History or centuries don't teach lessons.
People choose to take from them whatever lesson they want or consider relevant.

Sorry, I had on intention to disrupt. When I first started reading the debate, it seemed oddly familiar, and now I remembered why: I had a Christian "friend" who, over the years, went to great lengths in trying to convert me. His style was to produce a science-inspired or philosophy-inspired argument, parts of which were indisputable and to which I agreed, and then he'd go for the jugular. I didn't convert. But now and then I notice and become aware of the consequences (and damage) that being exposed to his conversion effors left on me. Your debate about propositions was one such instance.

You seem to think that distinguishing between the vulnerable and the healthy is easy (enough), and that it is easy (enough) to effectively separate them.

It's not clear that this is the case.

Nevertheless, an outlook that promotes rationality to the exclusion of emotions seems to miss the point of what it is to be human. — TheMadFool

Not _exclusion_ of emotions, but one that promotes finer, nobler emotions, and also an outlook that promotes greater emotional literacy.

You seem to have this strange idea that unless one has tantrums, one isn't showing emotion at all.

As if only this was emotion:
https://media.tenor.com/images/20a6c063f322099ce399ae9d4994a522/tenor.gif

but not this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/80/ed/49/80ed493b48e50935c1d07e3cdb837edf.gif

I understand why you want to obscure it. — frank

He's just a supremacist, not specifically a white supremacist. Right-wingers tend to be authoritarian, supremacist: "I know and others don't know. I am honest, others are not. I see things as they really are, others do not. I am the arbiter of other people's reality."

But if we keep these people, or continue to keep and hide away our healthy (those that are immune via infection (with healthy immune systems) or via vaccination) socially isolated, then we have accomplished nothing. — Roger Gregoire

IIn the case of covid, the point of social distancing is to slow down the infection rate, so that the medical system doesn't collapse.


Secondly, who exactly are "the healthy"? If you look at obesity and diabetes rates (two major risks for covid complications), the healthy are actually a relatively small group.

I'm arguing that all belief is meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding the belief; that all belief consists of correlations drawn between different things; that some language-less creatures have belief; that not all belief is propositional in content; that all our accounting practices of an other's belief(and our own) are propositional in form. — creativesoul

This holds true for religious belief as well.

Being economically disadvantaged, for instance, is no barrier to treating your neighbour better. — Kenosha Kid

Or so liberal common sense would have us believe.

But IRL, no good deed goes unpunished. What's the point of having one's mind operate by the humanist standards of secular academia, if that makes one a loser?

It sucks to be made to drink your own poison, doesn't it.

I'm saying that when people are in disadvantaged positions, there is, to say the least, no incentive to change their minds or to overcome their cognitive biases.
Do you disagree?

Seems to me that it's time for the entire country to go back to kindergarten and review some basic rules for carrying out a successful life. — synthesis

Eh?
Most people learn by kindergarten that it's dog eat dog world.

Well, yes it is. It's certainly not true that everyone is in every position of power all the time. That would be nonsensical. — Kenosha Kid

So, to go back to where this tangent started from:

Since I don't hold any position of power, it's irrelevant what biases I may hold in regard to others, as long as those biases aren't to my disadvantage. — baker

When a person is not in a position of power, does it make sense or is it economical to retain biases that aren't to one's disadvantage?

Yes, I'm perfectly well aware of the sweeping assumptions I make about people here - but those people are quite free to refute those accusations, and explain what they really believe, which is my purpose in doing so. I'm being deliberately provocative with people being insufficiently honest. — counterpunch

When Patrick Jane or Gregory House do that, it's fun to watch and they solve cases and figure out the right diagnosis.
But when real people do it, it just means they're jerks. And nothing good comes out of it.

I'm worried about the left wing, post modernist, politically correct, anti-capitalist assault on western civilisation. — counterpunch

Oh, suffer. Poor you.

If God is with you, who can be against you?!

No I encounter bad faith arguments, and... — counterpunch

You have an infinite supply of chips on your shoulder.

Here's the difference between us. If George Floyd had been a white criminal, who resisted arrest by four police officers, while handcuffed, making it impossible to put him in the car - so they restrained him, and he died, possibly as a consequence of that restraint - I'd be saying the same thing. I'd be saying Floyd created the situation that led to his death, and the benefit of the doubt is with the police. You wouldn't. In fact, if George Floyd were a white criminal we'd never have heard of him. Floyd's skin colour changes things for you. That's what makes you a racist. — counterpunch

I did an experiment with the George Floyd situation:
I didn't pay attention to it when it was on the news, and only saw the video of his arrest for the first time last week.

