Property rights allow a business to fire people who aren't vaccinated. If Baker comes from a very socialist country, there might be more restrictions on firing people. — frank

No, the issue is the exact wording of the termination, not the actual reason for the termination.

The wording has to be in accordance with the law for the termination to be legal.

The actual reason for the termination can be whatever the employer wants it to be, even if it is illegal.

Interesting way of communicating from someone who feels entitled to give others lectures about the importance of communicating well. Doesn't mean the advice is wrong, of course -- it just means you're a complete hypocrite. — Xtrix

I can't say that I'm not glad to see that scientism and capitalism are digging their own grave. Granted, at an enormous cost to human life and to the planet, but still, a grave.

Interesting to be such an advocate for one group while entirely ignoring another, larger group with far higher rates of fatality. — Xtrix

You should know better.

There is less fault with the anti-vaccers, becuse their stance is a reaction, a revolt against the normalization of scientism, against capitalist exploitation, against being ruled by aged adolescents with advanced degrees.

Every day, I turn on the news and I see people in their 40's, 50's, 60's and older, high politicians, people with advanced degrees, money, and political power who have the emotional maturity of adolescents and who are enforcing a culture of plebeian mediocrity upon everyone.

I haven't said I know better than the Buddha. — Janus

You said:

There is no "final" or complete solution to the problem of suffering. — Janus

The Buddha maintained that there is a final solution to the problem of suffering. So if you say that there is no "final" or complete solution to the problem of suffering, you are in direct opposition to the Buddha.

Of course all of this is, at least in regard to the sense in which I think the OP intended to question the idea of Realism, way off topic. Perhaps it should be moved to a thread of its own. — Janus

Indeed!

Meh. I sometimes go for days without even turning on the computer, I just don't have the time. I only recently got a smart phone, but I don't use it much. Those damn small letters and having to move the text in order to read it. Nah.

Imagine there's an internet blackout and noone is there to see it ...

Possibly, I'm mistaken; and you can prove this. Do tell o sage – what is "the cause of suffering" and how ought we "uproot" it? — 180 Proof

It's not a matter of ought. You're free to suffer.

I think the philosophical stance that is implicit in Buddhism is quite intelligible if studied diligently. — Wayfarer

Sure, and, as I said, it's a stance that is counterproductive for success in the world. People who think "it's all in their head" tend to end up in institutions with white padded cells.

Anyway, what prompted this detour into Buddhism is what Isaac said earlier:

/.../ I think a lot of the talk about realism and anti-realism gets stuck on this, but unhelpfully so. There's little point in getting hung up on that problem because it cannot be surmounted. The solution is to accept that state of affairs and move on. We're talking about the way things seem to us to be.

For some of us, things seem to be such that there's an external cause of our internal representations, something we cannot alter in real time (we can, of course, alter it after the perception, interact with it's construction - Joshs). I'd hazard a guess that for any who think there's not an external cause of our representation, the argument rests not on some way things seem to them to be, but rather on the above meta argument (that everything is ultimately some way things seem to us to be) and we should discard discussion of that meta argument as unhelpful.

So the issue really is in what things seem to have an external cause and why they seem that way. — Isaac

Distinguishing between subject and object, between the internal and the external is helpful for many purposes, notably, for successfully functioning in the socio-economic system.


Developing epistemological and ontological theories is a purposeful activity, and the purpose is more than just the ostensible "to get to the bottom of things, to figure out how things really are", but is purpose or goal oriented. In the case of the Buddha, the purpose was the complete cessation of suffering. For some others, it is power over other people. Etc.

Let's say that we in the UK abolish the monarchy. Does the Queen of England exist? Well, Elizabeth Windsor exists, but as there is no monarchy there is no Queen of England, and if there is no Queen of England then the Queen of England doesn't exist. — Michael

That's an equivocation then.

Indeed, and the solution may well be to stop playing that game by rejecting the division between object and subject. Look for a formulation that is not exclusively one or the other. — Banno

The aim or purpose of looking for such a formulation being what?

I may or may not have a different opinion than Gautama. What do you think? Do you know exactly what he thought? — Janus

For all practical intents and purposes, we agree that the Pali Canon is "the word of the Buddha".

I have read Buddhist works a fair bit. Works in Zen (Dogen, D T Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki, Hui Hai, Kaplan (I think) Thich Nat Hanh, Tibetan Buddhist works by authors whose names I can't remember and I've read some of the sutras (the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra are two I can remember the names of) I've read a little Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna and some early discourses of the Buddha, and lots of other stuff I can't remember the titles of. I'm familiar with the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path and the idea of interdependent origination and so on.

