Tzeentch

It's one of the things that characterizes the mechanistic worldview. The idea that through science everything can be reduced to a mathematical equatio...

What Desmet tries to convey is that science has a lot of limitations - limitations that science itself shows to us through certain fields of study (qu...

:up:

Does this concern my removed comment in the Climate Change thread?

I see the argument for some leniency in regards to tempers flaring in political discussion, but to that end I will make two remarks: 1. Those who thin...

Anyhow, that's all I have to say about it. No need to spend pages discussing a single removed post, I'm sure you'll agree. However, it's the implicati...

I hear what you are saying, but I believe such behavior should be called out and challenged publicly, not in some forgotten and invisible corner of th...

Thanks for sticking up for me . :up: And I agree with you fully - to launch an angry, highly disrespectful rant on another poster and then to delete m...

I appreciate the kind words.

Sounds like regular ol' racism/sexism to me.

I'd argue it wouldn't do much good to make assumptions about a person about which all one knows is that they have Asperger's either. All it requires i...

I disagree. I will insist that if all I know about someone was the fact that they were gay, I would still know very little about the actual person. We...

I think this is a very alluring trap to fall into, but my answer would be 'no'. Let us suppose all we know about someone is their gender (or their nat...

The crudest way of putting it, is that identity is one of the many masks of the ego, and illusory. Gender is just one of the many attributes we use to...

The real conundrum seems to elude our socialists. It is very easy to vilify the other side if one believes the choice is between the socialist heaven ...

A worldview is a set of opinions and I think the mechanistic worldview is in part characterized by a leap of faith in terms of our current understandi...

I wouldn't say the mechanistic worldview is held only by a handful of philosophers. It seems a large part of western societies have come to view the w...

I don't think it has to be depressing at all. Another point Desmet makes is that while the mechanistic worldview has brought us many positive things, ...

I struggle to see how it is liberal at all to be espousing shoulds and should nots about something as personal as individual identity.

And you believe people haven't written about the virtues of a free capitalist economy? You could list a hundred writers, in the end its about the rati...

I think a good example might be our perception of the role of modern medicine in curing depression. In typical mechanistic thinking some seem to belie...

Of course there is a free market. Perhaps not absolutely free, but that's besides the point. It's exactly the low level of regulations of and interfer...

As you said, science is a tool. The 'mechanistic worldview' can perhaps be understood best as a set of opinions we have derived from our use of scienc...

You're comparing apples to oranges. When one lives in absolute poverty and those are your only options I might agree that employment isn't voluntary, ...

Your use of the word "technically" implies you yourself see the issue with that statement. In the case of government there was never even any agreemen...

Some individuals go through an unnatural process of intentionally weakening or illegally strengthening their bodies to achieve a certain aesthetic ide...

In the case of work you do have a say. Isn't your choice to sign a contract with an employer completely voluntary? You may even start your own if that...

I believe man should always strive towards rational understanding. However we have now come to a point where rational understanding has us admitting r...

Maybe I phrased it wrong, but I don't think those things are all that scientific. Defining the means and ends of propaganda and terrorism into scienti...

Desmet recently became known for that work you named, which deals primarily with societal dynamics during the covid epidemic. The mechanistic worldvie...

I believe the best mode for humans to coexist is voluntary. That's how I and most people (including most business!) conduct themselves every day. I do...

I see both, honestly. I see a certain need for government, and a certain need to enforce rules that allow people to live together in cooperation, but ...

I'm glad we've cleared that up then. I will have a look at the policy you named.

Sure. But you won't get off that easily. You quite confidently proclaim that the lack of market troubles in this time period was due to the measures g...

Can you explain to me the economic mechanism that ensured, as you say, no major crashes took place during this period, and why we are not utilizing th...

Let's keep the conversation honest. The birth of the United States was a period full of conflict and wars against nations that were at that time much ...

They seemed to have worked well for the United States and its capitalists in the era between its conception and the second world war in which governme...

It is very questionable whether large governments produce these things, and whether large governments will ever cede their power when they become supe...

For libertarian or classic liberal ideas to be considered responsible for our current predicament, when the US government hasn't embodied those ideas ...

Well, I don't know about the rhetoric, but policy guided by classical liberalism hasn't been seen in the United States for a very long time. Governmen...

This discussion was about the difference between how governments behaved and the free market. In fact, you brought it up. Now you've been told the dif...

I think we're done here.

You don't seem to understand the idea a free market. A free market is free of coercion. That's why we call it free. What is the government doing to st...

This has already been answered. The government will not let you compete. For example, it's quite conceivable that if you lived in a small rural town f...

I don't think what created this massive transfer of wealth is a result of classical liberal ideas. It seems to me the result of big business jumping i...

That is the essence of free competition. You understand that competition entails using power to compete? Nice try, but crime rings are not participati...

Amazon cannot stop you from setting up an internet sales company, and any consequences that may arise from your attempt is a result of either your pro...

You've got it exactly backwards. Individuals are perfectly capable of making their own decisions, and a government is not needed to tell them what to ...

Are we done here? I think we're done here.

:cry: