Don't sugar coat it Benkei, let us know how you really feel.:smile:

When was the last time a "new" political system was born?
When were people not beholden to an establishment or an unproven alternative?

Again, Al Capone did eleven years for tax evasion. Not because it was heinous or uncommon or central to his criminality, but because it was the only thing they could convict him on. The people accepted as fact that he was guilty of a host of greater crimes and that any legal punishment would serve justice. In this case the letter of the law could supply the spirit of the law.

Pure deep-state dinner theater. — NOS4A2

Ever read what Al Capone was finally convicted of? Was it unjust to put Al Capone in jail?

Aren't we just talking about apophatic verses cataphatic definitions?

censorship?

If you take away thoughts, what is left of the self? — hypericin

self meditation?

So Joe, it would seem that your thread on this forum has been a disappointment to you. You also mentioned that Mods on other sites had problems with your threads. So I suppose this experience could not have been particularly surprising to you. It would seem then that your motivation must be evangelical even though you say you are not religious. The site guidelines, which a lot of people don't read, state that unwelcome posters include "Those who must convince everyone that their religion, ideology, political persuasion, or philosophical theory is the only one worth having." This would explain why you are having so much trouble here. This thread is long but I wouldn't interpret that as popular.

Actually 295.

Hello Joe,
I've been following this forum for 6 or 7 years and before that, the old PF. You now have 273 posts on your first thread. You have said that you have been on other forums. I was wondering how you would evaluate your first experience on this forum? How do you think this first thread is going? Are you getting anything out of this? Do you think others are?

Would anyone here agree, that there is a synthetic result of our making philosophical decisions that manifests itself in our behavior and thus our premise. Where the rubber meets the road. The philosophy the guided your action. Not the books you haven't written, but action.

I guess what I'm saying is that what is manifest, demonstrated, instantiated by philosophy is the final accounting of it. And all of us are contributing to that account.

But wouldn't you say that the praxis of it all, is that we then make philosophical decisions in our lives. And we make those everyday thus making up the social worldview. So if it's the decisions, then we are all philosophers.

The rioters were not going to overthrow the government, the republicans' were. They clearly did not want the riot at all. But tell me what it serves, calling all of this a 4 on the scale rather than an 8

Then how did they persist? Then why did they do it? Why didn't they stop? How did it succeed? When we talk about determinism we are talking about determined motives for human beings, not the abstract logic / math that "should be followed".

People who commit suicide, people who willfully let go of the railing and throw themselves into the abyss, for reasons, however irrational, however unreasonable they might be judged to be, are doing so because they think it is the right thing to do for right now. It is the priority. They are following the path of least resistance because to do anything else, to make any other decision offers more resistance (for them, right now) than letting go of the railing. They are jumping because to kill themselves any other way is more resistant. Thus they are finding the easiest way to do the hardest part. Thus they are taking the shortest route from A to B. I can think of no other way to convey it. If you are unable to see some validity to this, I won't bother you again.

The point is we can take an unreasonable course of action - prolong our journey and pay a hefty sum - and that's what I feel is free will at work. — Agent Smith

It's not unreasonable if it's what I feel (determined) I really want. We are not going to take a vote on what I "should" choose. I can be "determined" by influences that you don't approve of.

The shortest distance from my house to the convenience store is to cut across the park. But maybe I don't want to walk through a soccer game. Maybe the park is muddy and I'm wearing new shoes. There are all kinds of reasons that the math of it would not be my top priority. And those reasons and decisions are still determined.

If I choose to, I needn't travel along a straight line from point A to point B. — Agent Smith

No, but you will from point A to point A.1. A smooth curve is a series of infinite straight lines. You were never headed to point B, you were going to point A.1 first.

Humans say the shortest distance between two points (of what they think they want), is a straight line. Math doesn't want anything.

