T_Clark

Ok. I was worried that I was distracting. I like to show respect for the intentions of the person who starts the thread.

I think this tangent I set us on is distracting from your main purpose. I'll leave it at that.

Turn off the pump. Turn off the water supply. Get your horses out of the pool. Make sure your pool is fully inflated.

To be fair to myself, I have been trying to restrict my most self-displaying posts to the Shoutbox.

Say I have a box of apples. The apples are separate from each other. I can pick them up, eat them, count them. I don't think ideas or beliefs are sepa...

Let me explain. It's simple. I like to hear myself talk (or watch myself write) and I hadn't in a while, so I wrote my post, as I do with many of them...

I doubt they exist as separate brain states. I'd guess, without any specific justification, that no brain state ever repeats itself.

:sigh:

To boil it down to fit the context of this discussion, to me it represents the most important difference between the acceptability of incest as oppose...

I don't think beliefs actually exist as separate things that can be counted in any realistic sense. I see my understanding of the world as an intercon...

A modest proposal. I think moderators should establish a rule that anyone who uses "sigh" as a response to a post is automatically banned.

Whatever the genetic or anthropological reasons for incest taboo, this is the one that matters to me.

See the link in my post above. This kind of rationale is used in the cousin marriage laws in some states.

One good checkpoint for attitudes and laws against incest is cousin marriage. This is a link to the Wikipedia article on cousin marriage. It has a rea...

Checking on the web, the incidence numbers for incidence of incest are all over the place. This is from the "Atlantic." One in three-to-four girls, an...

I think perhaps you misunderstand the role of the 10th man, although that does explain a lot about some of your ideas.

Pterodactyls came first.

You picked the cherry.

Perhaps you think a little too highly of yourself.

Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac A little voice inside my head said Don't look back, you can never look back /uploads/resi...

Then again, as far as I know, no falcon can fly for thousands of miles carrying hundreds of passengers at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

There are many very good, well-written books on evolution aimed at intelligent laymen. My favorites are by Stephen Jay Gould. Richard Dawkins is anoth...

Aah. Our anti-science expert speaks again.

It is my understanding that the African origin of humans is well established. What do you know (about this) that I don't.

It always amazed me. I turned 50 almost 20 years ago and AARP has never contacted me. I think they may have heard my mental age is still 17.

No, no. Only the highest quality, artistic, most sophistimicated videos are allowed here. Save the stupid stuff to clutter up the serious threads.

The things you're writing about pinged my memory, so I went back looking through the archives. There were two previous threads I really enjoyed. One, ...

Interesting and well written. I thought we were heading for a China hawk manifesto about the need to confront China militarily. I'm pleased to see you...

Upvote because I have no idea what you've written, but believe it completely.

You should put a lot more effort into your opening posts.

Forgot to say - welcome to the forum.

I'm not afraid when I drive my car or walk. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the risks. I try to be careful. I think this is true for mos...

I'll start by admitting I don't really know what this means. I doubt any credible physicist, biologist, neurologist, psychologist, or any other scient...

Upvote for "That Mitchell and Webb Look."

I went back and changed what I wrote after I first posted it to this: You often have interesting and useful things to say on the subjects we talk abou...

You often have interesting and useful things to say on the subjects we talk about on this forum. On the other hand, it makes no sense for you and me t...

I'll give you the same advice I gave Isaac. It's time to give up. You'll never convince TMF.

@"Isaac" - I reiterate my advice to you. Time to give up.

I've been suspicious of the increase in @"Hanover"'s upvote tally, so I checked. All but three of his upvotes since you reopened the system were from ...

I'm not sure if that's true, but it seems plausible.

According to Wikipedia: John Smith named the area Plymouth (after the city in South West England) and the region 'New England' during his voyage of 16...

Yes, they settled in for 260 years before they carved it.

You're not just a random guy, you're a random Jewish guy.

Keeping in mind that 30% of the people on the forum get all their knowledge about Jewish culture from you.

Correct. My favorite part is where the Pilgrims carved the date into the rock when they deshipped.

Are you saying you don't think our social instincts are a source of morality?

Here are pictures of Massachusetts' famous apocryphal rock. https://seeplymouth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Plymouth-Rock-Plymouth-MA-closeup-Photo...

I've only been to Kansas once. No, not Kansas City. I liked it there. The people were friendly and it's hard to find a bad steak.

This "paradox" and all similar ones are knots we like to tie in our language when we have too much time on our hands. As you say - it's words. It has ...

I think our social instincts are a major source for our moral attitudes, but thinking of empathy as a sort of proto-morality is putting the cart befor...