How many people are you willing to support sacrificing?

Where I live the cases are rare-ish. So I don't think we should completely throw our humanity to the wind quite yet. Like you said, steps can be taken to mitigate the risk, and I think that's better than avoiding susceptible populations entirely. — NOS4A2

As is your habit, you contradict yourself. Humans have the capacity to feel AND think, and we have the gift of foresight, at least some of us, so it is most human to express our foresight and take precautions for the benefit of others.

Institutional facts arise out of collective intentionality. With this understanding, how would you say something like religion develops?

I was half kidding. The fact is that the dynamics of good-samaritanship have changed. If you want to help the elderly you need to protect them from yourself by wearing gloves, a facemask, etc. You could potentially kill with the best intentions, but poor foresight.

Yesterday I saw what to me was an appalling sight. An elderly woman was walking in the rain with groceries, while able-bodied people were crossing the street to avoid her. This seemed absurd to me. So I did the unthinkable and asked if she needed a hand. She didn't need my help, apparently, but the smile was enough for me to know that my acknowledgment at least meant something to her. — NOS4A2

If you were close enough perhaps you transferred the virus to her, and her being elderly essentially killed her. Good going, a-hole.

It seems to me that art, ethics, rights and political ideology also fall into that same category of "fictions that help bind groups in cooperative behaviors." What about science? Is science a shared fiction? Has science proved to be an even better survival strategy? If so, then maybe "extremely successful" isn't a proper characteristic of the outcome of shared fictions. How do we know that we wouldn't have been more successful if our ancestors adopted science instead of religion? — Harry Hindu

I'm thinking that the 'glue' of a shared fiction is in the perceived value or 'promise', if you will, that it contains. Things like money and religion are very different things, yet they function to provide cooperative behavior across the globe, and I imagine the common denominator is value, or rather, the promise of value. For instance, you identify as a Libertarian and by identifying as such you are in a sense making a promise that you will act in particular ways. If a group of sapiens all agree to act in a particular way, to cooperate across the globe, that is obviously very powerful.

Scientists across the globe cooperate using the same method and this is clearly powerful for any number of applications, but any particular application? Philosophers across the globe cooperate and exchange ideas, but do they agree on any particular philosophy?

If someone identifies as a scientist or philosopher what can I expect from them? I can expect that they value rationality and that's good because I also value rationality. Still, they may have all sorts of beliefs and values that I don't share. The designation of scientist or philosopher is not specific enough to have much meaning for me. Currently, if someone identified as a stoic I'd be very interested in being their friend.

:lol:

I’ve read Sapiens.

1) I suppose that’s true.

2) Prolonged anxiety may have a tendency to lead to clinical depression. Sapiens may be unique in our capacity for existential angst.

3) Social critters encourage 'good behavior' without utilizing religion, as did sapiens prior to developing it. 'Advanced' societies utilize religion and other shared fictions.

Not sure where this is going or what the point may be. The gist of Sapiens is the theory that shared fictions like religion or money help to bind groups in cooperative behavior and that this has proven to be an extremely successful survival strategy.

Meditation may help someone deal with pain (likewise hypnosis) but it is not a permanent state to function in. — Andrew4Handel

Perhaps arguably, the deactivation of the DMN (neuological Buddhist ideal) can result in more efficient functioning, particularly of an overactive DMN.

The takeaway might be that the pursuit of well-being might possibly be better than the pursuit we are trained for by missionaries or whoever.

Would it be better in a hunter gatherer society for everyone to sit around and bullshit all day instead of hunting and gathering, sure, until dinner time. Same thing for our society, just bigger scale. — Hanover

FYI: everyone in hunter gather societies actually have a lot of time to sit around and bullshit. Far more than us fools on the capitalist hamster wheel.

It’s important to distinguish between the self as some separate ontological thing that endures despite changes, the self as a first-person perspective or general awareness, and the self as reflexive awareness (self-awareness). If you distinguish between these things all the problems go away. — Pfhorrest

Buddhists believe that discernment is an essential aspect of practice, however, that itself can’t resolve the problem of suffering (attachment to self or ignorance of our true nature).

