But, yes, I think we're basically as laidback as philosophy can get while still actually reaching for philosophy. — Moliere

I don't think that's the issue here, but as has been pointed out by @Outlander, the OP and some associates want their points to be taken seriously about matters in which they have not read the source material.

I would wager a hefty sum that the motivation for this grievance is that with respect to ordinary people who haven't read anything at all, having some familiarity with popular and other kinds of commentary is quite impressive. However, as you certainly are aware, you can't really "hold your own" in a debate on a topic in which you haven't read the key texts, but imagine yourself knowing what they say anyways, but others in the debate have read those texts.

To tie into the Kantian theme that has already been developed here, the approach of not reading the source material creates a sort of phenomenology of textual noumena that are assumed to exist but one has no access to (by choice in this case). Such a phenomenology of inaccessible textual noumena can of course be quite elaborate, clever and well developed, but of course seems foolish to anyone to which the texts in question are not noumena because they read them.

This form of discourse even has a control group, as we also have discourse on texts that really are missing, and so essentially noumena to us represented by phenomena of reference of inference by other texts we do have, and the speculations and analysis about those missing texts is essentially the same kind of discourse as people who talk about texts (or topics identified by key texts) who haven't read them.

Not only that, but when we compare difficult philosophical texts like Heidegger’s Being and Time with work aimed at a more popular audience, the latter will be of necessity be written in a more direct and less ambiguous style. There is pressure from the readership for the author to be polemical and hammer home some clear and likely controversial points. Writers like Dennett, Pinker and Dawkins are anything if not polemical and controversial. I’ve participated in many philosophy discussion groups, and the rule of thumb is that the more the material is aimed at a popular audience, the more likely it is to encourage polarized, oppositional forms of debate. — Joshs

Agreed, definitely also a good point to consider.

It's also a consequence, I would argue, of not having a sufficient framework, not to speak of an actual theory, in which critical questions can even be potentially resolved, the only option becomes to dict and contradict back and forth at each other.

Engaging in more complete analysis it becomes possible to at least agree on the structure and soundness of the arguments of different proponents, even if the validity is disagreed.

The dividing line I would argue is that "actual philosophy" understands the problems of moral assertions, whereas in regular discourse there's a few (always moving and never mutually coherent) "virtue anchors" that are taken for granted and people try to attach their argument to whatever their preference is and mostly what is "most virtuous" in society at any given time. Pro-life vs. pro-choice being a typical example of how this process plays out.

If I tie myself to one virtue anchor and you to another, then all we can do is shout back and forth at each other at a distance and never approach one another nor ever see things from the other's point of view.

To bring back to Pinker as an example, he anchors his argument mainly in the virtue that more immediate indicators of consumption and health outcomes is an unquestioned good thing, and so from this perspective any other "virtue anchor", such as biodiversity, is just shouted down as secondary and coming from just mean people really.

The "first" self-love referred to by the Duke is how much we do in the name of helping (or hurting) others that is actually self-serving. — Paine

Well that's a shame. I thought for a moment there may finally be a quote that really captures my methodological approach to things in my formative years, but, alas, I will have to keep looking.

... like.... after masturbation?

↪boethius I have a feeling it is this sort of analysis that the OP is not looking for :D I think what you say is a little harsh. When people give a sweeping analysis of the human race it is necessarily going to remain fairly large grained. I think what often riles people is that in their immediate surroundings they only see and hear terrible woes rather than see the huge leaps that have been made in different locations and across larger periods of time. — I like sushi

Exactly the point I'm trying to make. If you keep it leisurely it won't be analysis, if it is analysis it will quickly become non-leisurely.

And yes, obviously the basic proposition of "progress" can be defended; there's clearly many changes over history, maybe that's progress. However, it's obviously a difficult task, is my basic point, which Pinker doesn't come close to accomplishing or even develop the tools to accomplish in any remotely "philosophically satisfying" way.

My goal was to show that if we "got into Pink" the critique would many and sharp, then hose critiques need to be responded to (either referring to Pinker or then just getting into those issues, reformulating progress in an Apinker fashion), and then will keep going, and is not a leisurely exercise.

The people who like both Pinker and leisure generally won't want to debate anything, maybe just repeat choice stats and quotes, is my basic contention.

Obviously we could debate Pinker's claim and whether some actual moral, political, statistical analytical framework could support it, but the debate will just immediately get into those issues, become more and more complicated, refer to more and more material, going in an overall non-leisurely direction.

Basic point being that analysis is a process of critical scrutiny, so the people interested in it generally want to really get to the bottom of things.

You may simply be out of luck in that there's too few people engaged in leisurely analysis.

Take Pinker for example, his whole thing is that "everything is fine". His message is precisely meant for people who don't want to analyze or think too hard about anything and want to be comforted by the idea that "the real smart analysis", such as Pinker provides, concludes with laissez-faire everything is fine and dandy.

Congruent to this state of affairs, fans of Pinker don't generally engage in analysis to defend Pinker but just restate statistics that Pinker likes to state, such as "so and so amount of people out of poverty!!" Pinker is designed (whether "intelligently" by the man Pinker or then a broader media-evolutionary process) for popular consumption of people who support the status quo; things feel good for them right now and it's nice to think things are good for people generally speaking.

However, on any closer inspection by people who like rigour and analysis, Pinker's entire proposition simply falls apart.

First, whenever someone talks about progress, this simply begs the question "progress to where?" We need a moral theory in order to evaluate progress and weigh different statistics against each other.

The obvious and immediate criticism of Pinker is ecologically. If the progress he espouses is at the cost of ecosystems, necessary for long term prosperity and/or valuable in themselves, that issue must be addressed. If Pinker puts up a graph of poverty reduction and an ecologist puts up a graph of biodiversity loss, Pinker requires some moral framework to even make the claim things are going in the right direction. Which, as far as I know, Pinker never provides a moral framework in which it's even possible to compare different numbers in different graphs.

Point being, fans of Pinker don't concern themselves with defending or filling in Pinker's view of the world; the whole point is to support a laissez-faire, everything is fine attitude, and so no need to think about it further. Anyone serious about philosophy is going to immediately point out Pinker does not even have a moral framework in which "the good" can be asserted and any sort of comparative analysis with other values can be carried out.

