I guess they'll know when the police show up at their door. The justice system doesn't accept everyone's personal interpretation of the rules. Once yo...
No, they're not examples at all. They don't ditch school at 14 and go off whistling down the road. But private tutor is another occupation that will p...
Quite so. Every adolescent can dream all they want about the places they'll go and the adventures they'll have. And if they lack imagination, they can...
At least the American military boot industry is thriving! Unfortunately, 'we' have already supplied a great many weapons to the chosen of that other g...
So, you've been living in Narnia or Oz maybe? I'm pretty sure the societies there also place limits on individual freedom and obligations on their mem...
In middle school, everyone dreams of some form of escape - running away with the circus, joining the merchant marine, camping out in the north woods a...
No, I was replying to Athena on the benefits of capitalism. Of course, I doubt capitalism could operate without money, but capitalism is not a direct ...
So, don't make that trade. We don't really need oil from Iraq. How many lives has that little transaction cost, so far? How much in money and resource...
Poor deluded them! Wait till they're offered only $100 per kidney. Balderdash! The overpopulation could easily be remedied - could have been, for deca...
Well, yes. If you're looking for a way in which humans are unique, I guess it's that we make things up. Some of that fantasy leads on to great inventi...
I didn't equate those two sentiments. But, of course there is no getting out of one's species - except by a long hard slog evolutionary slog. And of c...
For 'static', substitute 'stable'. Ructions and upheavals generally had an external cause, rather than dissent within the group. When a serious differ...
So... you happen at the moment to be somewhere that's not burning, blowing away in a tornado, flooded out, falling into a sinkhole, starving or gettin...
His response was. He's easily Scruffy's physical superior: younger, leaner, tougher. He made not even a token gesture; no hackle-raising, side-walking...
Loved the Zeitgeist movie. The Venus project cities look clever and beautiful, but they're still cities, so I dunno about living in one. Work great on...
I, too, live in and cope with the modern environment, like everyone else. But I'm not forced to limit my imagination to the present condition; I can l...
I'll try. Like I said, it's hard to explain. The feral cats on back porch (a colony of 7-11 at any given time) have complicated relationships. The two...
No, I don't think I have. I know it happens, from domestic interactions I've observed, but I don't believe it shows up much in the literature, because...
In the daytime, I watch bluejays, crows, chipmunks, cats, dogs, human children and raccoons - they do come out sometimes in the middle of the afternoo...
That story is inaccurate. "We" did nothing. A very long line of mammals before us, birds and reptiles before them, elaborated systems of communication...
Why does one need to acquire things? The earliest clothing was made by the wearer or a member of their community. The earliest writing appears on cave...
That's the picture in many countries today. But sometimes, it has been monolithic - like the suasion of the RCC in medieval Europe. Other times and pl...
All this is tied to capitalism and its own relentless internal logic. I do admire your perseverance and consistency, even as believe you misattribute ...
The operative phrase in all that gibberish is "if you assume" If you assume something absurd, all the universe will thereby be rendered absurd. If you...
What's that to do with ethics? This is perfectly circular. How the hell do you use the universe as a measuring-stick, for what....? I don't recall att...
And what you described was not a leader; it is a sociopath. US media should have ignored him to death from the minute he announced his candidacy - he ...
We already have good reporting; it just doesn't get sufficient support. I haven't seen any of the PBS reporters be opinionated (unless it was an edito...
They have no standing in some human moral philosophies. In other systems of human thought, they are valued, sometimes revered. Human philosophy is not...
Two sentences being in the same paragraph doesn't make one contingent on the other. I would prefer humanity at large to understand its dependence on n...
There is no negotiation. Human law applies to the behaviour of humans toward other humans of their own tribe, toward other humans from different tribe...
How do you mean they're not involved? And what process has two sides? Within each group of social animals, there is an accepted code of behaviour, jus...
Not ethically speaking; just my personal preference. Ethics are societal and cultural; most human moral codes do not afford rights to other species, t...
I'm not. I'm talking about how language is altered, adapted, specialized and perverted over time. That was certainly one of the questions. When I take...
Language has already emerged. We have a pretty good idea where it came from and how it developed over time. We have a pretty good reconstruction of th...
Okay, then. How does that rational irrationality relate to the meaning of words? A few - just the ones with a stronger affinity to justice than to sel...
That's kind of what I did say. They define the word according to their values. In most people's minds, justice has roughly the same meaning in the abs...
I don't call it 'sanctity'. While I have no brief with spirituality, I don't think it's useful to couch ecological survival in religious terminology. ...
The desire to believe their faction's version of reality. The minions are less interested in accurate information than in reassurance and the promise ...
Why divide into subgroups and go through a process? Why not simply choose officials as we do jurors? From a pool of all eligible voters, pick so many ...
There is an element of that when disagreement is over some fundamental concept, like the equality of citizens or what the cardinal sins and virtues ar...
Okay. Not sure how much discussion and consideration 7-9 could get done in 2 hours. Surely, they would have to study the applicants' resume and record...
The American Republican and Democratic core have already arrived there. They diverge, yes. Whether they evolve, I don't know. The Angles, Saxons, Jute...
It seems cumbersome and quite onerous for the prospective electors: the ones who are not finally chosen will have had to spend an inordinate amount of...
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