it's more that I think that your notion of how to look at political philosophies is flawed -- theory is important, but relying upon the meanings of words as we've come to understand them from our background is going to produce flawed results because all backgrounds are politicized. So the notion of anarchy you're espousing is something of a liberal perception of anarchy. — Moliere

You're not reading what I said. How does asserting that both socialists and libertarians have used anarchy as a means to an end espousing something of a liberal perception of anarchy? And why would I be asking for definitions of anarchy if I'm already expressing some bias? You are projecting.

My point in asking the questions that I am is to tease out those distinguishing characteristics of anarchy from all other social frameworks including liberal and socialist ones.

I think this highlights the question we're discussing. I'm just thinking this through myself, but there has to be a difference between "private language" and "private reference," doesn't there? As frank says, we don't need a private language to refer privately. We can use the community language we all know. That's not what's private about private reference -- rather, I'm arguing that it's the independence from "triangulation" or the need to have a listener comprehend the speaker's reference. I read Srap as talking about language, not reference, and if that's so, then what Srap says is clearly true: Robinson Crusoe needs to have inherited and practiced a non-private language before he can make up any designations for the flotsam that washes up on his beach. But once he does that, why would we deny that he's referring to said flotsam when he thinks about it, or perhaps makes a list of tasks? — J

What are we doing when we use a word in the community language differently (ie slang, etc)? It takes time for that use to propagate throughout the community. When does it go from being a private use to community use? Does this mean that language is rooted in private reference that has been simply been agreed upon by the community? Who invented each language? How did each language become a language? Was it the local shaman that found scribbles useful for keeping track of natural events and then taught the use of the scribbles to the community?

Well, it might be your problem, but for my part I'm calling the anarchists anarchists, rather than "confused about what they are saying because pure anarchy is NO order" -- I'm content with continuing to be wrong by that standard. — Moliere

If you're content with that then you must be content with calling people who claim to be a Dark Lord of the Sith a Dark Lord of the Sith, else you would be also be content with being inconsistent.

Then I will be in error from now until forever -- what are we to call the people who call themselves anarchists and organize anarchically and advocate for anarchic things that have nothing to do with an absence of a social framework?

Horizontalists who are confused about anarchy? — Moliere

That's the problem - believing that people who identify in some way or another are always correct in their assertion. Has there ever been a case where someone has misidentified themselves, either by accident or on purpose?

When they claim to be something, what do they mean? What characteristics are they referring to, and how are those arrangement of characteristics distinct from other types of identity?

Man, I just listed a couple of examples to show that there's stuff out there to research -- that question you posed is a good question, but also huge and I wouldn't be able to answer it well without more work. I'd also note that they're just examples -- I'd include a lot of the socialist countries on the list, and I'd include a lot of the anarchist projects often mentioned if you go through the links provided in the thread. The point of the example was to note that we at least have real examples of humans doing this, so that the animal analogies really are just analogies. — Moliere

Nonsense. I thought you did your research prior to posting your examples, or else how would you know what a Marxist is vs an Anarchist? Why didn't you just post a link to the Marxist site and claim that it is an example of both socialism and anarchism? What are the key differences? Until you provide the key differences by defining the words you are using, your examples could be considered analogies as well.

The point was that that the "anarchists" in the Spanish Civil war weren't anarchists. They were socialists participating in an insurrection.

Anarchy is the framework for both Socialists (Bolshevik revolution) and Libertarians (American insurrection of the late 18th century) to overthrow the current framework before their ideas can be fully implemented.

If you are saying that anarchists advocate for worker control and collective ownership of resources then you are conflating anarchy with socialism. Anarchy is not a social framework. It is the absence of one.

No, please reread my post. I'm talking about being influenced. — Quk

But I've been talking about influence all along as well but you seemed to reject how I was using it, so I'm now trying to understand how you are using it and you aren't being very helpful.

If someone makes disparaging remarks about someone else but all listeners know that those remarks are not true, was a crime committed in making those remarks?