There's ecological value (that Pinker's economic system that does all the great stuff he point to depends on, and if the system isn't sustainable then you also need a framework in which short term gains can be weighed against long term costs in the same metric) but there's also plenty of other moral and political decisions. For example, if prosperity in China leads to Chinese domination of the planet and spreading Chinese technological social control systems (great firewall, social credit, etc.) is therefore Chinese prosperity a good thing (even assuming it's ecologically sound)? If Nazi Germany had a poverty problem and then Hitler solved that poverty problem, seems to me Pinker's framework would view that as an absolutely amazing achievement of mankind right up until 1939, perhaps even 1943. Obviously China is not literally Nazi Germany, so is it's government "bad enough" or "good enough" or "benign enough" to support one conclusion over another is not easy to do, but would have to be resolved for Pinker's argument to be simply step 1 of plausible soundness.

However, even assuming "liberal democratic values" (which we can obviously question how great they are in reality, such as a genocide our liberal democracies are carrying out right now and China is not); what if, even assuming China is "bad" for liberal democratic values in China, nevertheless helps Africa and other poor nations develop in exactly the way Pinker wants, and just so happens that is and would be in a liberal democratic way outside of China? Can we weigh the "freedom" of the Chinese against the "freedom" of Africans? So even on Pinker's preferred metrics of evaluation, different scenarios can be elaborated with different pros and cons and Pinker's framework has no way of resolving them. Ultimately, all these critiques are answered with just "optimism" and the whole exercise is starting with an optimistic attitude, putting together statistics optimistically with an optimistic interpretation, and then being optimistic that potential for bad will be resolved by fellow optimistic people.

Pinker's place in the social discourse is simply serving as the counter-contrarian to everything. If someone starts analyzing an issue that really does seem governments are going to need do something about to avoid bad things happening, Pinker can be relied on to state that it's not a problem, and if it is it's not a big problem, and if it was it's not a problem anyone should really worry about, and if they should it can't be compared with all sorts of other things that are going absolutely swimmingly.

Therefore, Pinker resists "casual analysis"; either you repeat what Pinker says completely oblivious to all the moral, political, ecological, statistical collection and analysis methods, qualitative, issues Pinker never addresses, or then even the smallest analysis immediately starts to encounter questions and problems that just lead to more questions and problems, which is not a leisurely task to get through, and you just end up in those debates of those issues which Pinker ignores, and the whole point of Pinker's proposition is to encourage ignoring those issues; but if those issues aren't ignored, then in those "actual debates about stuff", Pinker's work becomes purely ornamental to the discussion.

Excellent.

Breathing air in the street is harmful, but until you can show the damage done by it, there is no actual harm been done. — Sir2u

No ... it's harmful, as is your premise.

Proving it is harmful, how harmful it is exactly, who's causing the air to be harmful, what the law should do, if anything, about this harmful air, would be different questions.

In order to show the air does damage the air must be already harmful in order to be able to show that.

I assume, to introduce another premise, you're thinking of pollution that people are generally not aware is harmful and therefore no one is liable for the damages caused until someone "proves" it is harmful.

If so, that is not a correct understanding of the law anyways, but is not applicable to this case of privacy.

We know invasion of privacy is harmful, why it's illegal. The damages caused by the harm are psychological distress of feelings of violation and placing the victim at risk of further crime (which is more psychological harm as well as enabling those actual additional harms).

Although awareness of the invasion of privacy is required for that harm "to be felt", that is not a condition for the crime of invasion of privacy.

In the same way that if I punch you in the face while you're in a coma, "that you didn't feel it" would not be a defence for the crime of assault; likewise, if I poison you but you'll only die next year, there is no need for everyone to wait for next year for me to be charged with poisoning you: "Wait! Wait! I have a year before he dies! You've got the right man at the wrong time! I need to do my bucket list, poisoning a guy was only number 7, so I used a clever delay!" is not a legal defence for poisoning in order to delay charges and trials.

The possibility is always there, like the trees killing people in parks these last few weeks, but until you can show that there is ACTUAL harm done by the things you explain in your theory nothing has happened. — Sir2u

If you're now talking about the OP, breaching people's data integrity is in itself harmful. Putting people at unnecessary risk of harm is itself harmful, which is why reckless endangerment is a crime. If you shoot arrows into a crowd and happen not to hit anyone: no harm done, still a crime.

Compromising people's data recklessly is basically a form of reckless endangerment, but since the world of data is complicated there's whole laws dedicated to the issue. In the US the law concerned would be mainly HIPAA (as medical information is involved) whereas in Europe the GDPR is the general regulation that covers all personal data and there's even stricter requirements for both medical and child information, as well as other laws and regulations that may apply.

These particular data security vulnerabilities (enabling spoofing of a domain that puts people at risk if it is spoofed, shady data processing on parallel domains, and non-transparent ownership of domains) have already been ruled by European courts as "inappropriate security" (as is common sense), which is the catch all term for what you are not supposed to do under the GDPR while handling people's data.

I've friend requested you both on chess.com, I'm the TheBluePawn

https://www.chess.com/member/thebluepawn

Feel welcome to add me too, and also anyone else.

So you have done the checking, how many reports have you made and to whom have you done so? Being as there are so many possibilities to report this to so many different agencies and organizations I imagine that there has been a lot of work for you. — Sir2u

I did not ask about possible future or imaginary consequences, it says quite clearly in the question I asked "actual evidence" of suffering. — Sir2u

You're question was:

Is there any actual evidence that any children have suffered because of what you explained? — Sir2u

To which I answered:

First of all, compromising people's data is itself harmful, which then, in itself, causes the suffering of needing to worry about how one's data could be used for ill, once one is made aware of the data breach (as required under the GDPR). If you knew your ID and medical history was stolen that would cause suffering even if the data theft is never exploited to commit further crimes against you. — boethius

Note "once one is made aware of the data breach" is quite clearly in my first answer on this question.

And then also explained:

So as I answered you the first time, yes, there is child suffering due in part to these data breaches.

Further crimes against children by the network involving the above company have also been committed; however, I can't as easily report on confidential information of ongoing investigations and / or court cases. — boethius

I have definitely for sure answered your question.

