*think think*

I exist.

Hiiiiiii. Just trying to survive. Meeeep.

Thaaaanks! :flower:

:eyes:

I was special too. Except he/she/it called me "dear"..... :love:

Indeed lol. I'm still trying to get the glue out of my hair. Apparently I have such a freakin awesome brain they wanted to do all kinds of tests on me HAHA.

Back from the hospital! :flower: :flower: :flower:

BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wish lol.

lol. Mostly work and trying to not die so far HAHA.

:flower: :flower: :flower: Flowers for you. :snicker:

Heh last time i ended up in a pile of engine parts... :shade: I am on my own yet. The "elders" don't really like me.
HAHA! I wish!

Hmm I don't know! haha I never did get the answer... :shade:

Ehhh. I'm still here. Am discovering that if you just eat rice and sometimes skip 2 meals a day, you start fainting and get really weak. So that was something that everyone knew. After three months of being unemployed because of a surgery, life starts falling apart more than before. Ehhh. Someday, if I don't die first, I shall figure out this thing called living! :victory:

:up:

It is flustering.

Dreams are concepts that need to be worked for if one wishes to achieve it. And I intend to do what I can to work towards that dream. How does one work towards a dream such as Martin Luther King's? By practicing it in one's own life. In other words, practice what you preach.

In what matter have I misappropriated his beliefs? Quite sure he advocated for actual equality for all, which is the same mission I have. Not playing the victim card, but rather value people as people instead of skin or DNA.

Suit yourself. I do not believe I misquoted him. Until you give me something to actually work with, please refrain from merely insulting my person.

Satisfactory or not, given the current economic status, that is the most practical solution. We should build people, regardless of race, up with hard work and better values instead of giving them a victim mindset and setting them up to fail.

It's not 200 years ago, it's happening every day. Do you really believe that the brutality shown to black people went away with emancipation? — T Clark

No, of course not. Some of the black people's actions increased racism though. I have found that Booker T. Washington's approach to the issue would have been the most productive and in the long run, reduced racism the most.

I don't know you, so I don't know your particular situation, but white people as a class are given benefits not given to black people as a class. In this thread, we've designated that as "white privilege."
Anyway, it's not any privilege given to white people that's the biggest deal, it's the handicap given to blacks.

I strongly disagree with you here. White people are not given any more privilege than any other human in most places currently. It is more that society has been playing with the minds of black people making them feel like some kind of victim. Sure, they have had some hard times in history, but let's point out the other hard times of other races. In African history, white people were enslaved and severely disadvantaged. Should Africans be assisting white people who live there for all the setbacks they had?

As members of our society, citizens of our country, we share responsibility for the actions of our nation.
This isn't a question of whether you "personally haven't done anything to a black person that would harm them." It's whether our society, country, government has and should deal with the consequences of those actions.

As a country, we must realize that the government is not the people. The actions the government made are now the past, and we must work to prevent it in the future. That is about all that we can or should do.

Even if society weren't responsible for the negative consequences, there is benefit to addressing the issue in a constructive way.

It will create more racism, and in fact, already has. We too should dream, as Martin Luther King did, of a day when we won't be considered for the color of our skin, but for who we are. Not all wrongs will be made right, but we can certainly work harder to prevent further wrongs from being made.

I agree that a lot of wrongs have been done to a lot of people by various governments at various times, but that's life. Life isn't fair. If it was, then Germany would be paying the Jews for the Nazi era. (Yet everyone hates the Jews still...*shrug*)
Again, I would agree that those needless injustices should be compensated for, except that it would be people like you and me indirectly paying for it, which would just cause more hardship for everyone.

Thank you for your input!

I think the notion of subjectivity and objectivity is specifically characteristic of the modern epoch. It is part of the transition away from the 'I-thou' relationship which characterised pre-modern thought, where the world is understood as an expression of the divine intelligence manifesting as a sense of relationship, or relatedness, to the sacramental order, which underlies and animates the world. Whereas with the advent of modernity, man begins to see himself as a subject in a realm of objects, bracketing out or putting aside metaphysics or 'first philosophy', which increasingly becomes seen as a cultural artifact rather than an expression of higher truth. (See Wikipedia article on disenchantment.) — Wayfarer

Interesting. Kierkegaard seems to use subjectivity in that manner of the relationship between man and God; which makes sense in terms of the relationship between man and objects (not in the same manner as one supposedly has a relationship with God though).

It's been forever since I've read Kierkegaard, but he does declare that "Subjectivity is Truth" in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments uner the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. I agree, but you'd have to give it a couple of months before I could adequately respond to this. I'm of the opinion that it should be emphasized that all knowledge is situated by subjective experience. I actually reject objective truth altogether, but haven't quite hashed this all out well enough to deliver a decent argument. — thewonder

Okay.

I personally haven't done anything to a black person that would harm them in any manner. Why do I owe them anything? A lot of others are the same way, what is the point? During the War between the states, a lot of white people died to liberate black people just the same. Why do we owe them anything 200 years later?

Throwing around "privileged", "underprivileged", and "shame" seems absurd and insulting.

If someone is ashamed of being so-called privileged, then he or she is a selfish bigot that refuses to use his or her wealth or status to improve situations for oppressed people. They rightly should feel ashamed, but not of being privileged; instead, they should feel ashamed of their self-centered character and refusal to act. Moaning and groaning about it seems more like a passive-aggressive insult to those in a different class, almost like bragging about how much better off the one whining about it is than those who don't have wealth or status.

Being "ashamed" of one's race is just another form of racism and should be condemned as much as any other form. In a society that proclaims itself to promote tolerance and equality, then why are we insulting "whiteness"? Shouldn't we tolerate white people as much as any other race? People struggle no matter what genetics inside them, no race is better off than any other.

I don't know. Falling in love with someone and living together for a million years blissfully doesn't sounds that bad. — Wallows

One person is not the world.

Life forever in this world would essentially be a living hell. Death is an act of mercy. Imagine, if only you could afford the treatment to live forever, you would see your closest friends die, countless bloodshed from war and disasters, never-ending corruption. If you had any disorders or disabilities such as depression or anxiety it would be an endless battle against it. Would life even be worth living then?
Rather, number your days, and don't cut it short. Live a productive life, and then pass it on to the next generation.

Hello, you might have heard of me. I certainly know you. My previous partner younger brother has an enemy who has an enemy who is your best friend. We lost contact because I he got stuck because of my actions. I am well travelled, I have been all across the world. I have been in the circus because I my extraordinary jumping ability. I am a logistical expert and have moved many things from one place to another, I am own a billion dollar industry because of that. I like to think I have changed from what I used to be, and I hope that you can be my new partner.


Whoever solves this riddle gets a flower. :heart:

Is assisted suicide for adult people who wish to die, immoral? Are there good arguments against assisted dying? Or should people have the right to die a relatively painless death if they wish to do so? Why should you keep living if life becomes unbearable and does not get better? Why do some people perceive assisted suicide as immoral? What would assisted suicide make immoral if the person really wants it? — Baskol1

If one wishes to discover what is immoral, then one must decide what is moral. Virtues such as kindness, patience, and self-control are largely recognized as moral, thus good. Suicide is death, namely, the deliberate removal of life by oneself. (which in this perspective, assisted suicide doesn't exist. It is merely allowed killing.)
Does any "form" of suicide allow virtues to increase? Does it support the growth of love, peace, and goodwill towards others?

I have to agree with such a statement. It is indeed difficult to be alone with one's thoughts and nothing to distract from them.

Noooooo! Not Tiff going missing too! :fear: :cry:

The last word shall be mine. Shhhhh!

I suppose it also plays a part in beliefs in religion and the afterlife. Everything is interpreted subjectively. Objectively I don't know if there really is an answer.

I'm going to break free soon. :)

LOL then show me differently. A good deal of advocates for communism and socialism don't have a clue what it actually entails in a practical sense.

Unwilling? Or unable?

Here is a recent interchange I had on Twitter:

Tweeter 1: The Tories said privatisation of the railways would give us "better, more efficient and cheaper trains". Today rail fares go up by 3.1% while punctuality is at a 12-year low. Meanwhile in Luxembourg they are making all public transport free from 2019.

Tweeter 2: Another leftie after free stuff.

Pattern-chaser: Free? We all pay. That's the point of socialism: from each according to their means, and to each (or all) according to their (our) needs. And we share the cost. It's not free, it's mutual care. Love thy neighbour?

This offers an alternative perspective to your own. I can't guarantee it's more accurate, although it seems so to me. — Pattern-chaser

I can't speak of the train system you've used as an example, but I can say that the US post office, which is a public service, shows itself to be an extremely bad example with lower quality service and non-competitive pricing. I can't think of a public service that I can speak highly of, it seems to be lower quality in general and significantly slower.

As for "mutual care" there is no care whatsoever involved. It's either pay or you go to jail or worse. If it was care, then we would have charities where people could donate according to their means. Love is not forced. If it truly shared the cost, then those in leadership would starve right along with the people in their unpractical plan, but indeed they do not. They merely create a larger gap between the classes causing almost everyone to submit to the depths of poverty and starvation while they prosper. They merely use "fairness" to gain an advantage in order to oppress the actual workers.

You might argue with Marx's proposed solution to the woes of capitalism. You can certainly argue with practical communism, Marxism, Leninism, Maoism etc. But it's not so easy to disagree with his analysis. — Txastopher

His findings are unpractical and fantasy. The resulting attempts of such practice show increased death rates. If one cannot practice such ideology then it is a bad ideology.

And what do you think corporations are doing if not micromanaging people in a corporate system? — Bitter Crank

Not true. I'm able to develop other ways to make money. I'm not trapped by one job, nor am I stuck making the exact same amount as everyone else. I see this as very wrong.
I am not being micromanaged because I can leave at any point, it's just not the most strategic thing to do right now. They are destroying themselves with their dishonesty.

So your boss is a jerk, he doesn't pay you enough, and this is the government's fault?

Why don't you keep the blame where you laid it: on your boss's doorstep? He's the one deciding to underpay you and maybe harass you to boot.

For some odd reason unknown to me you would prefer to blame non-existent socialism for your problems instead of a harsh, capitalist system which doesn't give a shit about you. — Bitter Crank

No, this is not the government's fault that my boss is a jerk. It is the government's fault for increasing taxes on people who make more, which decreases my chances at making a profit through my own business and for making quality healthcare unaffordable because of extremely bad policy and laws regarding it.