There is no human nor god that can break the laws of the universe. — Athena

I am not sure about the point of people with alcohol problems not seeing themselves as part of a group. I am thinking of the whole history of the AA movement. — Jack Cummins

I would say that self- help groups have been a significant force in uniting people with alcohol problems and other issues which people identify as a focus.

I was countering your view that "most of the conversations at forums like this are about people, ie. the people directly involved and the way some particular idea is relevant or irrelevant to them." Were that the case disagreement over the status of X would be irrelevant since one would have no reason to think its relevance to oneself might need to be corroborated by relevance to another. — Isaac

People do not simply passionately declare that X us relevant to them. They passionately declare that X seems to them to be the case in such a way as to imply that such a property renders X necessary, in some way.

This is the conceit we adopt when we imagine the 'polite debate', respecting the views of either side.

That is hysterical and paranoid. — Kenosha Kid

I am not sure ignorance works and fear of the supernatural is ignorance? What is our goal? — Athena

What do you mean, whose letters am I using? What kind of argument is that?

But the act of generalising precedes the group. — bert1

If we had been at an earlier stage of history, it could have been that there had been less concerned for the elderly. — Jack Cummins

I do believe that we are at a stage in the life of humanity which has transcended the emphasis on 'the survival of the fittest'.

I am inclined to think that one of the problems with any current rise in Nazi values is more of a backlash against the way in which most people have already overcome a fair amount of prejudices already.

The point was that something's seeming to you to be the case is not contradictory to that thing's seeming to someone else not to be. And yet the bulk of disagreement seems to be on that very issue. — Isaac

If a person can't be happy when external conveniences are taken from them, then their happiness with those conveniences in place is weak, fragile, a liability.
— baker
A negligible one for the most part since, fortunately, — Kenosha Kid

For every human, it's just a matter of time when those external conveniences are taken from them -- by disease, injury, accident, economic collapse, natural catastrophe.
— baker
That seems to me a good argument for making the most of it.

Btw your presumption that happy people will become unhappy after an accident is not valid.

It's interesting though that your instinct upon meeting a happy person is to want to change their environment in order to:
wonder how long you'd still enjoy life
— baker
rather than just let them enjoy life.

If you're not only not enjoying life atm but cannot imagine anyone else enjoying their life, to the point where you suspect they're lying about enjoying life, yes, it probably is depression. — Kenosha Kid

The point was that something's seeming to you to be the case is not contradictory to that thing's seeming to someone else not to be. And yet the bulk of disagreement seems to be on that very issue. — Isaac

These conversations aren't about adding to the body of work of philosophy as such. Or, at most, adding only in small ways or indirectly. These posts aren't like contributing articles to a philosophy journal. — baker

I think most of the conversations at forums like this are about people, ie. the people directly involved and the way some particular idea is relevant or irrelevant to them.
— baker

You may read a different range of posts to me. The overwhelming majority of threads I read are of the form...

"it seems to me that X is the case".

"X cannot be the case because it seems to me that Y is the case and that Y contradicts X",

"but Y cannot be the case, because, as you have just admitted, it contradicts X and yet it seems to me that X is the case"...

...and so on. — Isaac

So, often an idea might be expressed even more doggedly by someone invested in that framing than it might be by a layman, but the idea itself does not gain anything by repetition, whether by expert or layman. — Isaac

Probably not a lot, since I will have been kidnapped and deprived of the things I love about life. — Kenosha Kid

I have heard and experienced that people who don't get much out of life are extremely selfish. Did not realise they were so vindictive and petty though.

Personally, I think the whole problem is extremely complex, but I am interested to know of what potential solutions you see, if any. — Jack Cummins

Okay, I may be idealist but, surely, this is a better option than indifference.

Also, in consideration of prejudice I am not just thinking of collective movements, but the existence of prejudice in daily life.

Sounds more like missing the nature of it entirely. It's not a distraction; it's a project. — Kenosha Kid

I take credit for nothing. On the contrary, I'm well aware that being alive is a privilege and I intend to fully exploit it. — Kenosha Kid

If you're not only not enjoying life atm but cannot imagine anyone else enjoying their life, to the point where you suspect they're lying about enjoying life, yes, it probably is depression.

