Thinking you can just coast in life is not such a good strategy. — synthesis

:100: It's just that leading by example hasn't worked if those who do are out-done by the government/corporations. One way to lead by example is to pay a living wage and then some. God, I wish I had all the wisdom on this point at my finger tips. I'm going to have to start logging it when I see it. Until then, you win.

You lead by example. — synthesis

there was a time — synthesis

Now, people are massively dependent. — synthesis

Sounds like that's not working out.

I do a great deal now, as well, but have learned how to do it more efficiently. — synthesis

Some folks (I'm not one of them) learn to lead and get the young un's to do all the hard work. :wink: Kind of like the Plutocracy gets the minions to do all the hard work. If they start looking up the ladder, just sew a few seeds of hatred amongst them and that will keep them busy when they are not working.

Because of this, other principles of democracy, such as inclusiveness and equality, become increasingly irrelevant. — baker

That is certainly true of a true democracy. In the U.S., the founding fathers tried to prevent a tyranny of the majority with a Bill of Rights, representative democracy, federalism, life time judicial appointments, etc.

We had a little respite, but now Trump is getting oxygen again from mainstream media. Is there something newsworthy, or is this proof they want the issue ($), not a solution? Or do they think he is the solution? Or is the issue the solution (struggle)? I think it's $. Either that, or the Plutocrats want the struggle. I just can't tell. Every person and ever institution has lost credibility so we are left to wander alone through a wasteland strewn with lies and facts and illusions, picking up scraps and making of them what we will. Tune in, turn on, drop out. T. Leary.

I don't know what makes some people "empaths" and others not, but I have noticed that those who are not tend to change their tune when the chickens come home to roost. I've noticed this to be particularly true for members of the Republican Party.

If time is infinitesimally continuous then everyone would be gliding through time at infinitesimally different rates of time. — Michael McMahon

Everyone and everything.

The universe will be so upset when I die that the whole place will implode. — Michael McMahon

Now you do have a point there. A=A & -A.

Not all shadows are cast by animals. Rocks cast shadows. So do trees. The distinguishing factor is movement; not so much that which is moving (object or shadow).

I do know that deer and elk move around more on still days and nights, and hole up more when the wind is blowing. It could be just the movement of clouds and vegetation itself, or it could be the movement of all the shadows.

What say you? — TheMadFool

I say corn is grass and you can have too much of a good thing. Check out U.S. individual relationship to corn.

Also, grazers spend a large percentage of their day with their face in the grass, whereas a lion lays on it's back, burping and farting and fking and frolicking for a week after a meal. I love grazers, don't get me wrong. And not just to eat. It's just that they are a prey species and for all that speed and muscle, they have weak links amongst them. They are also well acquainted with fear.

In the final analysis, yeah, I get your point. It would be nice if we could survive on grass and like it. But it would be a lot easier to reduce our numbers than to evolve into grazers. I will let grazers do all the hard work for me, eat grass, refine it, and then eat the grazer. Much simpler that way. So, we are, in effect, eating grass.

However, human experiments have been/are also conducted albeit in an extremely limited manner and some of the data I presented here are from such. — TheMadFool

Maybe, but you asked:

Do you have a relevant point to make or are you just passing random comments? — TheMadFool

And I responded, talking only about humans in their most basic animal blood/brain/organ simplicity. I know I'm not the most "coherent" when my brain is deprived of some blood.

And...? — TheMadFool

Your OP talks about brains, and minds, and consciousness, and blood, and the relative importance of other organs. It also suggests than none of that is what makes us human. When you look at animals (which we are), it is folly to talk of parsing out one essential revolutionary character as being more important from another. Loss of blood is more or less, from one place to another, and your brain loses some function with some loss, and all function with all loss. Unless you are going to start talking about souls or something, then all your considerations are nothing that hasn't been gleaned from the study of non-human animals. (I don't even think we are different in that regard, but it's beyond the scope of this thread.)

I think my original post sums it up quite nicely, and I stand by it. If folks would spend as much time analyzing what I say, as they do trying to understand the deep, profound thinking, and learned terms-of-art used by the more sophisticated posts on this forum, they would have gotten all of that from this rube. :grin:

Do you have a relevant point to make or are you just passing random comments? — TheMadFool

We are animals.

This sounds to me like meddling. Surely it cannot be that difficult to leave someone alone. — NOS4A2

It's not difficult at all, if they get the hell out of the way. :grin:

We used to have a saying in the Marine Corps: "Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way." I always thought that a little shortsighted, because it didn't account for a fourth option, which is "actively resist." So those are the four options life gives you.

The problem, as explained before, is there is no where left to go to get out of the way. We are going to find you. Especially those of us who just want to be left alone to do so. Sorry. Sincerely, sorry.

You need help to be left alone. Figure that one out and get back to me.

Prefatory to my comments, I found this on a social networking page:

"i feel like liberals, who mostly avoid rw media, have no idea of the craziness they soak in daily that millions of our fellow americans truly believe. roving bands of antifa, cancelling disney cartoons on the behalf of powerful blm militias. *they believe all this shit*"

It was also opined that, while the politicians may know better, they play this for people who don't know better.

So my question is this: Isn't it incumbent upon "liberals" to go into the lions den, troll if they have to, rock boats, stir pots? For if "liberals" likewise self-isolate in their own little safe-spaces, aren't they just playing the same game? And, if "liberals" are to go into the lions den, shouldn't they send their very best?

I've been banned from more discussion boards than Carter has pills. I use to play the gadfly to the right, until given the boot, then I'd play gadfly to the left, until given the boot. Then back again. But my methods were crude and unsophisticated. My methods were as to my audience as Trump was to the press corps. (Perhaps that is why I could appreciate his trolling of insolence that could not be cajoled into asking probing, polite questions. But regardless, nothing came of it. Or did it? Maybe the insolence has become more polite and professional and probing, having learned a lesson from Trump? Even if so, that would just provide fodder for the right, pointing to the different treatment Biden gets. Sorry for the digression.)

Don't we need a counter-insurgency program, specifically designed to upset stupidity? Or am I wrong? Is Hillary really running a child sex ring out of a pizza pallor and Mike Gaetz is a white knight? Maybe we just stand down and pray Joe Biden can lead by example?

Regardless, I ask myself, how best to turn the craziness when the truth will not suffice? When facts will not suffice? Maybe the craziness should not be turned? I hate to use terms like "truth" and "facts" on a philosophy board, because I know what can be done to me for using them, but I'm at a loss.

they might disapprove of the mud. — tim wood

No doubt. :smile:

What is your justification for joining religion with natural/physical sciences? — tim wood

:up: That's where my brain locked up.

I don't know if it changes an object, but it changes perception of the object. Maybe the tree is the particle and the forest is the wave? Likewise individualism vice socialism? A question is, which perception is . . . . uh oh, if I finished that sentence I would be forced to use a word that would open up a whole new can of worms, like "better", "more objective", "real", etc. Maybe a double slit experiment could be tried to determine if there is a particle or a wave. Maybe both.

I know when blood rushes from one head to the other head, we discover a beautiful truth. In that sense, two heads are better than one. But neither one can live without the other. It's like the chicken/egg question: Which came first, the big head or the little head?

Forested areas and the hand of man can certainly hide or destroy a lot.

In either place, I would substitute their judgement for mine (or anyone on the planet today) on anything that has anything to do with hunting, gathering and living on this land, camp sites, etc. As the young girls say today "I'm jelly."

You've either evolved or devolved to rock/tool-hunting? I'm a little surprised if you're substituting for your own judgment on an appropriate camp site that of people not less and possibly a lot more than a thousand years dead. — tim wood

I'm really a paleo guy, but I do like the archeo too. The land has changed a lot since the Clovis folks were poking around here. Trying to establish erosive from depositional areas, and rates, is difficult for a lay person like me. I've probably held several hundred Clovis points. The problem is, 10k years of other Indians successively picked them up and reworked them into the little jobs we find today. :sad: :smile: Reduce, recycle, reuse.

m, just for the heck of it, why would you look for that? And what is it? Definitions online don't seem to easily fit your usage. — tim wood

In archaeology, lithics are tools made of rock, and the scatter is the little flakes that fly off in the process of manufacture. They usually have a little more shine than surrounding, un-worked rock. Morning and evening are the best time to look. It's good for locating camps, living or butchering locations.