So that is a list of the worst "lies" that you can think of? Thanks for making my point about the credibility of these lists. — Nobeernolife

Simply saying “not a lie” is, quite frankly, beyond idiotic. Those lies were cut and pasted from politifact.org and I could cut and paste the facts they list to support them, but why bother, facts are irrelevant to a Trump supporter. That’s the point you make.

Regarding hyperbole, disinformation is intentionally false or misleading information that is spread in a calculated way to deceive target audiences. An exaggeration occurs when the most fundamental aspects of a statement are true, but only to a certain degree. Trump’s lies target people like yourself and are strategic in nature. Only a fool can’t see that.

Right, a capitalists definition of well-being. What is that exactly?

Well-being is not self-sacrificial, nor is it apparently an incentive that is ever in place in a capitalist society.

Yes, psychedelics deactivate the DMN (Default Mode Network) which is the neural network that’s responsible for our sense of self, personal narrative, etc. This deactivation is the experience of what Buddhists refer to as no-self, though I doubt any Buddhist would be willing to reduce it to such a mundane event.

There may be a deeper or more primal sense of self, like with the physiology that has to do with alien hand syndrome.

I’m not sure if philosophizing about emptiness has much actual value. The experience, on the other hand, is known to reduce existential anxiety. That does have value. Also, religious beliefs can have value for those who require that level of structure and guidance to experience meaning in their life.

The thing that loses a sense of self is the self?

What about the sun? The sun has existed for Billions of years. It may not be changeless but it is enduring as an identifiable entity. — Andrew4Handel

From some other perspective, a billion years is a blink of an eye. Regardless, we know that it will eventually burnout.

However I don't think the self is an issue abut changes. I have never met anyone who thinks they have never changed. — Andrew4Handel

Yet we all endow people and things with an identity of some sort. Of course, we realize that they change but still there is a continuity to their existence or enduring sense or idea of what they are.

I define the self as a perspective that of an a perceiver and experiencer. — Andrew4Handel

Do you really? Then how do you distinguish various perceiver/experiencers?

in practice [people] do not always think "rationally" and sometimes respond to emotional rhetoric over rational dialect. — IvoryBlackBishop

That made me laugh out loud.

No-self simply means that no enduring changeless thing can exist. It applies equally to everything and not just the self. Everything is an illusion, or so they claim.

You can not legislate affordability. — Nobeernolife

Can't help thinking about this. You say it as though it's some sort of economic principle. I think it's a statement of values, like saying that a society cannot afford to feed its citizens when in fact it has the resources available to do so.

What is the worst lie that you are blaming Trump for? — Nobeernolife

Just a few of my favs:

Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from ‘angels.’ Some are very tough, hardened criminals.

I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your healthcare.

'Years of economic decay are over' because Trump 'reversed the failed economic policies of the previous administration.'

Some of the Democrats have been talking about ending (coverage for) pre-existing conditions.

In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say 'oh that's a conspiracy theory.' Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.

Over the last two years, the number of murders in America and America’s major cities has dropped, unlike here (Chicago), by more than 10%.

Originally "almost all models predicted" Dorian would hit Alabama.

California "admitted" there were "a million" illegal votes in the 2016 presidential election.

There has never been, ever before, an administration that’s been so open and transparent.

"The noise (from windmills) causes cancer.

Democrats let him (cop killer Luis Bracamontes) into our country," and "Democrats let him stay."

Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad," including Somalia and Ukraine.

Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and the rest of the corrupt Democrats made a promise to their crazy left-wing base that they would impeach me even BEFORE I took office.

Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America.

Well, it’s just an anecdote so let’s dismiss it.

I concede all of your fine points.

I do not know the details of that thing, and I doubt that you do, seeing almost none of the people passed actually read it. — Nobeernolife

About six years ago my wife and I were in a transition, moved to another state, and considered Obamacare between employers. It was affordable.

We ended up paying a minor penalty for being without insurance for a few months. Nothing anyone but a deranged lunatic would call “massive.”

No, you should get wet in your pants about this, Orangeman´s family takes isnt this just what you have been cackling for? — Nobeernolife

Apparently you can't read or write well.

