Well, you're on your way to celebrate the holy day with family; Merry Christmas. But... "gormless" is a lovely word. I've only read it here. adjective...
I have entertained the notion that the world as we experience may be, in truth, much different than we think it is. Perhaps we would be shocked to see...
We reach a consensus. I have poor vision; what my senses tell me about the world as it is will not be the same as someone with excellent vision. We co...
The-world-as-it-is can only be a human concept, in the end based on experience. The-world-as-it-is might not be accessible if we had no reliable, repe...
Are we sure about that? It seems like a finite set of letters could only produce a finite set of rearrangements (words, sentences). The number might b...
How important to you is materialism's rightness or wrongness? How important the number of possible thoughts? We "hold stock" in various theologies, ph...
I'm OK with there being a finite number of possible thoughts, given that the finite number of possible thoughts is really very hugely huge. Unless you...
I don't know whether there are an infinite number of thoughts. I don't know where to begin thinking about an infinite number of thoughts. The brain co...
I understand the stigma of mental illness; the situation is certainly better now than it was say 50, 60, 70, and more years back. Indeed, I think for ...
From what I have read, there are two reasons why patients stop taking prescribed drugs (psychotropic and medical): The drugs don't work, so why contin...
There is clearly way more than enough money in the United States to provide a fully adequate social service program. Unfortunately, most of the money-...
If I may, @"BitconnectCarlos", I can offer an explanation. Prior to the 1960s, and the availability of antipsychotic drugs like Thorazine, people with...
For the most part, it would seem that the main problem was the political risk-aversion of state and federal officials rather than the risk tolerance o...
You have demonstrated a high level of "risk tolerance" and (apparently) have competently conducted high-risk activities and lived to tell about it. Pe...
What a bizarre claim! The "New Left" would surely be shocked to discover that they were the power elite. Some members of the New Left may have occupie...
Ask her, or him or something else -- whatever gender the person claims. It's not my place to decide that for that individual. I readily acknowledge th...
The species Homo sapiens is bipedal; that's not the only defining characteristic, bipedalism is one of many defining characteristics. Species have dis...
By that analogy, if there are persons born without 1 or both legs, then one would say humans are not bipedal. Humans are sometimes born with abnormali...
IMHO, it's genotype, XX and XY. Granted, abnormal conditions can arise. These are rare cases--like 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 30,000 for XX male syndrome (>2...
Once upon a time, English (Old English or Anglo-Saxon) used masculine, feminine, and neuter gendered pronouns. Over time, English shed much of its com...
Competition is a central feature of the capitalist market economy based on profit. The struggle is to buy raw materials at the lowest possible price, ...
In general? Hard to say. There are characteristics that may well apply to people who built fortunes up over time: highly motivated, focussed, maybe ty...
Apparently he also believes in smiling butterflies whose flapping wings cause an outbreak of lovely summer weather. An optimistic fellow. Smiling at t...
Well, I didn't ignore your posts. It's just that The Who's Who of capitalism is a long list, and covers a few centuries. You or I or Joe Blow can list...
Brett denies being interested in the question "who they are"; he says it is your question. I've attempted to address what I thought was Brett's questi...
I read somewhere that most of the gold that was ever mined -- going back 3000 years -- is still in circulation. I don't know whether that is true, but...
"I try to think but nothing happens." Curly of the Three Stooges said, My best thinking has occurred when I have been trying to solve a problem about ...
If consciousness is an illusion, who is the illusionist and who is the audience? I don't know what consciousness is either, but calling it an illusion...
The people who made it from scratch were the workers. Andrew Carnegie didn't make so much as a pound of steel himself. Why did workers agree to be emp...
The more you read, the more YouTube lectures you watch, the more classes you attend, the more you talk to other people, the fewer new ideas you will c...
Humans are as much a consequence of evolution as viruses, bacteria, clams, grasshoppers, sparrows, scorpions, kangaroos, and poison ivy. We are part o...
Thinking, you start out with a seemingly straightforward question by someone seemingly interested in the "problems of modern science". And of course t...
We pursue knowledge through science, true. We discover things. Sometimes what we discover is dangerous. We pursue ends besides knowledge. Sometimes th...
So, there have been several references to the lists of people who constitute the top of the 1%. However, the entire rich 1% of the population constitu...
It might depend on what one is ambitious to do. Rebels? Innovators? Society needs them. Hopefully, they will make significant contributions to a good ...
I'm not going to enforce anything, and neither are you, Ditto for managing human behavior. Human beings are well equipped to construct society, enforc...
The 1% do not have a fated moral flaw. They are not rich because they are evil. the rich are evil because they are rich. Radix malorum est cupiditas."...
Well, gee whiz, Brett; I was just following Jesus on this: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for...
Supposedly the 90% are starved for wealth because 1% has it. Correct. Here's the principle behind it: Workers produce goods and services for which the...
Andrew Carnegie and others have found that it is hard work to dispose of billions of dollars through philanthropy in a responsible manner. Most founda...
We live in a capitalist country par excellence and accumulating wealth (surplus value) out of the hides of the workers is The Name of the Game. The 1%...
Yes, without understanding who they are, OR without understanding the social/political/economic milieu in which they exist. As it happens, tax law has...
There are a number of studies about who these people are, and how they operate. If you want to know more (much more) about wealth and power, start wit...
Wealth and income are closely related, but maybe not inseparable. They are often reported separately, So, if you look at a list of people's earnings, ...
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