My difficulty might be in finding the distinction between "notice in the first place" and "learning." I can relate to learning something once and then never again making a choice to ignore it, like my shadow. I don't think I've every made the choice to ignore my shadow. I just do. In fact, I have to choose to notice it, unless it infringes upon my ability to see something (like when I'm looking for the shine of lithic scatter). In this regard, I think there is no difference between your cat and me. We observed once or twice in the formative years and then forgot about it unless and until it got in the way. What am I missing?

Maybe the cat doesn't contemplate how shadows are made (blocking sun, moon or other light), which might require higher thinking, but I can't relate to the idea of choosing to ignore my shadow. It's like choosing to ignore voluntary or involuntary bodily functions that have become rote.

Yes, "ignoring" implies a choice in the matter. Technically, my cat was not reacting to her shadow. Like Tim said, it's probably a learned response. — RogueAI

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Are you saying there is a difference between choosing to ignore the shadow and learning to ignore the shadow? Can you flesh this out for me a bit?

Animals aren't as dumb as we look.

unless they're branding to backwater rednecks, — praxis

Pillows, anyone?

f you look at what's happened to the majority of people in the U.S. over the past 50 years, I would call it dire. If you had three or four kids and your $20./job was outsourced to China and all you could find to replace it was a $10./hour job (as happened to millions of Americans), you would probably think it was dire.

If you could no longer afford to provide decent health care for you family nor have any chance of sending your kids to college (without incurring life-destroying debt) nor have any retirement savings, you might consider it dire.

My life is a cake-walk (and maybe yours is too) but there are a lot of people whose lives are quite difficult. — synthesis

Dire is subjective. Some folks would call all that "first world problems." But yeah, if a subjective feeling of dissatisfaction with what is will drive us to be better, then the fight is on over how best to go about achieving that. I say beat some enlightenment back into self-interest. The top likes to throw out "class warfare" as a boogey man. But that war has been on and they are the instigators. They are just running counter-insurgency ops on half the underclass, and it's been working. So far. They best be careful.

Lastly, even if reality was solely mental, I think the world would still be real in the sense that other people exist to perceive it. — Michael McMahon

The NWF used to have a saying something like "A forest is more than just trees." They were distinguishing between the awesome biodiversity of a forest vs a tree farm. But it got me to thinking, if a tree falls in a forest, there is never no one there to hear it fall. Existence is proof that you don't take us with you when you die. Existence is proof that we are not the measure of all things. The fact that I am because I think, does not mean nothing else is. Just because shit's getting real doesn't mean it hasn't been real all along.

And if you are All, then, of course, not, too.

Younger people ALWAYS believe they are living through the most prescient times in the history of mankind, — synthesis

Off topic, but this reminds me of so many Christians who think the second coming will be during their generation. Everyone thinks they're so damn special. And everything is a sign they are right. :grin:

I've heard of such folks - survivalists, they're called I believe. — TheMadFool

I draw a distinction between "survivalists" and the "elites" I think were being considered. The survivalist is the prepper with the go-bag, air tights, ammo and whatnot. The elites have a nice place in New Zealand for when the shit goes sul. They have gated communities, and they find Tier One operators (trained up on our nickel, who went into private contracting for the money) running security for them. Don't worry about those folks. Their going to be just fine. Well, unless it's a meteorite or an transoceanic airborne (wind) virus. But then all bets are off.

:100:

I don't believe in evil. I believe benevolence is subjective. I think what so many want here on Earth now will be coming soon enough, at death. For those who can't wait, I'm more than happy to see them mount up a starship and split. Send post cards. :smile: I absolutely love this ball of dirt and blood. So I'm going to fork this bronc and ride.