If you could post a list of the places that you have informed already, maybe some of us could repeat the information to them so that they would have to pay attention. Email addresses or whatever form of communication would be necessary for us to send to the same places. — Sir2u

There is zero harm if reports are made multiple times; if authorities see there's public concern for an issue the only real risk is they may do their jobs more properly than usual.

Therefore, there is no reason to list every place I've already reported to, and making such a list public could potentially help perpetrators. No one should worry that they reported something that has already been reported.

Anyone here who cares about children not-being-trafficked can easily report in their country; there's usually super easy anonymous tip lines to do so, and then you can rest easy that if someone has used this security vulnerability in your country to traffic children at least it's reported.

And to remind everyone, why I posted this information here is because due to the fact the data breach can be exploited by anyone in the entire world to commit crime in any country, that it's possible that some such crime could only be uncovered if reported to authorities in that country.

Most countries have an anonymous system to report crime tips, and in most countries it's a super simple matter of a search for these corporations and their domains in systems related to child protection and foster case etc. to see if there's been any communication with these domains which, since they are setup with zero security and anyone can spoof them, may warrant further verification.

It is a low investment in time for people to report this information, and it is a low investment in time for any honest investigator to do some basic checks. If only one country it turns out criminals did exploit this security vulnerability to impersonate Finnish child protection workers and traffic children, that would be worth it to uncover.

My purpose was not to discuss whether compromising someone's data, moreover children's data, is even a crime in "Western law". Obviously it is, and anyone pretending otherwise is lying to me and everyone here.

Therefore, coming here to point out the obvious: that what is described in the OP, invading people's privacy generally speaking or compromising their data integrity generally speaking, is against the law. Why? Because it causes suffering. As everyone here obviously knows.

On the issue of mental illness, the evidence of mental illness is definitely the people here who genuinely seem to believe they have a right to invade people's privacy as a matter of principle or then as long as they don't get caught, and also genuinely seem to believe I haven't answered this question like 12 times by now of why it's for sure a crime.

I would also like to point out, that due to the essentially the only response to this notice of a data breach being people trying to gaslight me and everyone that what I describe in the OP is not a problem as no "suffering" has been caused, I have lost significant respect for the entire forum. So, I am also less motivated to discuss with people I do not respect. Really, absolute bottom of my list of priorities, but, no worries, still there.

Pretty obvious to me Boethius is the disingenuine (and likely mentally ill imo) one here. How could a question so simple be impossible to answer? Instead, evasive, obtuse and…of a weasel like nature.
So much for outside arbitration. — DingoJones

I've answered this question of why a data breach which is also an invasion of privacy in this case (just in data form) is against the law (crime if intentional, negligence if unintentional) multiple times.

It is easy to answer, why there's a law literally called the "General Data Protection Regulation" and also various laws dealing with privacy.

Invasion of privacy, compromising someone's data for example, is a crime because it causes suffering.

It causes suffering in and of itself due to the violation of the victims privacy. It also causes suffering in enabling further harm and therefore the victim needing to worry about that and also if that further harm is actually carried out.

This is super duper basic and obvious and everyone in this conversation knows that if they went and spied on naked showering women through a peep hole they would be committing a crime, if they hacked my personal data or anyone else's they'd be committing a crime, if they setup a data processing system intentionally to compromise people's data they would be committing a crime.

Because it is an obvious crime there is now multiple investigations in multiple countries concerning this data breach.

Once investigations actually started, then that has been a bigger focus of mine then arguing about whether invasion of privacy, compromising child medical and ID data, is even a crime.

So, vis-a-vis the OP, hopefully there will be some public clarification of the matter.

Of course, as with the discovery of any security vulnerability, it is not immediately clear if the security vulnerability has been exploited or not, hence the need to report and for the matter to be investigated.

The matter of the OP is particular complicated as the security vulnerability these corporations create can anyways be exploited by anyone in the world; so there is both the matter of whether the problem is created intentionally for the purposes of crime, but anyways the matter that anyone in the entire world can take advantage of the problem for criminal purposes. Fortunately, in both cases crime concerning data tends to leave plenty of evidence all around the world in various logs.

Although I have found Boethius very entertaining, and previously informative, when they are posting, I too am veering to your own appraisal which I have come to think due to their very erratic posting habits. There will be a large flourish of frantic posting then radio silence for weeks. — unimportant

Zero obligation for anyone here to post anything at any time.

As mentioned in my post above, there's actual investigations concerning this data breach, now in multiple countries, so considering the data breach described in the OP enables child trafficking, and proper investigation of breach (how it was created, why, has it effectively been used to traffic children etc.) is a bit higher on my list of priorities than arguing about whether compromising people's private information is even a crime (which we all know it is), I have prioritized child safety over dealing with obvious lies.

There is no way anyone participating here does not understand that invasion of privacy, hacking, mishandling people's data, certainly children's data, is not a legal issue and if intentional a criminal issue.

If I have time to spare, I'll respond to people trying to waste my time, try to find some entertainment value in it as you suggest. However, if I really have better things to do (perhaps a piece of evidence in my possession could actually result in the interception of a child being trafficked as we speak; we don't know, hence the need to investigate), radio silence with respect to lies and intentionally stupid points such as invasion of privacy and hacking people's data is not even a crime, is entirely warranted.

↪boethius You could answer the question, please good sir, instead of prevaricating.

In the scenario i just gave you, what have i suffered, without something more? It's nothing, isn't it? — AmadeusD

I have asked specifically, in the scenario I gave (with no further elements involved), what I suffer by him receiving my information. This hasn't been answered. What happened was boethius then did two things: — AmadeusD

Again your claim is:

I've asked what suffering. You've not answered.

You receive information from my personal email account (clandestine, we assume). What have I suffered ? I shall short-cut this.

I haven't. Something more is required. Most Western Law even requires harm or damage to be established before a conviction or punishment will be metered out. — AmadeusD

Which is simply obviously not true, and you obviously know that if I clandestinely hacked all your personal information I would be committing a crime.

It's just dumb to need to deal again and again with your lies.

And you make it clear that my clandestinely stealing all your data does not make the definition of a crime: "Most Western Law even requires harm or damage to be established before a conviction or punishment will be metered out."

