VagabondSpectre

Whatever the case, I contend we should be concerned with the actual beliefs, not the person, or how to characterize them. That people can change and r...

Negative impact on the individual is just called "harm" sexism is when it happens on the basis of sex. Sexism does not mean "harm to an individual". I...

It's definitely a problem endemic throughout most political camps, but different camps tend to wield their own flavor. From the left it's typically in...

Scruton wasn't attacking any specific individuals (he wasn't really attacking people, as far as I know, he was attacking masturbation and specifically...

I would like to clarify and say that it is not my intention to attack you or your views about Scruton. What I do mean to criticize is your choice of w...

Before long, we may even start to like the smell of it... Learn to like it enough, and there's no limit to how far we can go! Fake it till you make it...

Makes me wonder to what extent the physics/metaphysics distinction is bunk to begin with. The physical - the material - is only so because that's what...

:cool:

I do understand the need for abstract frameworks, and in so far as metaphysics fills that need, I take my hat off to it, but generally such fields are...

Yup. Under my view of metaphysics, because metaphysics is founded on nothing tangible, we can't really compare it against any tangible standard of tru...

More or less, yes. It's useful for gap-filling, but to me it's an aesthetic affair.

The only thing I think we strictly need metaphysics for are to tentatively fill the gaps in our knowledge with pretty and plausible interim truths (be...

They sure do! And what does it mean when negative PR can so easily overcome the positive? They all become terrified of offending anyone, they take les...

But if he treats men and women equally, is it sexist objectification? You're changing the meaning of "sexism" to mean something like "sexually harmful...

What is the operant motive behind his allegedly sexist writing? Is it prejudice against women or more broadly sexual repression/conservatism in genera...

I'm sure that I could find a passage of him talking about how men should or should not use their penises. So, if presented, will you also say that he ...

What does it mean to tell a private institution like a university to stop paying for whatever floats their academic boats? (And what is the manner of ...

You're doubling down on your misinterpretation. If Scruton was giving a list of all the reasons why he thinks masturbation is harmful, and someone jus...

This is exactly what I described. You've pre-judged what you think his statements mean bereft of real context, and based on how those make you feel, y...

I understand what you're trying to say, but it doesn't actually apply to him because he has said similar things about male masturbation. If I find a l...

But it does, because that's the context in which he made the statement. As I guessed, he is broadly against masturbation in general for ultimately sex...

Quick question: Can we block threads without blocking their author?

Thanks very much, I was just thinking about how I want one of these yesterday, and here she blows!

But what are we to do with all these sharp wooden stakes?

Yea I gathered that, but was he making a serious psycho-sexual point? (Maybe he is referencing or addressing the ideas of another?) Is it founded in s...

What's the context?

Been listening to a classical pianist I recently discovered. He's already one of my top favs. Erik Satie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pyhBJzuixM

The Muller report is not a court though, it was meant as a probe to find and discover evidence. It found evidence of obstruction, but it did not find ...

Muller did find sufficient evidence for obstruction, but stopped short of stating that as a conclusion because under a certain precedent, a sitting pr...

It's so pathetic that it might not even be criminal in the sense that a racoon cannot be found guilty of arson or kidnapping. Trump is the racoon, but...

Here's a side effect of the Muller report (which is itself a side-effect of Trump). From Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the students of Mos...

But just imagine the catharsis once the last log has fallen. When the brown mist clears and we start washing away the excrement, we're going to find n...

The digital audience at large for this debate seemed to only care about which speaker "owned" the other (I watched it live, with a live chat). This mi...

:rofl: "We can all just bow in front of this new masterclass of misery as we understand our guilt"... Priceless.

Just saying, impeachment is looking better and better every day. According to the Muller report, there's ample evidence of gross negligence and severe...

Does it have to be? Can it coherently be framed as identity politics if everyone occupies a demographic of one?

If an individual cannot make philosophical progress, then nor can societies or groups. But how do we measure it? Inexorably: subejctively. If philosop...

Would you say that you yourself have managed to progress philosophically, since you began?

Or perhaps, individualism?

I've been reading that some businesses are starting to provide standard philosophical training to their employees (Apple or google, IIRC). They're try...

Philosophical thought often helps form the foundation of more specific fields. Things like economics and medical science are the more visible fruit-be...

Different people will inevitably do different things. Even those who don't want children often want to leave the earth a better place than when they f...

Depends on if you care about future humans (possibly your descendants). History informs us. I say that we're better off. Who says different?

We shouldn't draw an absolute from a generalization (not all generalizations are inaccurate, but they're by definition not absolutely precise; there m...

This is really a very common reaction. It's more or less the same problem that Nietzsche himself opined: we have an un-fillable hole inside ourselves,...

Hey guys, I suddenly had an amazing idea! Let's all extol the suffering-earned-virtues of our race, gender, and sexual orientation, and then whoever w...

In novice smokers, marijuana can cause acute paranoia, which can form interesting, albeit ridiculous, lines of thought...

For me, marijuana doesn't at all help with rigor, but sometimes it does help with focus problems caused by uninteresting subject matter. If I have a l...

He's got that anti-colonial chic.

How about the comparison between proportionality and aesthetics? (e.g: equal proportions of dicks to vaginas might not lead to meaningful political ch...