One thing we do know is that the state makes a terrible parent. So there is no reason to imagine that the state has any expertise on what even constit...
I think the controversy arises from the fact that one is obliged to believe and not believe at the same time. One has to choose whenever roads diverge...
You might imagine, given my handle here, that I would be familiar with this great controversy, but alas I thought I thought I was the lone wolf crying...
I must just applaud the resilience of all those capable of sustaining a shout for five or six paragraphs. Since I no longer smoke. I can sustain a cou...
Anyone who thinks they are capable, or any parent or couple can be capable of raising a child without social support, should first demonstrate that th...
We know that it is possible to live in peace, to care for one another and enjoy life. And yet we know that we do not do it. I don't see how this knowl...
Mostly, I fart around and make lots of mistakes. But sometimes I read the instructions or watch a video, when mistakes look like they might be expensi...
The old "illusion" of a chequerboard with a shadow cast across it such that dark square A is 'surprisingly' shown to be "the same exact shade" as ligh...
This video is out of date. The climate has got worse, the political situation has also got worse. Extinction rebellion has failed. Emissions are still...
It's what every decent human has to do, care for each other and reason our way to living together. "How" is with a deal of wisdom that is hard to find...
Here's a handy summary of roughly how very fucked we are and why we are not going to be unfucked by science magic or very stable geniuses. https://www...
And if the lack of moral facts is true, and the argument is sound, does this make it a good argument? If it is a good argument it refutes itself, ther...
It's hard to be specific. A history of philosophy is usually recommended, and some sort of dictionary is a great crib-sheet. Philosophers are all grea...
We are, alas, living with the consequences of rationalism. The enlightenment and the success of science make it seem as if reason has triumphed over e...
Not so much a Holy Grail, more a big box of snakes, all entangled with each other, most of them poisonous and slippery. Reach in at your peril and try...
Thus the title, and we have a genuine scientist saying it; but what are the consequences? On the face of it, the consequences are that, demonstrably, ...
That is about where I am. A lot depends on all those tipping points and positive and negative feedbacks as well as what humans do in the next couple o...
https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1211/1/owensdj3.htm Hume elsewhere confesses that he does indeed expect the future to be like the past, and the ground...
The economic collapse is part of climate change, just because the economy is predicated on the eternal expansion of fossil fuel consumption and waste ...
Of course it is. Headlines are designed to grab your attention, by evoking some emotion. It is a tragedy that because such manipulation has been going...
I think the personality comparison is quite apt. Churchill was a privileged rabid factional racist obsessed with his own destiny in a declining empire...
Alas, this is a recipe for disaster. Instead of starting from where you want to be, start from where you are, in the middle of a muddle. Instead of lo...
The story of The Emperor's New Clothes comes to mind. The best protection is another viewpoint - a diverse community; the greatest danger the echo cha...
Well there would have been much more wisdom in a dignified silence; when I find my own stupidity, I have already transcended it. Finding it in others ...
Hard to choose between a bunch of unprincipled squabbling power hungry, lying incompetents and another bunch of unprincipled squabbling power hungry, ...
It seems to me that there is a certain logic that the Rwanda policy was sold as a deterrent , and that it could not possibly have functioned as much o...
I am trying to imagine your sustained world— plenty of wilderness, and a few cities and farms maintained by robots, streets clean and empty, everywher...
I'm just gonna leave this here, and if someone is interested to hear Some kind of religious environmentalist then here it is, and If not I don't even ...
Thanks for that. Some interesting social psychology there. You don't have to wonder really, it is fairly explicitly set out. No doubt the practical de...
There is no 'if' about it. The greatest threat to humanity is the collapse of the economy. The new industrial revolution combining 3d printing and AI ...
Well My state owned radio featured a reading of "All quiet on the Western front", a German story of lament for the loss of one German youth, and anoth...
Remembrance day is a thing in the UK, stemming from WW1 and folk like to stand still and quiet for 2 minutes, to 'remember the dead'. This year there ...
No, but I have seen a Russian one. That's all I'm saying, they went for a quick decapitation of the government alongside a push for a land bridge and ...
I already addressed what you said, and my complaint that you quote is that you deal in innuendo and never even have a point to make. If you actually m...
No one here is is arguing that either, at least not any more than any human group is fundamentally irrational at any time. I'm not a military expert, ...
Anecdotally, they were running short first of fuel, then of personal equipment for troops, and then of munitions and tanks and even training facilitie...
Then why did they have those long lines of stalled transport for a week or two, and why did they run short of so many things so quickly? Can they not ...
Yes indeed; standards. It goes for anything. We have food standards, hygiene standards, safety standards, building standards, that we rely on; and, he...
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