But you know my hacking your information right now would be a crime. It's a crime because it causes suffering. Why does it cause suffering? Because having someone's personal data causes them both distress as well as the potential for further harms.

1. Lied and said I claimed it "was nothing" that they have my information. I clearly, objectively did not say this. To claim I did is a literal lie. This is, i'm afraid, not debatable. The words are there to be read, and i did not say the ones he claims i did. q.e.d.; — AmadeusD

Those are your exact words:

↪boethius You could answer the question, please good sir, instead of prevaricating.

In the scenario i just gave you, what have i suffered, without something more? It's nothing, isn't it? — AmadeusD

What's the scenario? That I steal your personal information.

It's just incredibly stupid.

Unfortunately for my contributions to philosophyforum, there are actual ongoing investigations in multiple countries that I am contributing regarding this data breach, so I have had to focus on those for the time being.

2. Snuck in the "and you know about it" element. This is, quite obviously, what I had been pushing toward as a flaw in his initial statement. It took about six exchanges, and him sneaking that factor in, as if it were present in the initial claim, to get us anywhere. So, I pulled him back to my initial scenario. Since then he's been extremely immature and unbecoming for a philosophy forum. q.e.d. — AmadeusD

This is not "snuck in" as I already answered that the actual experience of suffering requires knowing about the invasion of privacy, and it is a crime (that I clandestinely steal all your information) because it causes that suffering, of course the experience of the suffering requires becoming aware.

However, this is irrelevant with regard to your claim, as you make clear this does not meet the definition of a crime in "Most Western Law", but it does even without the actual suffering taken place.

For example, you invade the privacy of someone who is unconscious in a coma and get caught. The fact they are in a coma and not aware of your invasion of their privacy has no bearing on being charged and convicted of a crime. "They were in a coma your honour!" is not a defence.

The process of becoming aware of an invasion of privacy is not required for "conviction or punishment will be metered out," but the invasion of privacy itself.

And again, there's no "sneaking" anything, I made it clear that the experience of suffering starts when one is aware of the breach, but it is against the law to cause compromise people's data, invade their privacy, steal their ID and medical information etc. due to that causing suffering:

Is there any actual evidence that any children have suffered because of what you explained?
— Sir2u

First of all, compromising people's data is itself harmful, which then, in itself, causes the suffering of needing to worry about how one's data could be used for ill, once one is made aware of the data breach (as required under the GDPR). If you knew your ID and medical history was stolen that would cause suffering even if the data theft is never exploited to commit further crimes against you. — boethius

And it is quite usual for crimes to cause suffering in a delayed manner. For example, if I poisoned you with a carcinogen that will very likely cause you cancer and die in some years, we do not have to wait for that suffering to start for me to be held accountable for poisoning you.

Yep, that was the non-answer I got. — Sir2u

What you got, as seen above, is exactly the answer to the question.

The OP is about breaching a whole giant law called the GDRP, which stands for "General Data Protection Regulation, and participants here are unsure whether compromising someone's data is even a crime.

I really have no other interpretation for such obviously false statements than the motivation comes from people who regularly spy and invade the privacy of others and feel that's ok because they don't plan to get caught and so people won't know and won't suffer, so it's not a crime really when you think about it.

I have little time for this nonsense, considering as mentioned there's real investigations happening in multiple countries now since I reported this data breach, but I will try to find time to repeat the obvious if people insist on it.

ontologically I regard every set as completely specified, just like in set theory — litewave

But this is true only in a formal system where everything really is completely specified.

However, outside formal systems, there is no completely specifying anything. For example, try specifying a tree; it's a pretty hard task even for just trees on earth right now (without even addressing questions like when exactly does a seed become a tree and when does a tree become log), but a complete specification would be able to tell us also exact moment the next individual in a species of bushes attains treeness, likewise what organisms on other planets and even other universes entirely would be a tree.

To have a "good idea" of what a tree is, to be certain we'd agree that the trees outside my window right now are indeed trees, is very far from a complete specification of treenness.

To say we know what the specification of set of even numbers in a formal system, does not imply we know exactly what the set of all trees is.

To make sets of objects in the real world you need to define apparatuses and procedures (and procedures to make your apparatuses) and then contend with all the edge cases; i.e. you have to do science in which mathematics is a useful tool but doesn't solve all your problems.

For example, a post-grad laser physics researcher I once knew, worked in a lab that dealt with edge cases by running an algorithm to simply remove outliers from the datasets entirely.

There is a branch of mathematics that deals with these kinds of issues, called fuzzy logic, as there's certainly nothing stopping us trying to make rigorous treatments of our pretty vague concepts about the real world, which I haven't looked into all that closely but maybe of interest to you.

In practice we usually don't have such complete specifications and we talk about approximately specified properties like "redness", but that doesn't refute my claim that a property (completely specified) is identical to the set of all objects that have this property. — litewave

It's certainly understandable what is meant, but in so doing in ordinary language you will still have the problem of delineation and universals and so on.

For example, a ball of red atoms.

Is the ball an element in the set? Is each atom an element in the set? Is subset of atoms of the ball in the set? What about the quantum level? Mostly these atoms are red but there will be random fluctuations that cause other colours; if photons are fired at an atom and bounce back another colour, is the atom still an element of the set? If the criteria is the potential to be red, pretty much all atoms can be red through relativistic effects of red-shifting; there are red galaxies in the sky due to red shifting, are they elements of the set of redness, each star, each dust particle, each atom and so on? There will be all these kinds of questions that need to be resolved to rigorously define what redness is and how to separate elements into the set of redness and not-redness; and the basic nature of this problem is that it goes on forever.

When formal structures help us describe things in the real world it is because those real things are in some sort of temporary stability that conforms to the formal structure and then it remains a judgement call when that is no longer the case. For example, computer "should" conform to rigorous formal rules, but it remains a judgement call if that is actually happening as memory and logical operations can be corrupted, so we remain "certain" about the formal structures in our mind but never actually certain an object we think corresponds to a structure actually does.

Of course, doesn't stop us talking about a set of red things, and that can be useful to do, but if you want a rigorous definition you'd need to solve all these problems; otherwise, the definition becomes the set of red things which I will decide on a case by case basis as I get to them to resolve all edge cases in a way I'm confident won't result in any contradictions whatsoever; which is not how a set is usually defined in formal logic.

