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This bearded fellow is lodged in billions of minds, mine too. It's the children's Sunday school story that doesn't grow up with us. Some enduring effo...
December 21, 2017 at 19:01
Please don't give up reasoning. Like Jesus said, we must be as harmless as doves and as wise as serpents. You are in a fix because the two categories ...
December 21, 2017 at 07:01
I didn't know, still don't know, how to find "work I love". I stumbled into three or four jobs that I liked reasonably well (lets not go overboard wit...
December 21, 2017 at 05:48
Charles Ives, 1874/1954 an American pioneer in selling insurance (estate planning products) was also a composer. This piece is interesting, or the sou...
December 21, 2017 at 05:29
I hope there is at least one 3 star Michelin restaurant left that really is very good. Or would you rather go slumming?
December 21, 2017 at 04:40
Are you getting to France on your own dime, or do I have to pay for that?
December 21, 2017 at 04:37
Never mind thousands of children in need! They could put their $50,000 of cash in my hands so that I could complete my education before I drop dead of...
December 21, 2017 at 04:28
Juicy details, please. Did the bride punch you out?
December 21, 2017 at 01:02
For a wedding, I would tend to agree. Many weddings seem to be less a celebration of an important event and more an occasion for extremely conspicuous...
December 21, 2017 at 01:01
No doubt she found your assessment quite helpful and refreshingly frank.
December 21, 2017 at 00:57
You may think that the assertion 'life in itself is good' is bollocks or bullshit or whatever term you like. There are many who, for various reasons, ...
December 21, 2017 at 00:54
I currently take a small 'maintenance' dose of generic Effexor. I feel normal and function well. I've taken it for quite a few years. When I try to we...
December 21, 2017 at 00:28
Not a problem. I was joking. And I'm not always consistent, for worse or better.
December 20, 2017 at 18:59
Speaking of which, it's time to leave for a dental appointment. More later.
December 20, 2017 at 16:09
To say "Ben & Jerry's ice cream is good" is "a judgement relationship between an observer and a thing" -- definitely. To assert that "life is good" --...
December 20, 2017 at 16:07
I haven't finishing reading your post, but if you hadn't shown up pretty quick, I would have sent you a telegraph alerting you to the topic's bright, ...
December 20, 2017 at 15:43
Oh no, people are double checking my posts and comparing them.
December 20, 2017 at 15:36
Why is "Life is good in itself" a bold claim? Or is it "in itself" that is problematic?
December 20, 2017 at 15:30
Pessimists and Optimists may find this page interesting, The World In Data website has a page on optimism and pessimism.
December 20, 2017 at 07:23
StreetlightX made a good suggestion. I'll add to it with this: Concentration is improved when you "work with the text" by underlining what look like i...
December 20, 2017 at 07:10
I have pretty good Sitzfleisch (the ability to sit still and read for quite a long time, for instance) but I haven't read much philosophy. I came to i...
December 20, 2017 at 07:00
Thank you, plentifully.
December 20, 2017 at 06:47
Some people feel that "life is like a sewer: What you get out of it depends on what you put into it." I don't suppose these people went far out of the...
December 20, 2017 at 06:02
Why did Nietzsche think nihilism would become endemic? He lived 1844 to 1900... what had he seen, heard, read in the 19th century that convinced him o...
December 20, 2017 at 05:42
Life is good, but society has plenty wrong with it, I'll readily agree. But most of the people in this post Nietzschean world are NOT nihilists, yet a...
December 20, 2017 at 05:37
Since I said life is good from the get go, I won't endorse your position that we have to somehow make it good. That life is inherently good is like gr...
December 20, 2017 at 05:33
I wasn't ruling out individuals finding purpose, just that it wasn't an installed feature. I don't like antinatalism, but I also don't care for people...
December 20, 2017 at 05:26
Why isn't 2500 years of philosophy effective prophylaxis against nihilism? The nihilist didn't read it, perhaps? Is there something about post-Nietzsc...
December 20, 2017 at 05:18
I assert that LIFE IS GOOD, but there is absolutely nothing stopping you from trying to... I agree that life and I earnestly urge you to get on with m...
December 20, 2017 at 05:12
I don't think my statement rules out philosophizing. Should not the philosopher also seize the day? Our philosopher doesn't know how long he has to re...
December 20, 2017 at 04:59
Quantifying pleasure and pain is a rhetorical device. There can certainly be "more pain" and "less pain" -- I've experienced more pain and less pain. ...
December 20, 2017 at 04:50
And god forbid that anybody should call capitalism "exploitative" when every school boy knows that capitalism is merely the maximization of opportunit...
December 20, 2017 at 04:37
anything like sleeping, because one presumably will never dream or wake up. Sleep is a euphemism for death, which has no ending. Life just stops, and ...
December 20, 2017 at 00:55
Oh, sorry about that. Didn't mean to rain on the parade. Let me offer you an umbrella. I have nothing against religion -- if it works for you, it's gr...
December 19, 2017 at 08:09
Was the Pied Piper of Hamelin pedophile propaganda? Shouldn't that tale be banned? Rattenfängers luring children to unknown fates is surely subversive...
December 19, 2017 at 07:24
Our existence makes us biased in assessing the significance of our existence. Since humans became a species, there have been perhaps 100 billion of us...
December 19, 2017 at 07:13
Except that it isn't a lack of ethical knowledge that causes people to behave psychopathically. It's a developmental flaw in the structure of the brai...
December 19, 2017 at 06:48
In my long history of taking antidepressants and anti anxiety drugs, I certainly found that to be true. If they work, which they don't always do for a...
December 19, 2017 at 06:37
Well, Posty, psychopathic and remorselessly criminal behavior is considered a severe mental illness. People found to act out psychopathic murderous th...
December 19, 2017 at 06:18
Sure, but remember: we're talking about human society here, not a society of saints and angels. Well, people with significant illnesses are dysfunctio...
December 19, 2017 at 06:09
One of the simplest things to try to learn how to do is slow your heart rate during meditation. It doesn't require great spiritual capacity. Very expe...
December 19, 2017 at 05:56
Knowing the truth might be highly inconvenient, and because inconvenient, also disadvantageous.
December 19, 2017 at 05:42
So, postface, where are you??? Have you abandoned your computer to deal with wild fires, or something? The least you could do is respond to my penetra...
December 19, 2017 at 05:37
That seems to be the case. Perhaps the basic mechanism of affecting mental performance with drugs was present in the first generation of psychoactive ...
December 19, 2017 at 05:35
Conflating immoral and unethical behavior with mental illness would seem to undermine the concept of responsibility. SOMETIMES people behave badly bec...
December 19, 2017 at 05:31
How about "Mental health is present when individuals are satisfied by their functioning within broadly defined intellectual and emotional standards"? ...
December 19, 2017 at 05:21
I'd lichen to solicit sex in a forest; it would be a larch. As it is, I am pining away for a particular son of a beech.
December 19, 2017 at 01:29
Language is treeing all right.
December 18, 2017 at 05:34
But then, what is?
December 18, 2017 at 05:31
Nah, that's not even wrong. Rap his knuckles with a ruler.
December 18, 2017 at 05:27