Perhaps a better way to express it is that everything takes the path of least resistance. What Artemis might be saying is that humans will find the easiest way to do the hardest part. The hardest part for one person may be totally irrational to someone else. And the easiest way may be willingly ignorant, inefficient and not the shortest route at all. But that was not the goal. The goal was for that person to find the easiest way.

It's like asking how is water bad for plants? :chin: — Agent Smith

Yes indeed.

is information bad for democracy? — Agent Smith

Whose information?, and how successfully is it being distributed and absorbed? And at what rate compared to the news cycle and what we can reliably digest?

Some argue that if we lived forever that life would be greatly depreciated in value. — TiredThinker

Others have pointed out that if our lifespan were only longer and our vitality thus extended, we could grow as a society past the problems of our egos and all the trouble they bring. Thus life would have more value.

The OP supports the idea that we are all philosophers (Gramsci). We all make philosophical decisions everyday that shape our world whether we realize it or not. I have tried to make this point on PF before
and it doesn't get very far. Most see philosophers as a select group of the non lazy.

The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other — T Clark

I don't think it is any pre-requisite to read Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant and so on, to engage in and participate in discussion. — Manuel

Indeed, what power would decide otherwise?

"You people", lol. Just so we are clear, to what people do you think I belong? — Merkwurdichliebe

Well apparently you belong to the people that believe that:

if you think going out into society is a risk to your health and life, then YOU can choose to dig into your den of cowardice and stay put. Stop encroaching on other people's lives with your cowardice, man up. — Merkwurdichliebe

If cowardice is the opposite of bravery, are you doing something brave? Can you describe that?

I definitely do not want to be affiliated with you people. — Merkwurdichliebe

So your judgement on male cowardice is final? Can you see no other virtues to redeem them?

We kill people daily, one way or another; we just don't eat them.

Professional ethics is mostly about duty. — frank

Then deontology would serve our necessary connection to the rest of the tribe which requires empathy.

What is the role of empathy in ethics nowadays? — Shawn

Can you have ethics without empathy?

How would you summarize the importance of empathy in human nature? — Shawn

The word importance implies a moral fact.

What facilitates it or otherwise deters it from happening? — Shawn

Perhaps the realization that as a social animal, the lives of other people are important to us.

I prefer a technological Singularity, then merging with Strong AI, and then abandoning this planetary clot of dirt & blood for a nonplanetary spacefaring existence rather than, in effect, living la vita lobotomy on an 'extinction event'-attracting transhumanist earth. — 180 Proof

I love this Forum

Philosophy is, literally, the love of wisdom. — James Riley

And humans love to think they are wise. Whether they are or not.

Do we do all that for the love of it? — James Riley

No. We do it because we can't do without it. Formal philosophical positions are just a light cast on what we accepted yesterday. And we will amend tomorrow. Even if we accepted ignorant positions we still accepted them to make our way. Everyone is in the driver's seat. If the car is rolling then they are going somewhere. To say they don't know where they are going is a judgement not a condition.

Everybody has a brain. So what? That doesn't make them a philosopher. — James Riley

But don't we all make philosophical decisions every day? Don't we decide what events "are" and then how best to live with them? We may be wrong, or do it poorly, or don't want the awareness of what we are doing but no one else is doing it for us. Don't we all have a current world view that we have accepted whether we worked at it or not?

"matters of fact" (which cannot convey a truth-value). — 180 Proof

Can you briefly tell me why that is?

It will not happen again. — Gus Lamarch

Why not? Your boy Stirner says it's okay. Why don't you start a thread about egoism. I bet that's right in your wheelhouse.

And you might credit me for being the first one to bring you this topic... — Gus Lamarch

Thank you Gus.

You might credit Wikipedia for most of that.

Well, both. But the last four years have severely tested a lot of the things that used to draw people to this country. At the moment I don't think our grass is any greener than yours.

What's the process to immigrate to the US? anyone....? — Book273

I wouldn't recommend it at the moment.