I haven't a clue why you would. — darthbarracuda

Embrace the suck!

a bad life is not worth living. — darthbarracuda

I disagree. So the rest of it falls away.

But now you are moralising. You are using a mental capacity that (some?) other animals don't have. Fish can't look around at other animals and ascribe moral properties to them in the way you are. — Daemon

Now you are parsing out animals like fish, and using words like "some". We can't expect a fish to win a tree climbing contest, or a bear to win a free-diving contest. You accuse me of parsing "intelligence" from "moralizing" but then you turn around and throw moralizing in as unique to us, at least vice fish. I've seen dogs moralize when it comes to spotting an asshole. You might attribute that to some base animal instinct, but you can't distinguish that from what we do when we get a vibe.

We can overcome our instincts to the extent that we agree to limit the number of children we have, to avoid overpopulation, — Daemon

At seven billion and climbing, with no end in sight. It will be nature that stops us. Not us. It seems like it may very well be nature that works out the Covid issue, not us. Never mind climate change. We are exhibiting animal behavior. As to no other animal making a population limitation decision like China, you need to study wolves. Conveniently and typically (and with no evidence) you may attribute that to some other base animal control mechanism. But you don't know. And you won't find out in a lab. And you won't find out in field studies. But they do it.

Art is all about us! — Daemon

That is not true. But you'd have to be an artist, or an author to know that. You might ask Einstein about how his best ideas came to him.

And so I think it's time for a total reconfiguration of your current world view. — Daemon

Since you lack the intelligence, experience and wisdom that comes from extensive interaction with animals in their own environment, on their own terms, you clearly don't have the understanding required to tell me that it's time for a reconfiguration of my world view. You can't tell me that any more than you could tell an animal that. You don't speak our language, you do not listen, and you do not hear. You are lost in humanity. Sad, really. But you be you. You animal.

I wonder what motivates you to deny this. — Daemon

P.S. I want to add, I have spent a good deal of time alone, in the wilderness, watching. I have seen things I don't dare to share, especially around a scientist. However, I have taken some comfort in the number of viral videos of animals (both domestic and wild) doing things that traditional human understanding of animals (science) just won't compute. Birds, especially. And we might also consider need. Why evolve an instinct you don't need? And if you don't need it, what does that say about a species that does need it? And yet I see compassion, configuration, adaptation, etc.

For one example, when it comes to animal love, a scientist would say "That's just instinct!" LOL! As if a human protecting her baby is a cognitive, deliberate decision arrived at through some superior human attribute. And a monogamous goose mourning the loss of a mate is something less. :roll:

Careful you don't lose your troglodyte mask else you be invited to and permitted into where you don't want to go - among polite company for tea! . — tim wood

I've been working on my pinky extension, just in case. I wonder if animals try to fit in? :grin:

I wonder what motivates you to deny this. — Daemon

Sex, war, exceeding carrying capacity, all the things animals do, the list goes on. I look around at people and I see animals. No better, but maybe a little worse. In fact, the only worthwhile thing we've ever brought to the table is art. Everything else is about us. No giving, just taking.

Watch and be amazed! Niel deGrasse Tyson's take on animal and human intelligence. — TheMadFool

:up: :clap:

I think that goes to half of what I was saying. The other half is looking "the other direction" and investigating what "they" know that we don't know. We've lost a metric shit ton of institutional knowledge that indigenous people had of mineral, plants, animals, weather. So how much more do those entities themselves have that the indigenous people learned from in the first place? Dissecting an animal in a lab is only a part of it's story. Studying it in the wild is also merely a part, especially if we come to the study with our own inherent limitations. Becoming that animal is yet another step (hunting) but still only a part.

If the yogi on the mountain top doesn't come down and share the secret of life, it might be for the same reason animals don't spend a lot of time reaching out to us.

Anyway, we come to the table with our own limitations. We are interesting, but we're not all that and a bag of chips.

Only 1% more useful DNA then the average mortal... — vanThooft

Useful to some. :wink:

Did you make this? It's great! — Nummereen

Thanks. Yeah, my friend had a baby and named him Colter, so . . . I also gave him some baby winter cloths and great big buck knife. LOL!

You think we make aircraft using our instinct? — Daemon

If our instinct is to invent, which it apparently is, then yes. Again, an objective view would see an animal.

As I wrote for friend's new baby:

When you get older you'll discover a flaw
You're sorely lacking in tooth and claw
You'll also find you are pink and bare
Sorely lacking in fur and hair

But wobbling atop that tiny frame
You'll also find a great big brain
If properly used it will suffice
To make some cloths and a great big knife

So you can trek cross Colter's Hell
And return to us with stories to tell
You'll also return with wisdom learned
From those who live there on Her terms

Don't you mean monocracy? — SoftEdgedWonder

No, I think there are more than one.