I am proposing that we could plausibly identify a property with the set of all things that have this property. — litewave

This is exactly true, contingent on the what we mean by the word "plausible".

We can plausibly do a lot of things that on closer inspection can't be done, but finding that out does not negate that it was plausible to begin with.

In general, these kinds of ideas I would argue are best understood as naive set theory used in ordinary language.

What I mean by that, is that we have a bunch of mathematical concepts about sets that nothing stops us from using in ordinary discourse outside an axiomatic system to discuss various things; both to talk about axiomatic systems from a non-axiomatic point of view (such as to talk about what an axiomatic system "is like" and kinds of things that can be done with it using ordinary language to convey concepts to both experts and non-experts) as well as developing concepts that have nothing to do with axiomatic systems but the words and ideas of set theory are useful for the purpose.

Therefore, such informal use of set-theory language is going to have all the problems of ordinary language. We have zero problem with the fact ordinary language can be used to express all sorts of contradictions, paradox and nonsense, as well as having fundamental unresolvable problems such as delineation, universals, and so on, and throwing in some set theory words isn't going to change the situation.

That does not make it invalid to talk about sets of "everything red" for example, but we can know ahead of time that such a concept cannot be developed into something rigorous without axiomatization.

Once you axiomatize, if all goes well, you can have rigorously defined symbols, rigorously defined acceptable grammar (how you may put those symbols together), and rigorously defined permitted manipulation of those symbols (how you may move those symbols around), but in so doing we know ahead of time that we lose the flexibility of ordinary language; you can no longer just "say things" and hope to express meaning, but rather statements proposed to be true require rigorous proof.

What makes sense depends on what is being talked about.

For example, it makes sense to propose dividing the class into a set of short and a set of tall students. The meaning is clear that the goal is to either by symbolic representation of the students or then physically move them around, to define two groups of students based on height. The meaning can be clear and it can be equally clear that once we have our sets of students we can perform further set operations, such as creating subsets of those sets based on hats or whatever we please, and going on to create unions and bijections and so on.

What is of course not clear is exactly the difference between short and tall, how to handle a new student showing up (do the sets represent the students at the time of creating the sets, or then sets that represent students that may come and go, either by joining the class or then being expelled), and so on. Trying to resolve all these problems will run into all the problems of ordinary language and naive set theory, but the use of such language can be entirely sufficient to accomplish whatever the task was (forming teams by height and hat wearing for some purpose).

I rewrote the post to say "valuing beauty isn't just a Western thing." Valuing beauty is a human universal. — BitconnectCarlos

We agree here.

"Obsession" is really just a pejorative for "valuing," implying that the obsessor values the object too much. Anyone who values something can be accused of obsession. — BitconnectCarlos

That people can be accused of something without merit is not a defence in a different matter in which there is merit to the accusation.

Anyone who speaks can be accused of speaking too loudly. Anyone who eats can be accused of gluttony. Anyone alive, or dead for that matter, can be accused of murder; doesn't imply everyone is a murderer or then no one's a murder, but the merits of each case require consideration.

So in this case it is to be debated who exactly is obsessed with beauty, a whole culture, how other culture's compare etc.

Anyway, I'd loosely agree with Tzeentch: It's a symptom of modernity stemming from social media and the vast array of new treatments and products available. — BitconnectCarlos

Well then I think we are in agreement on the basic premise.

Beyond the connection to racism as the foundational psychological structure, an amplification of this beauty obsession I would argue (along with the advertising and other things) is also isolation within Western societies. The more you are isolated and without deep community connections, the more the interactions you do have are surface level and where your appearance has a disproportionate effect. Further amplifying this trend is that the more late stage capitalism progresses, the less there is even any expectation of what would have previously been called "character", resulting in appearances being even more determinative in the outcome of social interactions.

Beauty isn't just a Western thing. Even in traditional Islamic societies, women in burqas and niqabs will enhance their eyes and eyebrows - often the only features visible to the public. — BitconnectCarlos

I'm confident the argument of the OP is not that beauty is a Western thing, but that there is a particular obsession with beauty in the West, far beyond other society's, past and present, and, more importantly, far beyond any plausibly healthy level of aesthetic appreciation.

The point is not denying things like beauty having evolved for the purposes of things like procreation, nor denying that other societies appreciate beauty.

Don't you think ethnocentrism is maybe a better term than racism for your thesis. Racism emerges more a symptom of thinking one's culture/ideology/class/religious identity is superior to another and then differentiating members by superficial physical features. — Nils Loc

Ethnocentrism seems pretty vague and presumably can include healthy relationships to one's own and others ethnicity; certainly a plausible argument can be made that focusing on one's ethnicity (celebrating diversity) can be healthy. I am referring to what would be commonly understood and unhealthy ethnocentrism which is usual to call racism. Unless I am missing something in your comment.

This back and forth would benefit from outside adjudicators as to the claims leveled against one another rather than you two just slugging it out which is just ending up in the same claims being volleyed from one side to the other again and again. — unimportant

This is often the case.

It would of course be nice to have philosophical arbiters that could "make a ruling", but that just begs the question of how these arbiters know what the truth is.

In this case, @AmadeusD goes in circles so as to tire me out, then he can have the last word. However, I don't really mind because I'm unemployed at the moment so have plenty of time. It's also my overarching philosophical project on the forum to develop methods to deal with bad faith discourse (as that is one of the major political ills we are dealing with today).

I would agree boethius that it is glaringly obvious you have answered the questions many times so find it bizarre it is claimed you haven't. — unimportant

It is indeed glaringly obvious. Resorting to just repeated denials to frustrate the other side is not unusual, but what I find bizarre in this case is that it is to defend the interests of child traffickers by arguing stealing child protection data is not harmful.

I admit honestly. Often I deliberately reject any rational knowledge and make a decision simply on the basis of what I want (without explaining the reasons) without relieving myself of responsibility for such a decision. In the end, I am just a person. I believe that it is very important to allow myself this. — Astorre

Exactly what I'm getting at. "Philosophizing" I would say is exactly this process of starting to formulate justifications for things one had no need of before, and as soon as that process starts there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Now that you've formulated this philosophical foundation for acting on whim some or most of the time, the critical question is does this philosophy withstand critical scrutiny.

