Echarmion

Invading Afghanistan and Iraq (the endless wars you are referring to) wasn't a police action. But the criticism isn't really about withdrawing troops,...

You don't get people who want more abilities/power?

The Kurds received funds and supplies because they were useful. It was not an act of generosity. Now that the Kurds are no longer useful, they are bei...

Parts of it were, and the result was a system that never quite worked correctly. Nevertheless, republicans managed to get elected on a promise of dism...

In a technical sense, we are already cyborgs. We use technology to enhance our biological capabilities. While this is not usually what people have in ...

The advantage of a hegemonic US has been relative peace for North America and Europe, with conflicts being resolved via proxy wars in less stable regi...

In a better world, Trump would have been thrown under the bus when he refused to unequivocally state that he would concede a lost election. Peaceful t...

Artists of any kind are, historically, not known for their conservatism. But I think the "overwhelmingly liberal" messages are only slightly left of c...

I disagree. This is a matter of degrees. The german government forbids anyone from lying or equivocating about the Holocaust, for obvious historical r...

I disagree about misinformation and propaganda being natural features of a democracy. Quite the opposite. The whole point of democracy is to hold the ...

It's not really "the left" holding these positions. Academia may, in general, be more left-leaning than other sectors of the economy, but that's not a...

If we're talking the US, specifically, the Republicans have been very good at using the weaknesses of the US democratic system to their advantage. The...

I think we mostly agree here, I am just using "power" a bit differently. Not as instrumental value but as inevitability. Truth seems to be inevitable ...

Sure. You can also selectively employ fiction to achieve a goal, and this may be more efficient than using the truth. But it's an exercise in risk man...

An interesting question, I quite like this take on it. It seems like we reside in fiction at our own peril. Truth is that which reasserts itself regar...

It's when reason values you. Duh! I have my own question: how is it "intrinsic" value if it's entirely based on the subjective assessment of reason?

Right. So how do we fight a black hole? And is it always the right choice to be purely pragmatic when it comes to politics or is there a place for pri...

Oh I agree with that. I just don't agree we shouldn't care about the character of the people we elect. I think that the trend towards only looking at ...

I think that's highly questionable though. You're only going to be distracted if you didn't care about the policies beforehand. And if that's the case...

Still, our knowledge of all these things is ultimately based on sensory data. Would you agree that it's non-physical?

Perhaps this is because it's rather obvious you desperately want someone to play along so you can display your superior resoning some more. Unfortunat...

This is a complete non-sequitur. Why would caring about the character of the people you entrust with power destroy your ability to engage in politics?...

I suppose you're an adherent of direct democracy then?

We can call it personality, or integrity, or anything else if you're interested in semantics. What matter is electing people that you can actually tru...

If your political system is a representative democracy, the character of the people you elect matters. It might actually be the most important thing. ...

It should probably be noted that this was not her only speech, and it was by far the harshest one. Wait, the world governments have no power? Who does...

That doesn't follow. The trend on the graphs is visible from the 1970s onwards, well after humanity had started significant carbon emissions. That at ...

The mobilization? Or the measures? The former, as I said, would probably look like a global revolution, people going on strike and electing "green" pa...

I don't see how the spikes, that is the fluctuation which is normal in complex systems, "question the anomalous nature". You can clearly see the trend...

My point there was easy to misunderstand, apologies for that. To clarify, I don't advocate we Institute global communism to stop climate change. I jus...

Here you go: https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/executive-summary/ Links for further reading are included. I'll also suggest https://en.m.wi...

We have physical models telling us roughly how much of an effect how much CO2 in the atmosphere has. According to these models, CO2 is the primary cau...

But this doesn't matter, does it? If you're saying some prediction is wrong, you must be able to identify just where the prediction fails. If you can'...

No you haven't. You sidestepped them. You said: If you believe it's questionable, you ought to be able to point out what step in the physical process ...

So, bringing me back to my three questions: a) CO2 does not have the physical characteristics that cause it to trap solar radiation in the earth's atm...

No-one (well maybe a few hardcore denialists) disagrees with that. Do you agree that anthropogenic climate change has a significant impact on the clim...

I think you may have misunderstood. I am not calling for the institution of 20th century communism. I am saying the amount of social mobilization requ...

Right. So to clarify your position, do you think that a) CO2 does not have the physical characteristics that cause it to trap solar radiation in the e...

Ah, so your strategy is denial, is it?

Any opinion on why many right-wing factions deny the very serious danger and refuse to do anything about it?

Massive social mobilization would probably be required. Because of the economic impact of the policies that are now required, we're looking at the equ...

That would imply hunter-gatherer societies have no social constructs, even though they're already a "society". I don't think that works.

Talking about fantasy, it seems to me just as fantastical that such a "painful therapy" will be adopted until things have really crashed and burned.

An interesting post. It does seem that the notion of gender as purely a social construct doesn't fit properly with the way trans people experience the...

One would, but if one does that, the argument no longer works as well, because then Premise 2 becomes: "My moral valuings are not necessarily moral va...

The issue here is with the identity of moral values and values in general. If they are "one and the same", every member of the set "my valuings" is al...

That's fine. By now, the quality of your arguments is obvious to any reasonably intelligent reader either way.

So the two sentences "mammals are animals" and "mammals are one and the same as animals" mean the same thing? If you are unwilling to have your ration...

Then why use different words? What use is the conclusion that "moral values are not one and the same as my values"?

Not in the form you posted it again. It doesn't say that. It says: Not the same words and not the same meaning. If it said: "if moral valuings and my ...