Did the left's constant characterization of Trump as a Fascist and Nazi influence more than half of American citizens to not vote for him? Does Trump have a case to sue those that made those claims?

Let's say for Marx The Soviet Union, and for anarchists the Anarchism in Spain -- so not just theories but some historical examples. — Moliere

Ok. Now what are the key differences between Marx The Soviet Union and anarchists in Spain?
I found this:

This group is known as the Battalion of Death, an Italian Anarchist group that fought in the Spanish Civil War. It reminds me of the Soviet and Fascist German propaganda posters. There are many more like this and images that appear to be marketing towards socialists and fascists when you Google "anarchists in spain" images.

So at what point does one cease being an anarchist and become a socialist or fascist? Is anarchy untenable in the long term and always evolves into socialism, fascism or libertarianism? It seems to me that there are some social structures that are not the ends, but the means to an end. One might say that communism is the means by which a society transitions from capitalism to socialism. The only problem is how can we trust those in power to give up their power and actually work to transition towards the end rather than make the means the end.

It depends on how one is defining "refer" and "language". Is referring and language the same thing, or can you have one without the other?

We have a term, "reference," and we're considering how best to use it in order to carve up the conceptual territory. So it might be that we want to reserve "reference" for the cases where triangulation is involved. In that case, we need another term to describe what I'm doing, privately. I was asking Banno which of these outlooks he favors -- hope that makes sense. — J

I'm jumping in here without an clear understanding of how "triangulation" is being used here (a relation between the scribble, the writer and the reader, or the scribble, what the scribble references and the scribbler). I don't see a triangulation unless we leave out the reader/listener as we have three things in the scribbler, the scribble and what the scribble refers to. So it appears there may be some trying to fit a square into a triangle-shaped hole.

Say you were the only person in the world. Why would you even consider drawing scribbles to refer to other things that are not scribbles? Well, maybe you might want to keep track of time, like how many days passed since the last rain, or when the deer migrate, etc. Maybe you want to remember the past so you might make scribbles that remind you of something in the past. I have spreadsheets containing information that I've never shown to anyone. They are for my eyes only, and only I would understand the relationship between the information within the cells. So it seems to me that a reader/listener is not necessary for reference, just some rule where some scribble refers to something else and the rule-maker. Agreement with others about the rules of reference come later.

Yes, but only after you've learned it was a lie. You are diverting from my point. I'm talking about situations where you are being influenced by friend XY because you haven't learned yet that friend XY has lied. You are talking about the situation thereafter. Please refer to my point. — Quk

Sure, but there is no law against lying. Are you saying there should be? Have you ever lied - to anyone?

I'll just pose to you the question I posed to Michael but did not receive a response, which just makes Michael proving my point:

If you don't agree that the differences in the brain are the direct cause of one's actions then you would be happy to give the person that told you to give all your money to a beggar the "Selfless Person of the Year" award, right? — Harry Hindu

I am saying that NOS4A2's claim that speech has no causal power beyond the immediate transfer of kinetic energy in the inner ear is a complete misunderstanding of causation. — Michael

You can say that if you want, but that has no bearing on our conversation, as you have already agreed with me that there are brain differences that are the immediate cause of one's behavior and not what goes on in the inner ear.

Ants and bees in a colony are all brothers / sisters so are essentially a nuclear family and won't share with other colonies more genetically distant. — boethius

Good point.

My own focus has been on local and open source solar thermal technology. Anarchists of this school tend to want to seed such ideas and practices all over the place, and not stay isolated in some analogue of the family. Both socialists and anarchists try to form networks and groups of mutual support generally speaking. — boethius

But this can be said of many social structures so is not a defining property of anarchy.

Sure, if I squint I see that. But analogies are more pedagogical or helps us to orient ourselves -- the thing itself isn't either of the animal metaphors, but human social organization. So it will differ from our closer cousins, even, it's just a metaphor for thinking through things. — Moliere

My point is that we need real world examples to map these ideas to. If we can't find real world examples, then they are just ideas untethered to reality.