Once you do one critical scrutiny pass, perhaps you rectify or develop one aspect or another as well as encounter literature for and against the position, which results in a new iteration of the philosophy and the same question of whether this new version too can withstand critical scrutiny. If it has already been augmented or adjusted on first viewing, then it certainly stands to reason that further critical scrutiny will result in more adjustments.

After many years of this what "philosophy is" may become more apparent, in that pretty much any position at all results in a never ending series of insights, counter-arguments, rebuttals and so on.

However, the exercise is only interesting if it manifests in changes to "everyday life" to both reflect "actually believing it" when a view changes as well as testing philosophical conclusions in practice to see how it goes.

As to the quotidian situation with your wife.

Assuming your ordinary habits are just (I do not say above they are unjust, only that it is the critical philosophical question to find out):

It is generally of little use to argue with someone who does not want to argue.

I very rarely argue with anyone outside some practical need in dealing with bureaucrats, as most people interpret arguing as conflict, which is not the point of philosophical analysis. Hence I argue here with people who presumably also want to argue.

and my wife has no choice but to eventually agree with my views in everyday matters (but I do not want to suppress her). — Astorre

But if argue you must, why exactly does your wife have no choice but to accept your views?

If it is only because you are more practiced at arguing, then I would suggest a practical approach of not requiring your wife to accept your views but to bring your views to people who are able to scrutinize them, such as there are many on this forum.

Most people do not engage in analysis and view things intuitively.

Arguments can have subtle flaws that people may intuit there is something wrong with but cannot articulate, therefore to press the matter they "have no choice but to agree", but of course they don't feel good about that and are not convinced if they feel there is something wrong. They feel suppressed, as you say, more than having learned something.

To articulate what one intuits requires many years of intense study, to subject those articulations to critical scrutiny requires even more learning and practice.

Exactly as I say: a duel life of earning money during the day in service to assumed and unexamined objectives, and then philosophy as a pass time activity.

The alternative view is that what is of critical philosophical importance is exactly that regular activity that is taken for granted. Not so that philosophy, however you define it, can serve that activity and make it more efficient, but rather asking the question of are those regular purposes justified to begin with.

If you're "earning a living" as you say somehow apart from philosophy, well presumably there is some sort of reason for doing it. If it's because that's "just what people do" (get educated, get a job, "live" in a normal sense for the society you are in) ... well does that constitute justification?

The reason philosophy is presented as a hobby or discipline like any other (which are defined precisely as serving a well defined objective assumed by the practitioners) is to maintain a sort of firewall between the tools of critical analysis, radically different points of view, as well as just pure madness, from affecting "normal life", for fear that critical scrutiny will lead to decisions, or the feeling that a decision should be made, which one disagrees with in the present (i.e. fear of a future self that is wiser, more learned, but unpredictable and therefore crazy).

However, there is of course no justification for maintaining such a firewall. If things can be placed under critical scrutiny, so too can the normal life that gave rise to such critical thinking capacity in the first place.

Naturally, by definition, the self before realizing such a critical capacity does not desire any scrutiny, if only due to having no familiarity with it.

Therefore, it is a very tense endeavour to really think about things including what exactly it is that you are doing.

You're presuming a sort of duel life where a person has goals that are not up for philosophical scrutiny (presumably making money) and this daily activity has no philosophical content or meaning, and then a sort of philosophy moonlighting happens in spare time, which can include, among other things, analysis of the "normal life" as essentially a separate object.

Of course, nothing prevents someone living that way, but I hope simply describing it reveals a potential line of critique.

No pictures.

Ancient Origins

The earliest forms of scissors date back about 3,000-4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. These primitive tools were known as spring scissors. They consisted of two bronze blades connected at the ends by a flexible strip of metal that acted as a spring, allowing the blades to automatically open after being pressed together. These scissors were used to cut fabrics, hair, and other lightweight materials. — THE INVENTION OF SCISSORS: A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY

The spring scissors are more flexible.

But even so, they are called scissor hands so we must expect some reasonable combination of the characteristics of scissors and hands.

It's like taking issue with potato salad because it is not made of whole potatoes.

↪boethius they can make as scissoring motion when placed next to another wrist, just like knuckles can. Any joint can. — flannel jesus

The difference being the wrists are just placed next to each other, whereas knuckles are quite clearly fastened together, though if you put giant blades attached to your arms then clearly it becomes scissor arms. I honestly don't see the problem.

How would your wrists make a scissoring motion, and if so why wouldn't such a motion become scissors when blades are fitted?

Is that obvious to you? It's not to me. Each of my knuckles is connected to one finger only, and allows a pretty wide range of motion that the blades of scissors don't have. — flannel jesus

Key word "knuckles" which are all connected to 1 finger and then 1 or 2 other knuckles connecting to more fingers thus providing articulation that can, among other things, provide a scissoring motion, which can be described further in terms of anatomy if that is required.

You must have very very different knuckles from the rest of us — flannel jesus

The basic scissor design is two blades connected, as you state in your OP, well obviously knuckles provide that connection of two blades.

Most, if not all of us here, have made the scissor motion with our hands to represent cutting at one point in our lives. Clearly putting actual blades on the fingers will result in scissor hands.

You are attempting to get us to reject the evidence of our eyes and ears using TED talk hypnosis. But I resist.

The fingers are connected together at the fulcrum that is the knuckle, thus combining hands and scissors into scissor hands.

The design is based on the first and best scissors, the spring scissors, where the two blades loop around a U that provides spring action.

Ancient Origins

The earliest forms of scissors date back about 3,000-4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. These primitive tools were known as spring scissors. They consisted of two bronze blades connected at the ends by a flexible strip of metal that acted as a spring, allowing the blades to automatically open after being pressed together. These scissors were used to cut fabrics, hair, and other lightweight materials. — THE INVENTION OF SCISSORS: A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY

And the subtext of your subtext is that being the American-European lead West the greatest evil in history we Westerners (?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) should help Russia end American-European-lead West by spinning pro-Russian propaganda, right? And that's rational, right? — neomac

Reality and facts is not "pro-Russian propaganda". If the fact is that Russia can defeat Ukraine because Russia is bigger than Ukraine, and the fact is the West leaving Ukraine to fight the Russians alone is called appeasement, and the fact is the West has committed a disturbingly large amount of genocides and is committing genocide right now as we speak (arguably more than one), those are just the facts.