Or do you mean eclectic opportunistic nepotism? — SoftEdgedWonder

Plutocracy is shorter.

Do you mean their fat asses? — SoftEdgedWonder

Well, some of them are, but I was referring to the plutocracy protecting themselves from the peasants.

What straw/camel back argument? — frank

Never mind. I sometimes forget that not everyone reads the whole thread(s) on a subject. I tire and don't want to repeat myself.

:100:

Musn't we take the power from them (maybe even gun-wise)? — SoftEdgedWonder

It might get to that. But we trained up the best on our nickel, and they've gone over to work in the private sector, providing security from the great unwashed. I wonder who will make their shit paper and other things they've grown accustomed to?

Early on, it seemed to me that most of those hardest hit were black and Latino. Now I'm finally seeing one fat, diabetic unvaccinated white person after another dying. — frank

And I've made the straw/camel back argument but don't expect you to get it. Or the variant issue and how, as you say, we lost the war. Whatever, let's blame fat people. For now.

they are unable to escape from their instinctive patterns in the way we can. — Daemon

I don't think we have or can. At least not from an objective 30k feet.

How do we convince the powers that are? — SoftEdgedWonder

You can't fix stupid. You have to wait until Nature fixes it. Like Covid.

He's actually right about that. I've got a good video to help you get up to speed on "food-gate" if you're interested. — frank

I saw Fast Food Nation. Does that count? My point is, your pesticide argument is fallacious.

Wouldn't that issue be settled by the Supreme Court? — frank

I think it was. Like a hundred years ago.

Governments and twitter warriors blaming individuals for failed government policy is simply pathetic standard of intellectual honesty. — boethius

It brings to mind the soldier blaming the hippie for causing the loss in Vietnam. The analogy can be spun out in a different direction, though. This war is at home. Government policy early on may have been fucked, but the protestor didn't help. Indeed, evil gubmn't was just getting oxygen from them.

Talk to any gardener. It's in your backyard, if you have one, and if you've paid any attention to it over years. — tim wood

:100:

As a little boy back in the 60s, I flew at 30k feet. I remember seeing a distinct, bright-line horizon at the edge of the Earth and space. I remember seeing the same thing atop 14ers. No more. Not since the 80s. Not even over the middle of the Pacific. There is a blur, a haze. The horizon is still there, but it's a blur. Now I know the culprit is supposed to be invisible, and it may very well be. But if the visible shit, that light- brown rusty blur, has enveloped the planet, then you can bet the invisible shit has too. The lights at night, from space, are another example. Anyone who thinks the Earth is too big for little old us to trash just doesn't get it.

Aldo Leopold said something to the effect that those with an environmental conscious live in a world of wounds.

We see things. Situational awareness.

This is a philosophy forum, — boethius

Thanks for being helpful.

Lot's of policy failures throughout this pandemic — boethius

Enough said.

Western governments are not "pro-science" or they'd do something about climate change. — boethius

Climate change gets the same treatment as Covid. We can't interfere with Cletus's God-given right to roll coal! Freedom! Murica!

The current wave in the US was completely predictable, — boethius

Yeah, I think Obama was working on a plan that Trump trashed.

there are other policies that could have been implemented since 2020 that would be a good idea anyways, — boethius

Yep. But freedom.

Hell, social distancing and masking could have done tons, but it's too much to ask. Don't expect any help on climate change.

Whenever I see people distinguishing non-human action as "instinct" I can't wonder what an objective view from 30k feet would say about what we do. We might be interesting ants, but we're still ants, moving about, doing our thing and, quite frankly, not a whole lot more interesting than an animal we know very little about.

Oh I see, you just pick and choose your villains. Typical. — frank

No, the thread picked the villains. DOH!

The world is full of villains and I've fought quite a few of them. Covid is just the latest and the subject of the thread. Certainly you could have taken a page from Isaac and chosen fat-people comorbidity, instead of pesticides. :roll:

which who knows if sane policies weren't implemented to find out — boethius

Enough said.

P.S. Sorry I used the word "all". I was just thinking of the kids of a guy I know who's sig line was the John Wayne quote: "Life's hard. It's even harder when you're stupid." He didn't vax and died. I'm sure someone missed their trip to Italy. Oh, the grief!

There was a chance to avoid the pandemic, — boethius

You can just stop there.

The lack of gun control always keeps us hopping. — frank

Deal with the criminals. DOH!