Not getting bogged into details, but if you do not see the contradiction in a government claiming to be able to make things "affordable" by massive regulation and taxation. — Nobeernolife

A little detail like the claim of "massive" taxation and regulation? I can see how that would get in the way. Affordable as in meaning that around 30 million Americans could afford to purchase health insurance, whereas before they could not afford it. Taxes increased for many, but not "massively."

Stimulus deal bars Trump's businesses from Treasury Department loans

@Nobeernolife

Damn, I was all geared up to get deranged about this.

It seems like a prelude to war metaphors. A good American should be willing to die for their country.

The suggestion that our culture (our values, beliefs, aspirations, etc.) is all about capitalism and nothing besides, if that's the suggestion, is the hight of philistinism.

Even the framing of this question is open - or ought to be open - to radical revision: what is traditionally called 'the economy' is largely an abstraction that excludes large swathes of society as among the 'extra-economic', even as it relies on those areas for its very lifeblood. It's only when set against this abstraction does individual life become potentially set in conflict with this chimera. The issue is that the chimera is as real as it is illusory: it is real insofar as it is created, forged by power and political will, one happy to countenance the literal deaths of millions in order to sustain it for the benefit of a few. — StreetlightX

Reminds me of something I read just a few minutes ago:

“I would rather have my children stay home and have all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working,” Beck said. “Even if we all get sick, I’d rather die than kill the country. Because it’s not the economy that’s dying, it’s the country.” — Glenn Beck

The country (essentially our culture?) is the economy? How fucked-up is that.

No, just a lack of imagination.

To be fair, for that remark you’re gonna have to let nobrainnolife rant about TDS for around the 40th time.

nobeernolife + TDS = 38 results

Talk about a one-trick pony.

We have people get tremendous anxiety and depression and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have death probably, definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers we’re talking about with regard to the virus. — Trump

If you do a quick google check, a figure of 10k comes up for deaths linked to the great recession suicides. That doesn't begin to compare with the estimates for ignoring the virus. But of course, facts don't matter.

Thank you for the reflection as I might very well be looking to my circle of thinkers for stability. It is a by product of loving people. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Looking to thinkers online for stability is a by-product of loving people? Nevermind. :smile:

Even the designers of that law admitted that it was designed to fail.... just meant as a stepping stone to socialed medicine. (Which you can defend, if you want.... just do not pretend that it is particularly affordable or efficient.) — Nobeernolife

It makes buying health insurance within reach for more Americans. In regard to efficiency, the US spends much more per capita than other developed countries, including those with socialized healthcare, and without better health outcomes, so I'm not sure what the point is in bringing that up.

Oh right. Obama made healthcare affordable by passing an "affordable healthcare act". Gee, how brilliant! I suggest then than Trump signs a "Cure Corona Act", and the Corona will be gone. Maybe after that an "Eternal health and wealth for all forever" act, and everybody will live forever.

I just love simple minds. Would you like buy a used car from me? — Nobeernolife

You doubt that the ACA resulted in millions more Americans with health insurance?

may I give you a virtual hug and inhale your stress and exhale stability into you. ... I need you guys right now but I also need civility. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Frankly, it sounds like you’re in a greater need for stability than we are. I suggest you try to find it in whatever way works best for you.

Everyone can see Trump’s failure in reviving coal and the industrial sector in general, at least in terms of jobs, so investing in green tech, as well as other progressive initiatives, could be seen as a reasonable alternative if properly presented.
One can dream.
— praxis

Is it so hard to keep the orangemanbad rants on the Trump thread and out of the Corona thread? — Nobeernolife

I did forget to mention Trump’s failure to repeal and replace the ACA. Not to worry though, if he’s reelected they’re on track to make healthcare insurance unaffordable to tens of millions of Americans, just like it was in the good old days before Obama.

Back to topic. :grimace:

Everyone can see Trump’s failure in reviving coal and the industrial sector in general, at least in terms of jobs, so investing in green tech, as well as other progressive initiatives, could be seen as a reasonable alternative if properly presented.

One can dream.

I imagine that progressive green new deals may start looking more reasonable to conservatives in the near future.

Disturbing, however, perhaps he paints a dire landscape in order to garner support for Diem25?