I'm not a Buddhist and my relationship with Buddhism is rather complicated. But when someone claims to know better than the Buddha (or better than the Pali Canon), this catches my attention and I am very curious as to whether the person can live up to their claim.

Obviously much of it is open to interpretation, and there are and have been many schools of Buddhism. I understand the idea of the truth of suffering, that it is caused by craving and attachment, the idea that suffering can be ended, and the proposed way of ending it.

The question is as to whether any of that is proposed as the way to end just individual suffering, or whether it is proposed as the way to the final end of all suffering. I have some sympathy for the former, as I think there is some truth in it, but the latter is an unattainable goal, unless you were to destroy the world entirely. To be born into this world is to be subject to inevitable suffering.

Your two paragraphs contradict eachother.

At least one of the causes of suffering caused by human attitudes and actions has been identified. What possible solution could there be to suffering caused by natural events? Do you really believe that the behavior of the natural world is going to change, or that humans could cause it to change?

Gautama suffered old age and death just as we all will. Do you really believe he felt no pain whatsoever? — Janus

You said you read all those Buddhist sources, but you still have those questions??

If we can achieve a good death and the ability to suffer pain and physical decline cheerfully, what more could we ask? — Janus

A.k.a. "The Third and a half noble truth: Suffering is manageable".
No, this is not part of the Buddha's teaching.

I do. If I don't "know better" than an Iron Age philosopher, given all that humanity has learned in the interim, then God help me. Old Siddhartha believed in the "soul" and in reincarnation (and most certainly in the pantheon of Hindu gods to one or another extent), both obvious fallacies, and the latter an obviously ridiculous fallacy, to a logical positivist like me. — Michael Zwingli

Oh, he believed those things? Then it shouldn't be difficult for you to provide some citations for your claim.

Either way, you've been given plenty of information by now, but oddly brush it off with a hand wave. Are you looking for something else altogether...? — jorndoe

I get the feeling that Baker is arguing for the sake of argument. But I see absolutely no substance to it— just the appearance of disagreement and contradiction. Other than “pro-vaxxers are mean in communicating and overly enthusiastic,” which is sometimes true, I see nothing. — Xtrix

I mean, really. What is wrong with you?!


Must you yourselves suffer strokes from the vaccine in order to even begin to have empathy for iatrogenic diseases?

You think people should be consoled by a reference to luck?!

My consolation is: some people are unlucky. — Xtrix

Now sit down and think long and heard about what "luck" means in terms of science.

Chance is the end of science. We do science in order to overcome chance.

Either way, you've been given plenty of information by now, but oddly brush it off with a hand wave. Are you looking for something else altogether...? — jorndoe

I get the feeling that Baker is arguing for the sake of argument. But I see absolutely no substance to it— just the appearance of disagreement and contradiction. Other than “pro-vaxxers are mean in communicating and overly enthusiastic,” which is sometimes true, I see nothing. — Xtrix

Oh for fuck's sake. Do you have plastic flowing in your veins or what?!

As long as vaccination is not actually legally mandatory, suspending or firing someone for not being vaccinated is illegal.
— baker
Citation, please. — tim wood

Read again. I'm stating a truism.

you offered roughly nothing, and called my comment shallow rhetoric?

I've already mentioned that the evidence is the ground authority. And we'd be fools not to learn from it. — jorndoe

And you still have nothing to offer to those damaged by the vaccines and their close ones.
All you can offer is the standard rhethoric of risk, luck, and large populations. This is shallow.

All the evidence in the world changes nothing for those damaged by the vaccines and other medical treatments.

Here, I posted a thread on this quite a while back, but it generated little interest: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10157/how-to-come-to-terms-with-being-an-expendable-cog-in-the-system

The larger organization operates in big numbers.
From its perspective, it's acceptable if a medical treatment has serious side-effects for a certain % of the population.
From its perspective, it's acceptable if a governmental measure during the pandemic leads to job loss for a certain % of the population.

For the larger organization, some losses are acceptable. It goes further: it expects that those who are that loss -- those who end up losing jobs in a pandemic because the government doesn't allow their industry to operate, or those who end up with permanent negative effects of a medical treatment -- nevertheless continue to trust the larger organization as if all was well.

