I don't know the solution neither. But the system is flawed when the leaders of each party are not elected by the people but the few who are part of the political arena. For example: you vote for Labour, but... who chooses the person who would run for the presidency? Here is when the problem starts.

The referendums in eastern Ukraine went swimmingly for Russia. Annexation is next. — NOS4A2

Putin would have annexed the territories anyway :lol: the referendums were just a make up.

I think it would make more sense to let public decide who leads the party … — I like sushi

That's would represent a real democratic system!

Jeremy Corbyn. — ssu

He was one of the few brave politicians who critized Elizabeth II openly and publicly saying: the British monarchy needs a lot reforms according to modern world.

And this is common with other religions too. The link even far more obvious in Islam. — ssu

:up: :fire:

More quotes related on Kierkegaard works:

Christianity will not be content to be an evolution within the total category of human nature; an engagement such as that is too little to offer to a god. Neither does it even want to be the paradox for the believer, and then surreptitiously, little by little, provide him with understanding, because the martyrdom of faith (to crucify one's understanding) is not a martyrdom of the moment, but the martyrdom of continuance." — Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

The deification of the established order is the secularization of everything. With regard to secular matters, the established order may be entirely right: one should join the established order, be satisfied with that relativity, etc. But ultimately the relationship with God is also secularized; we want it to coincide with a certain relativity, do not want it to be something essentially different from our positions in life – rather than that it shall be the absolute for every individual human being and this, the individual person’s God-relationship, shall be precisely what keeps every established order in suspense, and that God, at any moment he chooses, if he merely presses upon an individual in his relationship with God, promptly has a witness, an informer, a spy, or whatever you want to call it, one who in unconditional obedience and with unconditional obedience, by being persecuted, by suffering, by dying, keeps the established order in suspense. — Kierkegaard. Practice in Christianity

From that point of view, I don't read Kierkegaard as an anti-modernist. He belongs more in the 'same as it ever was' camp. — Paine

I don't think Kierkegaard is an anti-modernist either. I was just answering to the OP with some arguments about why Kierkegaard is more a simple existentialist rather than a "Christian existentialist"
Most of the works of Kierkegaard show an important criticism of the Church. From a quick search in internet: In Kierkegaard's view the Church should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a leap of faith, the faith that God is love and has a task for that very same single individual. He wrote the following about fear and trembling and love as early as 1839, "Fear and trembling is not the primus motor in the Christian life, for it is love; but it is what the oscillating balance wheel is to the clock-it is the oscillating balance wheel of the Christian life.

I think this is Sartre — Tom Storm

Yes, you are right is from Sartre's "Being and Nothingness"

"'But what will become of men then?' I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All things are permitted then, they can do what they like?'" — Tom Storm

Made famous by Dostoevsky, the question of whether we can be moral without God has always haunted secularism and has consistently been the most vocal criticism of unbelief. "If there is no God, then everything is permitted?" Moral Life in a Secular World

There is no crime or misdeed going that theism hasn't sanctioned or advocated in the name of doing a god's will. — Tom Storm

:up: :100:

The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power... the Kingdom of God is anarchy." — Dermot Griffin

:sparkle: :fire:

Without God Everything is Permitted — Dostoyevsky

:up: :sparkle:

Christian existentialism seems to heavily criticize the rise of modernity and its budding secularism. — Dermot Griffin

As most of the religions do. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a novelist who himself was a Christian but who has characters that often display what later will seem to be Existentialist attitudes and ideas. One of those characters (in The Brothers Karamazov,) says "Without God, all is permitted". Indeed, if the loss of God means the loss of all meaning and value, then actions are without meaning or value either, and one cannot say that it matters whether actions are "right" or "wrong," since those words, or the corresponding actions, don't mean anything more than anything else.

I think the emphasis on freedom and responsibility, something we find in all these thinkers, is crucial in understanding the way our world is going. — Dermot Griffin

To be honest, I don't see freedom neither responsibility in those thinkers. It would be even contradictory to their works. Existentialism is a philosophical which is based on absurdity.
Søren Kierkegaard is an Existentialist because he accepts, as fully as Sartre or Camus, the absurdity of the world. But he does not begin with the postulate of the non-existence of God, but with the principle that nothing in the world, nothing available to sense or reason, provides any knowledge or reason to believe in God.
Nietzsche expressed precisely this same thing in one of the most famous sayings in the history of philosophy, "God is dead". Since Nietzsche did not believe that there ever was a God, this expresses his view that the effective belief in God was dead, but he has a bit of fun with the metaphor of dying, decay, smell, etc. Unlike Sartre, he is a bit clearer that this is a catastrophe, since it leaves nothing; it leaves, indeed, Nihilism which is the condition of not believing anything and having nothing to live for.