What I saw there was the police acting in bad faith (as the police often does) and a person who was helpless against that.


Unlike probably most posters here, I am not for the US, not from the UK, I am from a country that is some 99% white and the closest I've ever seen a black person is in a tv or newspaper commercial.

I, in effect am, "color blind", but not because of political orientation, but simply because growing up in a monoracial culture where race is never or only rarely an issue can make a person not focus on skin color/race at all. Our official identification documents issued by the state do not contain a race description. Unlike US ones.

Yes, I'm perfectly well aware of the sweeping assumptions I make about people here - but those people are quite free to refute those accusations, and explain what they really believe, which is my purpose in doing so. I'm being deliberately provocative with people being insufficiently honest. — counterpunch

IOW, you approach communication in bad faith.

What could you possibly expect in return??

Death (nonexistence) before dishonor (feeling). Precisely my point. — TheMadFool

*sigh*

I get that and it's a great point, but it seems a bit in-your-face. Perhaps it's just that moral corruption is so deeply ingrained at this point that nobody really cares (similar to the political sphere where people expect the worst and that's exactly what they get). — synthesis

There are also technological advancements that have changed some aspects of sports. For example, instant replay on the spot so that a referee can look it up and only then make a decision, is a relatively recent thing. In soccer, for example, many opposed the use of instant replay. We can guess why.

I've also heard from an amateur soccer player that faking fouls, outs etc. is standard practice, simply part of the game.

I think if the Buddha were here with us now, he would agree: all of our endeavors are at the most basic level, a yearning for this extraordinary one thing. — Constance

Based on what do you think that??

What have you heard about the Buddha, and which can reasonably be ascribed to the Buddha, that makes you think the above?

*sigh*

Jeering and ridicule simply don't work and tell far more about the person doing it than the object of ridicule. — ssu

I used to think so too. But in the last four years, I've been beginning to change my opinion.
Being civilized is simply overrated.

Revenge!

As opposed to only seeing things in black, like lefty political correctness freaks do? — counterpunch

Oh, orange is the new black ...

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
/.../
You better believe it! — unenlightened

When put that way, what was the gist of the motivation for the debate about whether beilef is propositional or not?

I got the feeling that it was about whether belief in God (and other religious claims) is justified.

My feeling could be wrong, of course.

Disagreeing with right wing members has so quickly and consistently seen me named as a communist, or an identity politician, or some such — Kenosha Kid

Yeah, it's their special power to see things in black-and-white like that.

In the dynamic of sexual predator/target, they do not occupy the position of power. — Kenosha Kid

Then it's not true that "Everyone's in a position of power all the time."

That does not make them powerless in every conceivable dynamic. If you can do something about something, that is a position of power.

Sure.

To get a feel for it, two literary texts:
Camus: The Stranger
Sartre: No exit

And:
Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Indeed, one is the inability to emote and the other is about control but what I'm driving at is that the wish to control emotions reveals a secret obsession to be emotionally dead, like existing robots and AI. — TheMadFool

Well, I suppose some people want to control emotions for such a reason.

But some people follow the path of the samurai.

You're just not allowing for enough detail in this.

I think he’s asking if they were in a position of power then. — Pfhorrest

Yes, obviously, this is what I'm asking. I omitted [in a position of power] because I thought it was clear from the context that this is what I was referring to, since my question followed directly upon his statement that "Everyone's in a position of power all the time."

Clearly, this doesn't seem to be the case with his girlfriends when they were alone and accosted by men.

Unless KK actually thinks they were in a position of power when they were alone and accosted by men.

Ah okay. Yes, same thing. Not the same thing as confirmation bias, though. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, I didn't remember the term for the bias, so I described it; but I clearly parsed the two sentences, each of which was about a different bias.

It's not that Trump merely captures what lives among people, he actively forged it into a populist movement for his own gain. — ChatteringMonkey

But how can this be proven?

The scents and sounds become significant(meaningful) as a result of becoming part of a capable creature's correlations drawn between them, possible food items(prey), their own hunger pangs, etc. Prior to becoming part of those correlations, they were not at all meaningful for the aforementioned animal. Rather, they were just sounds and scents. — creativesoul

So you're arguing for semantic holism?

But I am deeply disturbed by the way people seem to object to having to pay for the arts. When I have conversed with some others who seem to think that I waste my money in this ways, they have gone as far as to suggest that artists should not expect to make their money and do jobs and do art as an extra. — Jack Cummins

If artists want to do pure art, art for art's sake, then they indeed must not expect to make money off of it.

