Thanks; that sounds like a great wast to organize an essay. But I don't think that works for me. A chatbot could do it far better than I can. That sou...
Are those meanings the same in ancient Greek and modern English? I think Epicurus had a wider vocabulary of pleasures, or pleasurable experiences, tha...
I don't think human purpose is a problem to be solved. The central mistake of that hypothesis is the inaccurate equation of pleasure with happiness. A...
Sure, but they all have a large number of dreaming poor who will stay poor - or maybe get deported and/or imprisoned. This isn't so much anAmerican dr...
Oh well, maybe you can can learn to take pleasure in it. Good abstracts of articles on the subject - including some points I made in my original respo...
We're still friends with Germany, Holland and Denmark, so that's all right. I find American beer insipid. Anyway, it's already more expensive than som...
Simple enough. Thre guy who wrote that article didn't start this thread; you did. I asked you some questions early on, because I was interested in wha...
Chemicals that invent stories are far more interesting than chemicals that just want to experience physical pleasure. Still not an explanation for hum...
Drugsare the middleman. I don't know about you, but I enjoy my experiences first-hand, directly. Emotions may be partly chemical, but they're also cer...
Is that what you see as the purpose of human existence? (assuming it has one) Is that what you desire for yourself? Being blissed-out on drugs and lyi...
What will that AI be producing? For whom? If there is nobody earning, there is nobody buying, the machines stop making money for owners, while still u...
Deservedly, if 'civilization' depends on most of its members dragging through life, unhappy and frustrated. There are people in turnip fields who woul...
Now, how do you legislate the viewing age of people in their own home? My only issue with links to You Tube is that video content can be embedded. Som...
It's possible to quote something that was posted on social media without including a link. As for You Tube contributions, it's not that hard to post t...
Thanks for the advice. It does help. The fascinating, complicated, up-and-down craziness of humanity. Religion, art, science, and philosophy are all p...
What presence? There is no such agency interfering with the internal law-enforcement of any nation, except occasionally a military peacekeeping force ...
Many administrations are perfectly comfortable ignoring the rights laid out in their own constitution. Why would they be hampered by the unenforceable...
Not exactly. The UN has taken the best - i.e. most progressive, tolerant, inclusive clauses of various constitutions - principles on which people broa...
No. While some philosophical discussions of morality may be futile and pointless, no society of sentient beings can function without a shared system o...
I have gone from one probable topic to four possibles. I've done a little bit of research on all of them. ATM, I'm leaning toward the last. *sigh* Mor...
That's the problem. People believe all kinds things they're told by a notorious liar, and then are dismayed when the outcome is different from the pro...
No. Dance all you want, it won't rain in a drought; no sacrifice of goats will prevent a volcano from erupting; no consultation of the oracle halts an...
The trick is to know the difference. I have no illusion that my stories, or wishes, or conversations with the ancestors, or dreams or supplications to...
That's my hope. Right now, he's pissing off veterans again - the US has alot of veterans from its many unsuccessful wars - and maybe servicemen, too, ...
Not yet. And the division is so deep, maybe never without a revolution or civil war. Which, depends on whether the present regime has time and suffici...
Yes, of course. The electoral process has always been flawed and the corruption that's crept in over the last few decades renders it damn near unworka...
Not for us; for Americans. Other countries are forced to defend themselves against Trump's economic wrecking crew, and that will hurt innocent America...
Indeed. The only viable strategy for democratic nations right now is to work around the US. Withhold intelligence, reconfigure trade agreements among ...
They have better uses for the money: their own enrichment. There is more to the wrecking of government: Trump wants to be king, which he can't be unti...
Russia? Yes, Trump is hell-bent on destroying the US government, department by department, agency by agency. He doesn't give a flying fig about intern...
And yet communism didn't triumph; the prophecy was never fulfilled. Communism exists, if it still does, in tiny pockets that have to deal with the cap...
It goes back a good deal farther than the OT. People have been throwing sticks, consulting their ancestors, staring into fire, eating mushrooms and go...
Prophecy is a biblical term. The ancient prophets saw what was going on, interpreted it according to their belief-system and predicted an outcome. " L...
I might do well not to quip... But I do better, quipping. I always understand what you mean; I just don't agree with it. I didn't claim anything; I as...
I see. An overview of history is insufficient basis for an opinion. OK I have all those teeshirts. The last campaign I supported was a Green; some pre...
Who are your "we" ? I imagine the several sovereign - for the moment - nations of Europe will formulate their own foreign policy according to what the...
Things end. Stars implode; species go extinct, civilizations collapse; biological entities die. Like every story, the history of the human race has a ...
This is a truism, not a truth. We're still seeing suns that no longer exist and not seeing planets that once flourished. I take your meaning and laud ...
That movement happened while democracy functioned reasonably well. After a shake-up of the class structure and economy via war and technological chang...
Hardly ever, if history is anything to go by. The masses generally support the status quo: the oppressed are loud in their defence of the social order...
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