Plus nobody in this thread addressed the huge amounts of pesticides humans drop everywhere. You guys are useless. — frank

Did they kill 600,000 + in a year and a half? I'm all for regulating them in any event. But they weren't brought up because this thread isn't about pesticides. DOH!

All the best, man. :mask:

It's part of us now. You may as well accept it. — frank

I'm afraid you may be right. Too bad. I can't imagine all the grief that could have been avoided.

Unvaccinated people aren't my enemies. They're fellow citizens. — frank

They aid and abet a virus. The company you keep . . .

I doubt it. — frank

You could be right. We could get Trump, or a new Trump and live in a colder, harder world. One that I doubt a guy like you would like. On the other hand, business will be good for you. Though I suppose it always is.

If it's a war, we lost already. All the variants will be endemic in the US. — frank

Like I said:

"Or it will last, and you and your virus will win. You will surrender your fellow human beings and make peace with a virus. You and your virus will win. Then those who survive the virus can sit around and mourn the collateral damage and all those who died resisting the virus or who could not resist it. But most likely you will not mourn. I'm not seeing you mourn. It just doesn't fit."

And there you were, championing the treatment of the enemy instead of soldiers and innocent civilians. You know, first come, first serve.

Now there could be an insurgency. And pay back at the polls. I guess we'll see.

Thank you darkness. I love to patrol in you.

Sorry, frank. I don't even remember what we were talking about. But the reference to Canada and Mexico reminded me once again of war. See below:



It is my understanding we are in a pandemic. A pandemic has been likened to a war; a war on an invisible enemy. The enemy is not conveniently overseas somewhere. He is here, among us. Around the world. Those who champion the right of individuals to not do what the military tells them to do in a combat zone are not merely civilians, non-combatants, or collateral damage; they are, instead, providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

If you want to get off the battlefield, do it, or you might get shot. Ultimately, in this case, you might literally get held down and given a shot: a vaccine shot. If you don’t want the shot, stay off the battlefield, go home, and pray the rest of us win the war quickly so we don’t have to kick in your door, hold you down and give you the shot. It is not the soldier's job to stay home and hide from the war. We are out here doing our part.

You can philosophize about being against the war, or being against the way the war is being conducted. But you are either with us or you are with the virus. You can sit around the bistro, drinking whatever, pinky extended, waxing on about Locke or whoever, but you could be doing that in Dresden, or Hiroshima and guess what? You will be history.

I can go on with the analogy, the players in this case and the players in WWII, etc. But suffice it to say, everyone has been trying extremely hard to play to your needs, your wants, and your desires; the government has been trying hard to maintain the peace and avoid the extremes of war. But you are and have been providing aid and comfort to a virus. Don’t be surprised when your rights go on hold. There are people on the front line and you are spitting on them as they work. That shit won’t last.

Or it will last, and you and your virus will win. You will surrender your fellow human beings and make peace with a virus. You and your virus will win. Then those who survive the virus can sit around and mourn the collateral damage and all those who died resisting the virus or who could not resist it. But most likely you will not mourn. I'm not seeing you mourn. It just doesn't fit.

Well I don't think there is a right to health care. — Bartricks

Then you shouldn't have a problem with the perps staying home, whether they want to or not. Good.

How about if my vaxxed wife needs a bed and a vent some reason; can I go in and clear a bed from some POS anti-vaxxer who's sick with Covid? He's got no right to be there, right? Can I compel the Dr. to treat her? Health care is not a right, so I suppose I could pay to have the POS tossed?

Here's the deal: You and I disagree. I already owned up to NOS that I am his (and your) worst nightmare when it comes to the state wielding it's power like a fucking sledge hammer on this issue. I'd support the state if it branded a forehead with a "T", put an antivaxxer on a train, take them to a camp where work will set them free. And you know why? It has nothing to do with covid or a fear of covid. Rather, it has to do with my subjective perception of the type of people who would jeopardize the health of others for no other reason than to be an obstinate, petulant, disrespectful, inconsiderate, selfish, rights-wielding child who just thinks he's a rebel defending some righteous cause of Locke or whoever.

If there is a good anti-vaxxer out there, I'm sorry, but they are forever branded by Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones and their type. How does it go: Guilt by association? Yeah, that's it. GO GOVERNMENT!

Time for bed. Discuss among yourselves.

You're confusing different issues. — Bartricks

No, I am not. I'm giving you a scenario that is identical to the current situation, only with a worse bug.

That's their right. — Bartricks

So 70 to 80% dead because they chose to exercise their right. Got it.