Have there been any anarchist societies (seems like a contradiction to me), or societies that reflect Marx's vision in human history? If so, how does that compare to the other social structures that exist, like democracies, republics, libertarian's limited government, despotism, and monarchies? While there are similarities among them all, what are the key differences that make them separate?

That's a bit of a snag for authoritarians proclaiming themselves liberators. — Vera Mont

I don't get your point. If you don't judge people based on past behavior you just end up believing the same people that have lied to you and engaging in useless conversations with people that refuse to be intellectually honest. There's nothing authoritarian about that. It's just simple logic.

I was a male regardless of what I knew or believed until I acquired more information.
— Harry Hindu
And once you acquired more information, you learned what it is to be a woman? Well, all right, sister. Welcome to our rest room! — Vera Mont

Ok, so I was in a hurry in typing that last part, but I'm sure that you knew what I meant.

I'll re-phrase:
My sex was determined at the moment of fertilization despite what I, my mother, father or the doctors knew at that time. It was only in making observations over time that my sex became known to the doctors, my mother and my father. I had to wait to acquire this information (not create it) by making my own observations.

Rather, I'm using closer cousins to get at a metaphor for two sides of human nature -- not that nature is fixed in some sense, but these are two strategies which species like us employ in resolving differences within the social organism. — Moliere

I don't think limiting ourselves to our closer cousins is the way to go. If you want to exclude some species because you claim that they are not what they appear to be (hierarchical), then I will disagree and just say that all social structures are strategies for resolving differences within the social organism and should be taken into account and compared with each other. When you do that, the social structure of ants/bees more closely resembles the utopia Marx envisioned where the resources are owned by the entire society.

Cats only like to share their resources with close family and friends.

The danger there is that anarchists are more organized than cats, and Marxists are less organized than ants. Further, ants only look like they have a hierarchy -- a queen ant and the workers -- but that's our hierarchical prejudices being projected upon the social form of ants. Ant's are far more invested in the collective than any human ever has been. — Moliere

I guess that depends on which definition of "anarchy" and "hierarchy" you are using.

If I were to use animal metaphors I'd say that anarchy expresses our bonobo side and marxism expresses our chimpanzee side, with the intent of dismantling the chimpanzee side. In order to topple hierarchies hierarchies are necessary evils simply because that's always what's worked before. But for the anarchist in order to topple hierarchies we have to start living like they aren't there, and learn how to chill out and have sex all the time without exploiting one another. — Moliere

Again, the AI response:
Bonobos live in matriarchal, female-dominated societies, where females lead the group and maintain strong bonds with each other. They are known for their peaceful and tolerant interactions, often resolving conflicts through socio-sexual behavior like "gg rubbing". In contrast, chimpanzees have a more hierarchical social structure, with males holding a dominant position and engaging in aggressive behaviors, including territorial defense and intergroup conflicts.

It seems to me that you are saying that a social structure is only hierarchical if it is male-dominated. If only the females were in charge, us men would get more sex? Somehow I doubt that would be the case. More likely, only some men would get more sex and all the others would be left limp.

You're going to have to expand on this cats / bees hypotheses. — boethius

You're telling me I need to tell you about the cats and the bees?

AI's response to the above question:
Cats are generally solitary hunters but can form social groups, particularly in feral conditions. These groups, often consisting of related females and their offspring, are not based on a strict hierarchy like dog packs. Instead, social bonds and affiliations between cats are more flexible and can shift based on individual preferences and resource availability.

Ants live in complex, hierarchical colonies where different roles are assigned based on caste, a term referring to job class. The social structure is characterized by a queen, workers, soldiers, and males, each with distinct functions crucial to the colony's survival.

Yup -- that'd be the utopian version of both, but in terms of differentiating them and trying to wrap your mind around it that's a good simplification. — Moliere

Even more simpler, the difference between anarchy and Marxism is similar to the difference between the social order of cats and the social order of ants/bees.

:roll: Then I have no idea what you're saying, as usual.