I don't know what you mean by 'carrying' another. — Amity

If I am to be what I perceive as strong and/or wise, then I cannot complain about what I perceive as weak and/or stupid without becoming that which I would complain about. My alternative is to carry it. The extreme example would be to love my enemy. Anyway, that's another thread.

However, others might want to poke you and your thoughts with a pointy stick. — Amity

I understand the concept of "teasing an idea out of someone". That is done with probing, maybe even uncomfortable questions. But a pointy stick gets a turned back at the least, a similar retort along the way, or a bullet at the worst. Insults, passive-aggressive comments, commenting on ones lack of mental prowess, are pointy sticks. Trying to find out how a man reacts to insult makes the victim a lab rat, and not the potential vessel from which to drink.

Regarding the ancients, I think philosophy, at all times, has been a child of leisure, like the arts. As to S, did anyone harry him with questions? That’s what I would *try* to do. Anyway, my synthesis, arrived at in part with your non-triggering help:

Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Wisdom is the asking of honest questions in search of honest answers. Honest questions are those based in sincere intellectual curiosity. Honest answers are those based in sincere reason. The love of this process is a love of the process itself. I think it was yGasset who said “I do not hunt to kill. I kill to have hunted.” Answers are nice, but ancillary to the process, the struggle, the honing of one’s edge upon hard stone, the being a hard stone upon which others might hone their edge. Hard does not mean being an asshole. There are other venues where that may be a good thing. But being an asshole buries the process, the hunt, within another process, obscuring the first, and obscuring the process which the lover of wisdom loves.

All the best with your eye surgery.

What has to happen for things to be "dire" for you? And we have been seeing for decades now. — synthesis

Dire? There were people who lived through World War I, the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, World War II, Smallpox (300 million dead), Korean War, polio epidemics, Vietnam War, Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis and other bull shit. People talk about how tough it was under certain governments, but war just sucks. I can't imagine what it would be like to be a non-combatant with war raging all around you. Our trials today are a cake walk.

One can see, even from this thread alone, that individualism is held in fear or contempt. — NOS4A2

I don't hold life in fear or contempt, yet I understand that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Same with individualism.

Yet there have been zero refutations of actual individualist argument. — NOS4A2

I guess everyone (especially you?) is floundering around trying to nail down what individualist argument actually is. I've seen a metric shit-ton of refutations of what many people think it is. But yeah, if we're missing something, or wrong, maybe you should nail it down for us. But please don't move the target around every time someone hits the bulls eye, and then say they missed.

So I have to wonder how much of it is premised on the typical misrepresentation, and further, how much ignorance surmounts because of it. This to me is worthy of whining about. — NOS4A2

I see your point. Again, what is individualism and what are the misrepresentations of it? I remember we already tackled the false attribution of isolation and anarchy. So you don't need to go there. I don't remember what, if anything, has been done with alleged selfishness. But for the sake of argument, lets say individualists are not selfish.

However, simply saying the critiques ring hollow if maintained long after the opposite has been proven disastrous, is not getting to the point. Individualism should stand on it's own two feet, regardless of the quality of any opposite.

The two-valued orientation, I think, has been debunked. So we are left with the question: What, exactly, are you concerned about? And again, since we are not pitting either against or, I think it is incumbent upon you to show where the line is drawn between what individualism is, any misrepresentation thereof, and that which is pitted against it. If you want to avail yourself of this, while eschewing responsibility for that, I'm sorry. We will not allow you to do that. Your only option is the isolation which we've already taken off the plate.

Where most, if not all governments have some combination of each, at what point do we start whining? When I, personally, subjectively, feel put upon by others? When I just want to be left alone? That seems an impossible ask. "We the people" are not going to ask you for permission to make you pay for the costs of your existence that you externalize onto the backs of the rest of us. If you don't want to play, take your ball and go home. Oh, wait, there is no where to run anymore. Tough. (No thanks to individualism.)