So if you -- yes, you -- end up being the unfortunate one who lost their job because of the measures; if you end up being the one permanently paralyzed by the vaccine:

How do you still trust the government, the medical system?

How do you make sense of the damage that you yourself suffer, presumably for the wellbeing of others?

The government and the medical system expect you to view yourself as an expendable cog in the system. As such, how do you still trust them? — baker

The rest of your waffle are just excuses for more American fascism. — StreetlightX

It simply seems to be part of American culture to view things in white and black terms, in terms of competitive oppositions, us vs. them mentality, the Wild West, the relentless struggle for survival, for wealth.
American culture is, at its heart, plebeian culture.

An imposition of a Covid vaccine, shown to save lives and reduce both incidence and severity of an otherwise incurable and contagious sickness seems reasonable. — tim wood

That you are unable or unwilling to provide any semblance of consolation for those damaged by the covid vaccines shows your cold, hard heart.

So what's the big scandal in COVID, as seen by dissenters? — Olivier5

That mankind has allowed brute capitalism to be the norm of human relationships.

And thus anti-vaxxing is a taking from me for no good reason something that is mine. And that leaves no room for respect, nor is fair. — tim wood

If something can be taken from you, it was never yours to begin with.

Some people have no decency and they don't deserve to be treated decently. They are just assholes. — Olivier5

A gentleman is supposed to be different than ordinary people in some important way. Hence the word "gentleman".

But here you are, proposing that one should behave exactly the way ordinary people do.

You're more than old enough to cease playing socially approved games of keeping up appearances.

Like, maybe think about building a robust and accessible education system first before resorting to punitive measures? — StreetlightX

What would need to change is the perception of the value of education.

There has been a general worldwide trend to view education as a means to an end -- education as a means to be better able to get a well paying job.

It is not popular to view education as a mode of cultivation with the aim of being cultured, in the old-fashioned European sense of what it means to be cultivated, cultured.

Modern education systems basically aim to produce plebeians with advanced degrees.

You deny the Buddha? You know better than the Buddha?
— baker

I don't accept any man as a final authority on anything, Baker. If you do, that's your choice. — Janus

I asked you whether you knew better than than the Buddha. Do you?

At least one of the causes of suffering caused by human attitudes and actions has been identified. What possible solution could there be to suffering caused by natural events? Do you really believe that the behavior of the natural world is going to change, or that humans could cause it to change?

If you had read what the Buddha said, you'd have some ideas.

It's not about the stakes, it's about what is at stake.

I just don't understand gamblers.

If one is making the argument that there are people having strokes and dying because of the vaccine, and that this is a reason for not taking the vaccine, then how is this not simply risk-aversion? — Xtrix

I'm not making that argument, and it's not clear why people think I am.

It would be perfectly rational if the rates were higher -- but the chances are so low that to point to this as reason for rejecting it simply makes no sense, as we engage in activities all the time that have higher chances of death and disfigurement, like riding in cars and showering in a bathtub.

True, we don't usually have to "debate" those other activities. But we don't normally have to debate vaccines either -- not until very recently.

If someone decided suddenly to stop riding in cars, citing "accidents and death" as a reason not to, or in airplanes (like in the movie Rain Man), then besides listening, empathizing, and being compassionate to this person, how else would you try to persuade them that they're mistaken and that the activity they're unwilling to engage in is actually quite safe?

I wouldn't try to persuade them at all, it is not my place.

Most importantly, a person doesn't do something because it is "quite safe". The reason people do things is not because there would be a low risk involved. In fact, many things that people do are technically high risk (eating junk food, drunk driving, extreme sports etc.) or small probability of success (applying for a job, seeking love).

People do things because they consider them worthwhile, in line with their value system and such. Not because something would be a low risk or a high probability of success. Considerations of probability are, at best, a distraction.
You don't eat pork chops because you're sure that the risk of contracting a tapeworm would be low; you eat pork chops because you like to eat pork chops, and to hell with tapeworms.


The life that people will get after they get vaccinated will not be better; at best, it merely won't be worse than before. Getting vaccinated will not bring an added quality to one's life. At most and at best, it will merely retain the status quo. This is a weak selling point. Who's excited about the status quo? Barely anyone.


Further, you fail to offer a meaningful consolation for the prospect of vaccine damage and vaccine failure.

Note the question mark.

Simply pointing out that people quite merrily live by keeping two sets of books. Schizoid is the wrong word. Hypocritical may be closer. — Tom Storm

Quite merrily?