In terms of absolute amount of suffering caused, definitely the West is the most evil in History, due to scale.

And definitely we Westerners should feel bad about that suffering.

We should feel bad about the suffering of the Palestinians suffering a brutal genocide with on camera rapes of prisoners, burning and blown apart children, rapes of children we know about, starvation; really the most horrifying and humiliating conditions possibly in history, due to the essentially live-broadcast nature of the documentation of the horror.

Likewise, we should definitely feel bad about having bribed the Ukrainian elite into doing our dirty work to ensure the US can sell LNG to Europe at the cost of over a million dead Ukrainians (some estimates are approaching 2 million dead).

We manipulate and prop up the Ukrainians to take an absolutely brutal beating, dangle prospects of real help sometimes (like all that "no-fly-zone" talk, if you remember that) and the hypothesis is supposed to be we should feel good about that because we morally excoriated the Russians for following the exact same policies of Imperial domination we follow (just a lot more nobly due to pretty close adherence to the laws of war and not doing things like a genocide and starving civilian populations and lacking things like raping prisoners, and even recording the rapes, bragging about the rapes and defending the rapists)?

Also, for those wondering: illegal, violation, offences, crimes, wrongdoing, are all technical legal terms and jargon to refer to different kinds of laws and non-legal actions.

"Wrongdoing" is a catch all for reproachable actions, leaving it undefined what kind of wrongdoing we are talking about: contractual breach, violation, offence, crime, being the main legal categories.

Specifically, wrongdoing is legal jargon referring to something one is saying violates the law in someway (i.e. a judge will rule in your favour) and is also immoral. Non-legal things that one does not wish to imply are also immoral, the jargon of "non-compliance" or "deficiency" would be used instead. "Serious contractual deficiencies" would be typical language to describe that you aren't happy about what's been done or delivered under a contract but are not saying it was done intentionally.

However, in terms of what the government does in terms of law enforcement by itself, a violation is not a crime but may give rise to orders to do things differently and / or a fine, whereas an offence is a crime.

For example, in Finland to stay in the context of the OP, the Companies Act ends with a small list of offences and violations. The whole act is rules that are supposed to be followed, but if would be up to a wronged party to seek redress in civil litigation or arbitration with respect to those rules, but the government does care about a few things in terms of law enforcement: such as not changing or misrepresenting auditing reports for example, especially in the context of a merger, which is an offence as you may imagine. A violation (i.e. will be ordered to fix and / or fined over) would be things like negligent paperwork of one kind or another.

So, in any legal dispute or government action, these word choices are important and refer to different categories of potential consequences.

For our purposes here, compromising someone's information is wrongdoing; if important enough information then if it is intentional it is by definition criminal invasion of privacy, if it's unintentional then it could be anywhere on the spectrum of non-liable accident, non-compliance, violation, to criminal negligence.

@Benkei's an actual lawyer who could certainly explain things better if he wanted to.

However, one important difference between board member's and regular people is that board members are held to a higher standard. Although "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is an oft repeated adage, it is actually totally a good excuse if you could not reasonably have known about the law; however, board members of a corporation are required by law to either have or then seek out expertise they lack in making decisions, why it is not plausible for board members in an advanced Western economy such as Finland to just completely ignore questions of data integrity and liability, as there's a super long list of violations and offences that go along with being careless with people's critical information and "oh, I didn't know" is a legal defence explicitly denied to corporate board members.

What do I suffer when you receive my personal information??? Stop fing around, and answer this question. — AmadeusD

I'll be checking in every few days to just point out that I have obviously answered this question multiple time, and you have yet to demonstrate you are not lying when you say you would suffer nothing if I had all your information.

If you would suffer nothing, if it was "nothing" to you, as you claim, then you'd just do it to show that.

If I said it was nothing to me to do something, then I'd just do it to demonstrate that fact.

You don't send me your personal information to demonstrate you suffer nothing if I have all your personal information, because you are lying to me.

You also just completely ignore the obvious fact that invasion of privacy is a crime, vis-a-vis your actual claim that it's not only nothing that I have your personal information but nothing to you if I steal if from you and also the matter at hand in that the child welfare group of corporations described in the the OP are compromising children's information integrity illegally (in violation of the GDPR).

As the reason it's illegal, and why there are now 2 investigations into these events that I know of, is because invasions of privacy, or comprising privacy due to malice, error or neglect, causes severe suffering. If it didn't, there wouldn't be laws about it, and certainly not offences and crimes.

However, if we agree on the relationship to racism, there is one caveat in that capitalism also promotes non-racism. Wokeism is a corporate philosophy, if we understand wokeism to refer to identify politics completely removed from any economic class based politics.

In order to explain this dichotomy I've had to come up with Racism Optimization Theory (ROT for short) while taking a shower, which seeks to explain the racist dialectic within capitalism.

The three pillars of capitalism as we know it today are corporatist resource extraction, consumerism and imperial domination.

In terms of economic domination of both the foreign people, from whom capitalist elites need the resources and for them to stay poor, and the domestic populations, from whom capitalist elites simply need passivity, these 3 pillars work in complete harmony. Resources are extracted from poor countries to be forced down the gullets of the ignorant masses in the West; fattening up the goose in "goose step".

When it comes to racism however, there is a symbolic tension between the ideals of liberalism that justify "market access", the uniformity sought for efficient consumerism, and the racism required for the foundational imperial power structure.

Racism Optimization Theory describes the mechanisms of how these symbolic tensions are harmonized for smooth oppressive whole.

Make a long story short, contemporary wokeism is the logical terminus of this Rasist Optimziation Theoretical. For, a transnational corporation requires inter-national cooperation within the corporate structure as well as to sell to everyone regardless of race, and so a "colour blind" corporate identity and marketing.

Wokeism provides this ideology with all "unproductive" values that came along with OG liberalism completely removed.