I'm left with this feeling that individualism is like a religious good that can do no bad. Every blow against it must be wrong, simply because of this. Sorry, but if individualism wants to maintain any traction in the decades to come, it should come to the table, not only with a list of it's attributes, but with a list of ways that it will not externalize it's costs onto the backs of the rest of us. Or, at the very least, how it will pay for itself without subsidy.

It reminds me of the corporation, a creature of the state (it does not exist in nature), pleading to governments about all the investment capital it will free up from hiding, all the jobs it will create, all advancements that will be made, all the social benefits, if only the shareholders thereof can be protected by big government from having to take personal responsibility for their own actions.

That's all well and good, but a condition of this ability to hide behind big government skirts should include taxation on a paltry portion of the profits earned so the state can partially offset all the externalize costs born by those who would not voluntarily assume them. If the corporation wants to be allowed to shit in the river or pour tons of poison into the air, it should include a stipulation to abide regulation of the offending activities to ameliorate the downsides. The later is AKA meddling in individual affairs. Tough.

an awful lot to say and need an audience. — baker

:up: Politicians. :grin:

Critics have been promising the failure of individualism since revolutionary France. Any day now, I guess. — NOS4A2

I guess there is nothing for the individualist to whine, worry, or ring their hands about in consternation. Time to get back to individualizing while sucking the tit of civilization.

P.S. Revolutionary France is, like, two seconds ago in the scheme of things.

That sounds rather theoretical, whereas the destruction caused by states and collectives is tangible, real and overwhelming. — Tzeentch

And yet here we are.

It reminds me of the social media memes where some of my generation list all the wonderful suffering we engaged in during our youth, and how it didn't hurt us. All the while complaining about the younger generation.

Not once do my peers engage in any self-reflection about how the younger generation was our clay to mold, and look what we did with it. I won't go into how our fathers and mothers rolled their eyes at us.

It's not theoretical when the states and collectives are ours. We can't absolve ourselves of responsibility for their actions while eating the gruel they slop on our plate. They are us. If we don't like it, we should have kept our cranks in our pants and legislated for a place to be free in.

What is the thing that gave rise to this moral framework? In my own case, it was writers such as Humboldt, Mill, Smith, Locke, Hume, Popper, Orwell, AJ Nock, de Cleyre. — NOS4A2

I can relate. Honestly. I just find within that moral framework the seeds of it's own destruction. I guess that would make me conservative, or even better, reactionary; wanting to go back to a time when the planting of such seeds occurred where there was still room to grow. That time has passed. So successful was that morality that our growing has choked out the space, and the current crop demands the even older, tried and true morality of cooperation; a morality that sprung into existence back when space seemed to overwhelm us, demanding a tilling, taming, reduction and domestication of the land.

All of that latter morality purchased for us the luxury of the morality of individualism. Time to pay. Sad, really, but again, we brought this on ourselves.

It's okay to pine for the days of yore, but such conservatism, such reaction, will not long be tolerated by the young and powerful fruit of our own loins. Best to offer them what little wisdom we have, while honoring what it is they propose to do with the mess we left to them.

P.S. I have an analogy to kids turned loose, unsupervised, into a giant, well-stocked mall. Anyone can run with that analogy so I won't belabor it.

his shows the problem with the question about the purpose of philosophy. People are engaged in different activities, and the only thing they all have in common is that they are called philosophy. — Fooloso4

Yeah, I wish they all had in common of love of wisdom, but that's too quaint, I guess.

How would Christian philosophers on here interpret this commandment and what role do they think it plays or should play in everyday life? — Apollodorus

I am not a Christian philosopher (unless you stretch Christian under universal pantheist, and philosopher under simple love of wisdom whether I have it or not), but I want to chime in anyway.

I Like the idea of loving God and neighbor but consider everything and everyone to be my neighbor. Thus, liking logical conclusions, I substitute neighbor with enemy. I see loving my enemy as one of the most difficult and greatest challenges of my life. So I'm tussling with that in my every day life. To answer your question, I think the tussle itself is a good thing. I'll be sure to let everyone know when I figure out how to do it.