I am still interested in hearing your point of view on the problem we have facing humanity, regarding the rise of Nazism once again. — Jack Cummins

I was talking about the point at which engagement stops, rather than the nature of the action to take. It goes back to what I said right at the beginning, most of these ideas are not new, and those that are become old very quickly. Most of what people consider 'not engaging with the ideas' is more properly "I've hard these ideas before, they were daft then and they're not any less daft in their new clothes". — Isaac

then you completely discount the possibility that other people aren't depressed. — Kenosha Kid

↪Kenosha Kid The question that arises is why would you want to when you don’t have to keep living. All that sounds like a chore to make life bearable and when you die you won’t remember anything at all. So why not skip to the end and not concern yourself with doing things you like? That argument only works if you have to stay alive in which case you should do stuff you like. But if you don’t then I see no reason to do so. — Darkneos

As much as I want to buy that from what I gather it's not simple at all like that. If that were the case then Buddhist monks or enlightened ones would commit suicide. Yet despite Buddhism knowing life is suffering and craving they claim that isn't why they stick around. — Darkneos

To learn, and to teach. — Pfhorrest

It's odd how people speculate about why people go on living as if it is something that they wouldn't consider for themselves, but surely there must be some reason such a lot of THEM do? — unenlightened

So if someone were to come on and politely, patiently explain why Jews were the inferior race and need to be exterminated for the benefit of the master race, and I told them to "fuck off", I'd be the one in the wrong there? We should, rather, have a long in-depth and polite conversation exploring our difference of opinion about the extermination of an entire race. — Isaac

Should I interfere at the building of the gas chambers? Or is it too soon whilst the debate is still to be settled?

So for all practical purposes you couldn't actually tell the difference, in any given discussion because it's extremely unlikely you're going to know you interlocutor's past sufficiently to know if they have ever given any ideas a fair shake - ie you'll never know if they're dismissing your idea out of hand because they decided to do so on that occasion (philosopher) or because they always do so (idealogue). — Isaac

It would be more profitable to try to delineate what makes for love of wisdom, as opposed to what a lover of wisdom would/should be like.
— baker
OK - have at it then.

I'd just like to be clear that nowhere am I advocating disrespecting anybody. Even group 5, I think, still see themselves as good people holding their views for good reasons; they're just ones to whom communicating the problems with those reasons and the consequent problems with their behavior is nigh-impossible. The whole point of the rest of the spectrum is to distinguish other degrees of disagreement as even less bad than that: that it's not just "us" and an unreachable "them", but there's shades in between, who deserve to be treated differently than the "unreachable them", the latter of whom I don't even think are in principle unreachable or some kind of inherently evil, but just... really, really hard to get through to. — Pfhorrest

Okay. But K is by no means typical. His Attack on Christendom rails against the banality of middle class Christianity. He thought the medievals has it right with their singularity of devotion. — Constance

I think and conclude you are either very young or out of your mind - non-exclusive "or." — tim wood

The lines between countries, nations, races, cultures may be arbitrary to you, but they aren't necessarily arbitrary to others. You're saying you're the one who dictates what the right way to think about the differences between countries, nations, races, cultures is, and that those who don't agree with you are wrong?
— baker

At some point, yes. How not? — tim wood

If that's correct, then one could be omnipotent and have created nothing. Indeed, to insist otherwise would be once more to put restrictions on an omnipotent being.

So, God could have created everything if he had so wished, but whether he actually did so or not is an open question and it is not inconsistent with his being omnipotent that he created nothing at all. Or so I think at the moment..... — Bartricks

Now, once more, a being who can do anything is not going to be bound by the laws of logic, for if they were they would not be able to do anything, but only those things that logic permits. — Bartricks

Truly, there is nothing that an imaginary God could not do, since there are no limits to the imagination! — Present awareness

I want to know WHY people choose to go on. — Darkneos

I find visciousness and vitriol a reason to stop all debate and is exactly the reason why discussions break down and become emotional fiat. I dont go into a discussion to stoke emnity like some troll. There should be some element of respect to keep the conversation from devolving into a brawl. I dont buy the idea that all arguments must get persinal and that using condescension and ad personum attacks count as anything resembling phosophical discourse. If you resort to that, then its poisoning the well right off the bat. Who wants that except a bunch of asshole types that get pleasure at complete conflict mode. — schopenhauer1

Most people are going to have kids and aren't remotely interested in whether it's ethical to do so or not. I mean, have you met people? — Bartricks