Your new home. — Changeling

I wish...

Mars.

Is there a ritual that isn't meaningless on its own? — Tate

hereditary monarchies and Tanistry

@Agent Smith check this out. Related to our discussion on Western Classical v Eastern Mystical.

So, talking about translations...
And I was looking at the repeated patterns, noting Ivanhoe referred to Ch 51, Part 2 of the TTC.
Came across this:

'Tao Talks' by Derek Lin
Useful slides.
Here's the Tao Te Ching 32
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69PbMr3BVu0 — Amity

There are two important parts in the Tao:

1. Interpretation. How do you interpret the phrase you have shared? We already discussed the meaning and nature of Tao at: My favorite verses in the Tao Te Ching.

2. Translation. Trying to find out the correct words to put it on our language or vocabulary. People as Derek Lin did his best to translate it to English: Chinese - English by Derek Lin

Neptune and its rings come into focus with Webb telescope

The Tao Te Ching has to be read in Chinese to understand it? — Agent Smith

No and I fully respect the work of translators and interpreters who help us to read the Tao in our languages. Nevertheless, we have to be agree with the fact that the original version is better. The Chinese alphabet is based on ideograms. So we need to know a basic sense of Chinese culture before interpreting the Tao. We are not limited to read it and debate about it but... I feel we are losing something when a complex language is translated to Spanish, English, French, etc... There are a lot of filters in the way.

math is a universal language — Agent Smith

It is not the same. Maths are precise science. We are debating about how we express ourselves through philosophy, art, literature, etc...

However, given the popularity of Daoism in the West, I'd have to say there's a two-way exchange of philosophies. — Agent Smith

Agreed. But we have to consider the fact that we in the West have interpreted Tao Te Ching or Confucianism according to our "culture". I mean, those translated works are adjusted to the Western world criteria.
Probably if we read it in the original version/language we would get confused because we wouldn't understand it

:up: :sparkle:

That would make it even more realistic. — Cuthbert

How can an AI defines realism if we didn't teach them what is "real" yet?

It cannot. It basically cherry picks from human thoughts. It does not ‘create’ any new ideas and anything that looks ‘new’ is simply due to the reader’s interpretation. — I like sushi

:up: :100:

Should Artificial Intelligence provide (previously unseen) insights into matters of philosophy? — Bret Bernhoft

It is not possible and it is even a paradox to let the AI thinking for themselves. I say it is a paradox because if it is complex to progress on knowledge by our own personal skills... Why we should put this task in a machine? Keep in mind that these "programmes" or "algorithms" do exist thanks to us. We create them. So, it is not possible to create something clever than us if we don't reach the peak of knowledge yet.

we're not intelligent enough to create (more) intelligent machines! Perhaps this is one of the rare occasions our idiocy saves us from a possible grim Frankensteinian fate where the invention destroys the inventor. — Agent Smith

Wow! No, I don't so. Humans will always be one of the most intelligent species on planet. We always survived to all catastrophes and even evolved thanks to that. I don't give any chance to machines. Just for the fact that they depend on our technology.
I can't imagine a machine using their own "technology" or programming because all of these tools come from us.

I generally think people do not think too much. If there is a ‘modern’ issue it is likely more along the lines of ‘distraction’ that excessive thinking. — I like sushi

:up: :100:

No. We're "addicted" to beliefs. — 180 Proof

Hmm interesting... :eyes: :sparkle:

Autumn readings

• Captain Shigemoto's Mother, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.
• Rivers, Teru Miyamoto.
• Beauty and Sadness, Yasunari Kawabata.

P.W. Zapffe, A. Camus, C. Rosset, A. Murray ... :death: — 180 Proof

:up: :sparkle:

I've found myself with a much deeper sense of respect and awe for this reality by pulling from Eastern and Western systems simultaneously; thereby bringing those contemplations into harmony with each other. — Bret Bernhoft

Complex thoughts on put Eastern and Western systems together but also interesting, indeed.

Let’s put derealization on a scale, at 0%... — Art48

So, in a society at 100%, people would have extreme engagement and appreciation of each other — Art48

And suppose it was decided that ideally society should be at 75%. — Art48

We can use to 0%-100% — Art48

"Ideal society", "engagement", "derealization" or "appreciation" are not measurable terms...