At the same time, the crystallization of wokeism as an oppressive corporate force (it's corporations that do "cancelling" and not any legal process or genuine public outrage; public can be as outraged as it wants, if a corporation doesn't want to use that as a pretext to cancel someone then they won't be cancelled, while a tiny number of super outraged people, regardless of what they're outraged about even making any sense, will be used a pretext to cancel anyone if that's what the very same corporation wants), causes itself the consolidation of naked racism as a potent political force. With anti-racism managed by large multi-national corporations (rather than a religious minister or something like that) and racism securely in the hands of fascists who explicitly want imperial policies, the capitalist system reaches peak efficiency with both cylinders firing at full torque and power.

↪boethius Strange, your reply didn't show up until now, or I missed it the first time. Hard to miss your posts usually. — unimportant

No worries comrade; clearly still best practice to reply to the OP to avoid this happening.

Seems yours is the only reply on a similar track that I was thinking with most taking issue at the question itself being fallacious and misguided somehow. No surprise since we are both Anarchist comrades. — unimportant

Good to see this is no longer the case, but I don't think the premise is so much denied by apparent antagonists to it, only that the opposing parties in the debate claim to have personally transcended Western beauty superficiality to arrive at a purer Western aesthetic of more than the eye can see ... that still includes slaying mad hot bitches in near infinite supply as a core value ... but also ... something more.

For example:

Or to put it another way, if you're on a dating app you'll see any number of profiles showcasing "beauty", so you can go on an almost unlimited number of dates with beautiful people. — LuckyR

Clearly takes for granted that looks are the main factor of consideration.

It's not as if @LuckyR is ignoring or turning off images to go on dates purely based on indications of character, but rather he only goes on dates with beautiful people but has become tired with getting lucky with an unlimited number of 10's and has to just wait tediously on his trek through the desert of endless 10 to find those few diamonds in the rough who have it all.

But that just begs the question of why apps are looks based in the first place. If beauty was taken for granted by everyone and what they really wanted was character, then that's what dating apps would be designed to swipe on. There wouldn't even be photos, or at least not put forward, but just a list of achievements, maybe a poem or two authored or then at least appreciated by the date-seekers, and other indications of character if that's what people in the West valued more than looks.

Moving on:

Beauty is a sign of good genetics(as if it was a mark of having good genetics). If you think you've seen a beautiful person who has proven that his/her genetics aren't good, then I would ask you, how beautiful was this person? If it's just a cute face, I wouldn't class that as beautiful. The best of the best beautiful people tend to have good immune systems, great minds and perfect bodies. — Barkon

Beauty is not even enough for @Barkon, but bodies must be perfect to indicate good genes, but again he's transcended not only the average Westerner but even @LuckyR who certainly is confusing cuteness with perfection to the detriment of his genetic legacy. Another gullible fool in the casino of life. If you're not at the table with a perfect 10 on your arm who's also a brilliant physicist, pulitzer prize winner and composer who never gets ill: you're the sucker.

Again, beauty is yesterday's news, and you better be bringing a great mind and never mention any illness whatsoever if you want your perfect body to even have a chance of copulating with @Barkon's.

.... I'm just going to go ahead and QED on the West's particular obsession with appearances deriving from hundreds of years of Imperial skin-colour based domination ideology and amplified by capitalism that taps into those mental structures if it sells product (which it does).

Goes without saying that Übermensch wear only the superiorist of denim threads as we've been recently reminded.

In case the subtexts of the above argument is not clear, the point is not to recognize we need to finally stop appeasing Putin and start WWIII, but rather the point is the reality is simply that the propaganda framing that Putin is Hitler and that sending arms to Ukraine is Churchillian valour (the propaganda version of Churchill that ignores his own Hitlarian racist genocidal mania) is stupid and a vast majority of people in the West know that it's stupid and just something that we say but don't actually believe; for, if we did actually believe Putin was morally equivalent to Hitler and Russian's to Nazis, then the case for direct war would be incredibly strong and it would be clear to everyone that anything short of direct warfare would be appeasement.

But even that far more realistic view is still based in the proparanda framing that the West would care even if Putin was Hitler and actually was committing a genocide in Ukraine, for we have in parallel a genocide in Palestine and the support for the genocide far outweighs opposition from our political class, and the idea of putting a stop to it through the use of force is not even a possibility of consideration.

Which itself is still a propaganda framing that fighting WWII was about stopping Hitler and his genocide, and somehow that Western ethos has changed, rather than allied participation in WWII being about pursuing Western imperial interests that include plenty of genocide both before and after WWII and still today!

Point is, if you want to go all the way to the bottom of the West's propaganda "Inception" basement (which makes sense if you've seen the movie Inception), then those are some of the levels along the way.

For our purposes here, the reality is that the Western policy is:

1. Bribing the Ukrainian elites (a regime ruling one of the most corrupt political systems in the world and the largest black market arms dealer even before the war started) with flooding in cash and arms.

2. Suppressing any democratic sentiment (which kept on voting for peace with Russia and against further escalation of tensions) through the use of literal Nazi paramilitary organizations goose stepping hand in hand with Ukrainian intelligence.

3. Using steps 1 and 2 to ensure Ukraine fighting beyond any plausible rational military plan in order to:

a. Lock-in Europe into US liquified natural gas imports for mad profits.
b. Lock-in Europe into massive purchases of US arms.
c. Lock-in Europe into humiliated vassal status for the foreseeable future.
d. Uncouple Europe from Russia economically generally speaking, but setting up US-Russian economic collaboration down the line.
e. Defeat the Euro as a competitor to the USD.
f. Clarify the zones of influence in the emerging multi-polar world, with the remaining great powers being Russia and China, with the EU "off the table" and little chance of a general peace in which the great powers become less relevant and are forced to deal with domestic issues.
g. Most importantly of all, defeat European welfare state policies and practice as a model of economic development globally by simply fucking up Europe generally speaking.

Why would European leaders go along with this? Because they are literally in a satanic cult controlled by the financial powers that are in a position to assert said financial power to propel whoever they select to the bureaucratic positions of relevance (and satanic extortionary leverage being the best leverage but more importantly the satanic belief system encouraging sacrificing the interests of regular people and your whole country for whatever madness is popular in satanic circles these days); and if not a satanist literally murdering children on video, then at least someone totally incompetent and clueless and 100% a coward if ever they did get a clue.