By voting to give them power in the first place, you are agreeing to give them the power to potentially outlaw future elections. You would be at their mercy, so your solution of voting them out is being hopeful at best.

So, what do you think about it? Maybe you could quote what was particularly meaningful to you. — Paine

If I tried, the quote would probably be missing context, since the arguments in the book are tied together and make more sense as a whole. Either way, I agree with his main argument that the idea of political authority is illegitimate.

↪AntonioP Sounds like a standard libertarian, anti-governmental screed. — Tom Storm

And this sounds like an ad hominem fallacy. You have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into believing the institution of government is good that you get angry at even the suggestion that this might not be the case.

I mean, it completely misrepresents the idea of representative democracy, which is based on informed consent. We designate representatives to enact laws to maintain order, and so on. Depicting that as slavery or involuntary submission is a dangerous falsehood in my view. — Wayfarer

You can call voting "consenting", but why would you consent to allowing politicians to write and pass whichever laws they feel like? That is what "representative democracy" actually is. They have the final say in what laws they pass, and you have to obey them even if you disagree with them. You are okay with voting for your own subjugation?

Some of the posts in this thread make me think of how those who supported the idea of having a king or monarchy sounded, denouncing those who rejected the king's right to rule as "dangerous" and "crazy". In the end, monarchies still lost their power and faded away.

My best guess is whenever your brain developed enough for you to be conscious.

Like god must be atheist said, many politicians are narcissists. This implies that they seek power solely for the sake of power, and do not care much, if at all, about who gets hurt in the process. Either way, I don't believe in the idea of political authority in general, since politicians are just flawed people like everyone else. There is no reason they should be obeyed as if all their laws are perfect.

To simplify the answer, for me anyway, it is tempting to say that the meaning of existence is that existence exists because it has to, or it wouldn't exist in the first place. If we accept this argument as true, then it can be assumed that there is a reason, or purpose, for existence: again, it has to exist.

This argument rejects the idea that the universe and nature of existence is random and chaotic, as specific processes with specific characteristics, qualities, behaviors etc. resulted in the creation of existence. And since these processes pre-determined what existence would be, it can also be assumed that existence is the way it's "supposed" to be.

I believe that objective reality exists, despite how complex and random life appears to be. While people have different interests, the common factor is that we can learn about and appreciate different aspects of life and what it means to be human.

Your question about whether life can be viewed as an experiment is very interesting, since there is a lot to think about! With any experiment, what we are trying to learn from it is the most important part of it, so it is important to ask what kind of result you are looking for.

To me, life is about learning from our experiences and our ability to think, and we can't always predict what we'll learn in the future, so it is less predictable than a typical experiment in my opinion.

I believe the name of this branch of philosophy is aesthetics, which you actually already mentioned in your post.

I believe our past experiences have a significant influence in how we shape our views related to existence, and our lives in general.

Depending on whether you were raised in a functional or dysfunctional household, you can be more or less prone to having a positive outlook on life. Having confidence and self-esteem also go a long way in motivating yourself to make goals and plans that you find worthy of achieving.

In essence, I think mental health is one of the most important factors that determine one's outlook on life, and fortunately, there is a lot of scientific research that shows what impacts our mental health, and what can safeguard and improve it.

Thanks for the interesting post, Hippyhead! :smile: My immediate thought is that if someone is quickly scanning through another's ideas simply to find fault in those ideas, then that person isn't very interested or open to considering those ideas in the first place. Of course it helps to point out contradictions and other flaws in one's thinking, but to effectively do this, you also need to thoughtfully consider how all of the ideas, arguments, etc. relate or don't relate to each other, and why the person might have proposed them. This is not easy to do if you're just briefly glancing at what he or she wrote. In addition, the problem with the ideas might not even be that they are wrong per se, but that they have not been elaborated upon enough or backed up with examples or evidence.

As for my thoughts on the discipline of philosophy in general, I don't believe it is pointless just because people can't agree on everything. It is noble to search for the truth for the sake of understanding it to live a meaningful life, and since our experiences, intelligence, wisdom etc. vary, we will have different views. That doesn't take away from the meaning we find in our own beliefs and why.

The government has a duty to get involved. — Michael

"The government" is just a group of people. They don't have the physical ability to force everyone to wear masks even if they wanted to. This is why I believe more emphasis needs to be placed on taking on personal responsibility as opposed to just having faith that those in power will do the right thing.

They also mandate seatbelts. That's not political. So why is it with masks?

I suppose that it's about whether the government even has the right to force us to wear masks. I'm not opposed to wearing masks in public. I'm opposed to the prevalent mentality that the government needs to treat us like babies who don't know what to do without them. I want to live in a society where we have more confidence in ourselves and take on more responsibility as opposed to usually looking to those in power for answers and solutions.

In my opinion, the more educated tend to lean left because their priorities are different compared to those who hold more conservative views. For example, academics are less likely to own or manage businesses directly, so they are less concerned with having lower taxes and less regulations that would make it easier to start and sustain a business.