So that's this issue: this issue is about whether you can make adult free agents do things for their own good, or whether you have to let them decide for themselves. — Bartricks

No, that is not the issue. No one (except the Hippocratic types) cares about their own good. They can die as far anyone is concerned. It is the rest of civilization, including those who can't vax or who are immunocompromised that matter. Remember, you have three to four months and no variants or pass throughs allowed or everyone is dead.

Yes, that is what everyone can freely decide to do. So, those who - despite being vaccinated themselves - are paranoid about getting seriously ill from those who haven't been vaccinated (a concern that is silly if, that is, the vaccine is effective) - can stay at home if they so wish. — Bartricks

Wrong. The burden is upon those who don't vax to not have covid or stay home. Those who vax can go back to the public. It's not a matter of paranoia. It's a proven fact. Have you counted the dead? The burden has shifted to those who don't vax to stay away from the public and out of public spaces. I sincerely hope the government uses all that power you are afraid of to make it so.

Give me a good argument and I'll change my position on anything — Bartricks

I just did. And not a Chicken Little hypothetical, but a scenario that the Obama Administration started to spin up some plans for before Trump trashed them.

They did not violate those people's rights. You're blaming the wrong people. It was those who determined who does or does not get a bed, if anyone, who violated those people's rights (not that anyone has a 'right' to a hospital bed). — Bartricks

If there is a right to health care (some think there is), then they forfeited their right and by doing so and then taking up a bed, they violated the rights of the innocent. They took their filthy disease to the hospital. They should have stayed at home. They had a chance to vax, did not, and went to the hospital. Should they have been turned away? Yes. But they should not have gone in the first place. They should not have put the Hippocratic Oath types in that position.

And in this case, refusing to be vaccinated means one exposes oneself and others who have made the same free decision as oneself to greater risks, not innocent others. — Bartricks

Not true. Innocent people have died because they could not get a bed. (By bed, I mean all the staff and kit that goes with it). These people didn't have covid. They had accidents or other illnesses that hospitals usually have room for.

So, I am opposed - very opposed - to anyone being made to get a vaccine. — Bartricks

I'd give an option: Stay away from the public and stay out of public spaces. Problem solved.

And I am very much opposed to the state using the powers at its disposal effectively to force people to get one. — Bartricks

See above. And, if you do get sick, don't go taking up a bed. Stay at home and ride it out. Die? Tough shit.

Now, given what I have just said, do I qualify as an anti-vaxxer? — Bartricks

Yes.

I mean, I assume you think it is ok for the government to flex its muscles and bully people into getting the vaccine. — Bartricks

Yes. Or they can stay at home, away from the public and out of public spaces.

Is there any case where you would change your position?

For instance, I read some time ago that Covid is, quite literally, nothing compared to what could happen with other unrelated viruses should they: 1. make the leap from the animal to man; 2. be airborne; and 3. be easily transmissible. The worst case scenario being a pandemic that wipes out 70 or 80% of the world's human population in a matter of months.

If there was a biological agent, free and easily injectable into the human body that would stop this in it's tracks if everyone took it, thus preventing variants and pass-throughs, and if the physical down-sides were no worse than the Covid vaccine, would you stick to your guns?

(If I recall correctly, the hypothetical is actually probable if human population continues to increase and if there were no countervailing medical rescues. Apparently it happens in nature all the time when a species gets beyond carrying capacity.)

If you would stick to your guns, fine. But if not, can you articulate where and when the line should be drawn? Or are you just saying "This isn't it. We aren't there yet"?

Do we just try to bully them into a Are we are the baddies? epiphany? — Srap Tasmaner

Power is usually frugal, starting nice and working up. When it fails to persuade with reason, power just bullies; but not into an epiphany. These people will never agree they are wrong. But the subjective understanding of the oppressed is irrelevant. Gubmn't asked nicely; no joy. Next step, passports, mandates, etc. The oppressed will have a choice: Come around, suffer the consequences of not coming around, or revolution. These people will come around. But why try to convince them? That horse done left the barn. They've killed untold numbers of people already. Time to turn up the temp and listen to them wail about fascism. Talk to the hand, bitches.

That is unless the Supreme Court rules that power overstepped it's bounds, but we aren't there yet.

Should you consider expatriation so as to find valuable community members? — frank

No, I have friends in low places.

That is, unless you suddenly changed your mind about all that... — Derrick Huestis

I didn't change my mind. I just distinguish between the metaphysical and the political. You know, I don't conflate two different discussions. But yeah, if you want to, I'll not only say government is the solution, but it's the problem, and there is no government, no individual, and yet there is. And there is no problem, and you and I aren't even having this converstation.

So there's that.