Good question :up:

Western classical philosophy has a lot of doctrines and variations. It is complex to choose one of these to explain the purpose of living. But you were specific and referred to a 20th century man so my choice goes to Absurdism. Thus, the philosophical theory that existence in general is absurd. This implies that the world lacks meaning or a higher purpose and is not fully intelligible by reason. The book called Sisyphus by Albert Camus represents this theory.

Eastern mystery traditions only (or most of the cases) focus on different "schools" of Buddhism.
Shûnyatâ is one of the most important of them. It means "emptiness". Emptiness is neither existence, nor non-existence, nor both existence and non-existence, nor neither existence nor non-existence. At the very least, this means that we don't know what is left when we take away all conditioned relations. Beyond that, it can mean that we cannot know what that is. No Self Nature means that there are no essences, just as Momentariness means that there are no substances.
Also we should point out No-Âtman: There is no Self (âtman) in Buddhism, either as an essence or as a substance. What we call our self is a collection of things, the "aggregates" (skandhas): 1) the body, or "form," 2) feelings, 3) ideas, 4) impressions, & 5) momentary consciousness.

How do you understand the concept of 'post-truth" itself?
For me it indicates ... wtf ... "alternative facts" (i.e. H. Frankfurt's bullshit). — 180 Proof

:up: :100:

From an anthropological perspective people thinking less, those not (still) trying to solve problems (all the time), could (theoretically) be better fitted to modern day society. — Seeker

But I think that's a misery. One of the things which triggers me the most is the fact that the less thinkers tend to be happier than the rest or even they can achieve good positions in their professional carriers.
To be honest, think less is the easiest way possible of existence. We are forced (sooner or later) to think and rethink about everything. This is the point of evolution of our especie and what differences us from the rest of the living world.

A socially isolated hermit is fine, but only if you can exist as a 'happy' one. — universeness

Agreed. Nonetheless, I see isolation as a cause of happiness but it is true that I never really tried myself.

Thanks for sharing and yes, I recognise myself in the symptoms.

Treatments
Bipolar disorder lasts for a lifetime, with treatments aiming at managing the symptoms by psychotherapy and medication. — universeness

I am doing it good with the exception of going to therapy.

but are you bipolar? — universeness

I don't know... that's a good question. I never went to a psychologist or psychiatric because I always thought they will never understood me.
Nevertheless... I am remembering now that one day of April the public workers of the hospital call me to just ask what is going on in my life. I answered with all my problems and insecurities.
They just answered "You have crippling depression" and they prescribed me some pills that I am currently taking every morning

I suppose the movie captures that wish as whoever the aliens are, they seem to possess such knowhow. — Agent Smith

Exactly! I see it in the same way, indeed :sparkle:

We don't know, we're ignorant of how we got to be so smart and so creative! The Monolith = Ignorance! — Agent Smith

:up: :sparkle:

Ignorance or... the torch which lights us to finish such ignorance.

On another thread, you were expressing your recent positivity/optimism. Are you often 'up the hill and down again?' — universeness

Yes. Well, I think when I wrote those lines I was medicated. I am even surprised how positive it was. Like it is weird that state of mind in my life.

Yes, I see your point. But why do you think there are differences between those groups towards the sense of gender?

Not all addictions are bad, such as addiction to life, truth seeking, fighting injustice, altruism. — universeness

Positivism/optimism! :yawn:

For example, the congruence between Hispanic American groups may vary from Black American groups, or Middle Eastern groups from European groups, seniors from youth, etc. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I do not understand your example. Are you referring to the fact that the basic sense of gender differs from one ethnic group to another?

God never gives everything to one person. — Numerius Negedius

What about Jesus Christ or Muhammad or Abraham?

Are we addicted to thought? — Xtrix

Yes, we are and this addiction is what you expect from people who don't want to be basic. Whenever you try knowledge for the first you would not stop using it because you feel you are growing as a person. There is a huge difference between the ones who are addicted to thought and the ones who do not think at all.

Are we amateur “philosophers” steeping ourselves in excess? — Xtrix

Speaking about myself, yes.

, is what is needed for better philosophy actually a fasting and detoxification of thought? — Xtrix

I would not put "better" with "fast" in the same phrase. Quality needs their own time and progress. If we really want a more qualitative philosophy we have to start to thinking a lot then. But if we think fast we have the risk of not thinking so deeply.