If they make music, paint pictures, dance, etc. in order to make money with that, then they are not being artists to begin with, they are merely business people who are selling products and services.

So I am left wondering how do we change a culture which expects the arts as a free extra?

By putting pressure on the artists, because the problem starts with them. They need to stop wanting to sit on two chairs.

If they want to be taken seriously as artists, they need to stop selling themselves.

If they want to be taken seriously as business people, they need to stop giving themselves away for free.

So incompetent or malicious? Probably a bit of both. — ChatteringMonkey

There's another thing here when it comes to people in high positions of power who were voted into those positions: both their malice and their incompetence are, in some part, somehow related to those who voted for them. Which can ameliorate the judgment we might otherwise have of the person in that high position of power.

It is reasonable to assume that the people who select a candidate and vote him into office, know this candidate. And if they know him to be incompetent or malicious, but they neverthelss vote for him, then this is a possible indication that they themselves are incompetent or malicious. I say merely a possible indication, because candidate selection and the motivations for voting can be complex and sometimes have nothing directly to do with the candidate himself. And all this can be privileged information so we as outsiders can't work with it.

Similarly as there is a diffusion of responsibility, so there is a diffusion of incompetence and a diffusion of malice.

In the light of this, it seems unfair to impeach Trump, or to take any action against him alone, when he is, basically, only the end-product of the democratic process. The real culprits are those who selected him as a candidate and voted for him.

Were your girlfriends who were accosted by men when they were alone?
— baker
Wut? — Kenosha Kid

You said:

Everyone's in a position of power all the time. — Kenosha Kid

To which I replied:
Were your girlfriends who were accosted by men when they were alone?
Because they weren't in a position of power then. Or would you say they were?

No, nor do I think I *was* a right-winger. Nonetheless examining our biases to avoid misleading or, in this case, failing to protect others is important.

Sure.

That's true, but in my example the difference was qualitative (no spiders --> many spiders) rather than quantitative (some spiders --> many spiders).

As I exemplified right away with looking for chestnuts and mushrooms. I experience it every ear: I go to collect chestnuts, I know where the trees are, but when I'm first there, I don't notice the chestnuts on the ground. I really have to look to begin seeing them, and then I continue seeing them.

In some world, chatbots, people who try to be chatbots, and philosophers are part of the same coherent category. — TheMadFool

Not on my planet.

The irony is that philosophers are in the process of becoming more like existing chatbots, emotionally sterile — TheMadFool

I'm sure some are like that.
But it's important to distinguish between emotional sterility and emotional moderation. The two look the same at first glance, but they are not the same. We can discover which person is which by talking to them for a while.

This idea of wanting to discuss a topic with lay people but not wanting to read what experts have to say about it is just such a behaviour. I simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to do that, yet evidently it is very popular. That intrigues me. — Isaac

Two more things come to mind:


One, lay philosophers sometimes (often?) have a real problem that they are trying to get some perspective on. Like a dfficult ethical situation with a neighbor or a boss. They want to solve that problem, and they are not interested in philosophy per se. So their focus is rather narrow and they are under pressure to solve the problem, to make a practical decision one way or another (such as whether to file a complaint or not).


Two, some people see research and referencing merely as a necessary evil, or trivial at best. I've known people with college educations (what to speak of those with less) who think this way.
You can see this also in people's atittudes toward (academic) plagiarism -- some people just see no problem with taking an idea or a bit of text from someone else without noting where they got it from. Not necessarily because they'd have no problem with stealing or because they would want to appropriate someone else's ideas and pass them on as their own, but because they have no sense of intellectual property nor a sense for the existence of a network and history of research and researchers in a particular field. (They don't see their own work as being part of that network.)

In professional sports, why is it acceptable for athletes to attempt to deceive, e.g., the baseball or football player has obviously not caught the ball (yet contends that he has) and instant replay shows that it wasn't even close, yet nobody calls them out for this behavior? — synthesis

Because it's not about sports, but about entertainment. Truth and honesty would spoil the entertainment.

Watch the film The Quiz Show for an illustration of this principle.


Sometimes, ideology is part of the mix as well. Sports are sometmes used to uphold the socially desired ideals of the successful individual, teamwork, the winning-is-everything mentality. The actual reality of the game is subservient to that.


And, of course, games are sometimes rigged. Betting on sports is a huge business, players and referees can be bribed or extorted.

But I do not think the myth is Pro-Trump — Garth

Of course it is. It is designed to absolve Trump and co. from all responsibility for the riots.