Isaac

I'm not clear how either of these replies addresses the issue. You say that the articles, as written, are defensive and inclusive - but we've just est...

You really do say the oddest things. I realise this may come as a shock to the Twitter generation, but what I discuss in online forums is not the sum ...

Why would I have anything to lose? I've nothing to lose from a game of tennis either, it doesn't mean I've any interest in playing one. It's true that...

Exactly. So the argument that NATO expansion was not provocation because NATO is merely a defensive organisation doesn't hold water does it? You've ju...

It's not impossible, just not something some of us have any interest in doing. That you have to go around wearing your heart on your sleeve is endeari...

A lynchpin of the argument exculpating NATO is that it is merely a defensive organisation with no significant role in America's imperialistic agenda. ...

Nice Freudian slip. I thought NATO was totally independent and not at all America's lapdog. So what good would it do convincing "Americans" that Swede...

Weird. It's like I'm speaking another language. Do you know what the word 'ought' means?

Interesting. I've only just had the same trouble with @"frank". There must be something going round. If I want information on the legal freedoms of Pa...

Sure. I'm sure the fact that... ...and... ...are just astonishing coincidences.

Yeah, but none of that was related to Ukraine. PayPal's actions (allegedly) were. Are we going to talk about Hungarian bath houses again now?

Are you having trouble with the difference between how things are and how things ought to be?

Ah, again, you're mistaking me for someone in search of a history lesson. I had thought I'd made the distinction quite clear, but evidently still not ...

True. I was more thinking of the role of things like constitutions and the Declaration of Human Rights than autocrats though. In my mind, their moral ...

Yeah, in Rwanda, children are forced into the military, so I guess that makes forcing them into mere child labour in India OK then? Typically moronic ...

I was more thinking of the ordinary, everyday influence, just trying to come at it using an extreme example. Parents influence the kinds of people the...

Sure. Do you think that we have responsibility for our effects on the personality and beliefs of others? (Or alternatively, I suppose, are you of the ...

OK, thanks. If I were responsible (evil meddling psychologist that I am) for creating a platoon of ruthless assassins by behavioural programming, Jaso...

Again... I'm asking you what your reasons are (if you have any). I'm not asking for a brief history of American culture, I have a library for that job...

Exactly. We have a set of goals, only one of which is giving people a say in how their communities are run.

So why (the devotion)? That's the question I was asking. Or, to put it another way... Why not?

Mostly the latter. The point, such as it is, was that if one advocates democratic rule because they consider it a moral 'good', then there's a conflic...

Re-read, please.

No. I'm asking why you think it ought to be? To be clear - How and why things are the way they are: A matter for experts - if I want to know I'll read...

What I mean is that you think we should follow democratic decisions, yes? Or are you just telling us how democracy works?

But why should they? Presumably, because people deciding for themselves how they want to run their communities is a 'good' thing? So if they make a de...

Yay. More of that amazing press freedom the West is so famous for... https://jacobinmag.com/2022/05/paypal-independent-media-journalism-censorship-tec...

The problem here is historicism. You agreed there never has been any properly state-free system, so all you can show is that when the state are the mo...

I think the problem is not the end goal, but the means. I'm on board with the whole individual freedom thing, perhaps more than most here. I raised bo...

In many cases, you don't because you do not have the right to refuse employment to someone on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, religion, or an...

As with all such arguments, yours is flawed by a fundamental contradiction over the management of communal resources. If you posit that communal resou...

All of which is to say the you have a strong narrative you seem quite convinced of. It seems well researched and knowledgeable (though I wouldn't real...

There's little point in us continuing if the only relationship you're going to allow is one where you explain things to me. I'm not here for a lecture...

This is exactly the problem. We can impose an electrical charge just by deciding to count something as an electrical charge, that's exactly how electr...

Classic. "It's already definitely done loads of good because it's prevented the thing I just completely made up would have happened if we hadn't done ...

Well that may well be on me. My understanding of Searle is in your hands right now. My understanding of how facts arise is much broader and mostly der...

Of course it is. Same as the elements. What counts as a proton is determined by a human institution; if we ever find a fourth quark, we'll have to dec...

No, but he does if we change what it means to hold that office. That stone (A) is a bishop (B). That rock (A) is iron (B). Joe Biden (A) is the presid...

What constitutes being a bishop? If I said "that stone is a bishop" and then preceded to use it as a rook, would you assume the rules of chess had cha...

I think it's at the interface of assertive and declarative speech acts. You say (if you'll excuse the paraphrasing)... Yet it seems to me that those s...

We refer to all things with 26 protons as "iron", so in your proposition {the things we refer to by the word "iron"} is tautologous with {all things w...

Nor am I suggesting it is, but I can build a model of a car out of cars. these four cars represent the wheels, these two cars are the doors, this car ...

Of course it is. That anything has 26 protons is a human decision. That we even bother looking at, let a lone counting the number of protons is a huma...

...because a human institution decided so.

I addressed this. The christening changes some of the properties of the object but not others. Christening a particular stone 'a bishop' changes some ...

You're still not acknowledging the questionable status of universals and as such begging the question. I'm talking about cheese, not 'cheese'. Gold, n...

But that's exactly what it does. One piece of gold differs from another in some ways but is similar in others, right? We decide what differences we're...

If we decide to change the definition of gold, then the ring in front of me ceases to be called 'gold' but it retains some of it's properties (same nu...

Exactly. Neither is gold 'gold' by virtue of its innate properties. It's 'gold' by virtue of some of its innate properties matching the criteria we de...

Only if our definition of "bishop" allows such a move. Not if it doesn't. Our definition of 'gold' is highly specific and doesn't allow for leeway, ou...