Well, as long as health and wealth last, one can do many things. But is keeping two sets of books a viable plan for happiness, regardless of external circumstances?

There is no "fianl" or complete solution to the problem of suffering. — Janus

You deny the Buddha? You know better than the Buddha?

The suffering inflicted on humans and animals by humans would be eliminated or at least diminished within the bounds of practical possibility if we could all embrace and act on the "morally vacant view" that 180 Proof set before us.

No, his proposal is not viable because it does not aim to uproot the cause of suffering. It only attempts to address some of the symptoms.

Which is a view that can be held without negative consequences only by a Buddhist monk.
— baker

Says who? — Wayfarer

The whole project of the complete cessation of suffering as worked out by Early Buddhism is actionable only for people who can live in sufficient renunciation (which is, for all practical intents and purposes, reserved for monks).

It is often said that (Early) Buddhism has no metaphysics. Indeed, we can say that the Buddha was not interested in a doctrine of how _all_ things really are. But he was only interested in how things really are as they pertain to complete cessation of suffering (the analogy with the handful of leaves).

Hence the view that "you never see outside of the mind-created world within which all the objects of perception exist" is part of the project of the complete cessation of suffering (Sabba Sutta), but isn't intended as some disinterested, objective, metaphysical claim about "how things really are" (the way philosophers and psychologists tend to try to look at the matter).

It's not "a morally vacant view": the problem is that people do not embrace the view and act on it. — Janus

Really? The final solution to the problem of suffering is widely known and readily available, it's just that people "do not embrace it and act on it"?

try to understand what they're about. — tim wood

They are about your right to despise others and to kill them for not complying with your ideas about how they should be.

As far as "seeing the actual notice of termination, the actual wording": no, I haven't. I don't work for these companies. But it's been reported pretty widely that some employees (though fairly few) have been terminated for not complying with vaccination policy. — Xtrix

As long as vaccination is not actually legally mandatory, suspending or firing someone for not being vaccinated is illegal.

The actual wording of the termination is important. If it said something like "failure to comply with vaccination law" in a jurisdiction where covid vaccination is not legally mandatory, then it can be challenged in court.

But if the wording was something like "failure to comply with the demands of the employer", then it cannot be challenged (or hardly).

IOW, the actual reason for why a person was terminated needn't be the one specified on the termination document. Every day, people get fired for being fat, for getting a tattoo, for being of the wrong religion (all of which would be illegal), but the termination document doesn't list those as reasons, but something more general.

Here, and wherever some one/thing suffers. — 180 Proof

Morality is objective because all suffering persons depend on one another to keep the implicit (eusocial) promise both to not harm one another and to help reduce each other's suffering whenever possible (Spinoza). — 180 Proof

Which is a morally vacant view as it does not address the cause of suffering and does not uproot the cause of suffering.

I'd say simply that we are ontological realists by default because it is intuitively obvious the stair we just tripped on is actually there independent of us. Only through (too) much thought will we question that.

As to why morality isn't the same, I'd say because we don't trip over good and evil and we realize we create all sorts of social norms. If the morally real is out there, where is it? — Hanover

It seems to me that to most people, good and bad are as plainly obvious as tables and chairs. People typically don't lose sleep over right and wrong, good and bad, but are as certain of them as they are of the chair they're sitting on.

Yes, we (even the most implacable idealist) have no choice but to behave as though the real world is real.

If we want to live. What we believe however is separate, isn't it? — Tom Storm

How schizoid can one handle to be?

People are being suspended or fired from their jobs for not being vaccinated. As long as vaccination is not actually legally mandatory, suspending or firing someone for not being vaccinated is illegal.
— baker

This is completely wrong. Ask United Airlines, who did exactly that. — Xtrix

What is wrong?

Did you see the actual notice of termination, the actual wording?

And the data show that the risks are incredibly low, and that vaccines are safe. How else are we to talk to those who continue to refuse? — Xtrix

As if they are human beings who are not convinced by mere gambles.

It simply means that I regularly think about death and dying — Tom Storm

What exactly do you mean by "death" and "dying"?

Diseases, ways that people get killed, what will happen with your belongings when you're gone, ...?

I'm often mindful of my mortality. — Tom Storm

What does that look like? Can you elaborate?

And you still have nothing to offer to those damaged by the vaccines and their close ones.

All you can offer is the standard rhethoric of risk, luck, and large populations. This is shallow.