Exactly. The talk of 'there's only X' is silly if taken at face value (or taken 'metaphysically.') An entire lifeworld-and-language is presupposed in ...
Agreed. What I am agreeing to is therefore not exactly clear, but for me this is one of the bigger realizations that I associate with philosophy. We a...
As a Hegelian thinker might say, it takes time for the social human mind to make progress. For the most part, 'men are as the times are.' Most of the ...
I think about the issue in a similar way. Identity is sacrificed in the pursuit of truth. But what motivates the pursuit of the truth? One identifies ...
Right. With AI the eye of Big Brother really can be everywhere. If that's not the case now, it will be soon. Captions can be provided for images autom...
I'm concerned that we will end up with an endless war on domestic terrorism. The threat is real, but so is the counter-threat of an exaggerated reacti...
I don't know a single person IRL who uses this kind of forum. I guess most are happy with Facebook and Twitter. In the case of FB, they are happy mayb...
Of course you are right about the majority of them. But I do worry about the odd genius with such leanings. Like what happened to Bobby Fisher? Or Ezr...
I must confess that I'm personally a little paranoid about this kind of thing. Our minds are mostly externalized nowadays and subject to potential pol...
Yup. I despise Trump, but I don't love control of the commons with no oversight. I'm pretty sure that most Trumpers would censor people on the left gi...
It's true that you don't eliminate the water cooler. Maybe some posters are being scared off by low quality posts. I don't know. I have sometimes wond...
For some it's space, for others it's time that makes us ridiculous. For me it's always been time more than space. If all that space out there is devoi...
I like the clash-of-personalities model better than the magazine model. What my books can't give me is an unpredictable collision of hundreds of perso...
Another option is that we can't really make sense of the issue. The fluffy either does or does not have a gurgle. I suggest considering the design of ...
Good point, and I also suspect that our dependence on screens is contributing to mass delusion. Our ape brains can't handle the tech. The lil' guy has...
Right, or at least it's hard for a neurotic-critical-sophisticated mind to hold on to. Anyone in a state of genuine faith is saved by that faith while...
Right. It's my understanding that post-tribal universalism is historically entwined with a Christianity that was preached to the gentiles. I imagine p...
I can see where you are coming from. Any pain chosen for another is a violation in some pure theoretical sense. My response is just the suggestion tha...
OK, but here we are within language appealing to concepts like dignity. Let me zero in. Human suffering has an extra dimension, made possible by abstr...
I like the dignity theme, and I remember it occuring to me many years ago that 'life is an indignity.' One is thrown absurdly into an unchosen situati...
I think resistance to antinatalism is more of a gut-level thing that finds reasons after the fact. But I don't see how the issue in general escapes be...
That seems right to me. What is family planning after all? A conscientious potential parent will at least consider what kind of life they can offer th...
I agree with you about participation in the cosmic plan. The only hitch is that maybe humans could resent and rebel against the plan of a god they con...
I know what you mean about the climate. I'd like to believe in a good God, but I just can't. I had some belief when I was younger, and there was somet...
Let's imagine that our world is a simulation created by humans who are more technologically advanced. If they are ethically no better than us but only...
Maybe the common thread is the fear that life is not going anywhere. Don't people want an unambiguous sense of indestructible progress? If evolution i...
Our madness is strangely our glory and our privilege. Give humans time, and they will revolutionize their environment and their lifestyle, until it's ...
In that Russell quote a big deal is made of personal annihilation and the second and arguably greater death of the species itself. This second death m...
I agree. But can we manage it? Instead I imagine humans competing to see who can seem the most zen. It's as if any good thing has a kind of surface or...
I think we can see a spectrum in human affairs. We can see humans arranging things to stay warm, stay fed, etc. And this we can also see in animals. B...
Let's say that plays a big role. I still think it misses something. Would deism help with the crisis of meaning? To some degree, I guess. If there wer...
Doesn't this hinge on what you mean by meaning? From one perspective, as embodied animals we are drowning in meaning. It feels good if X and it hurts ...
'The kingdom of Heaven is within you.' It's an old and beautiful thought. I think of stoics, skeptics, Christians, and so on. Call it escapist or prof...
I've just seen the video, but I am also repulsed by a kind of shallowness...not his but of the vision of data-ism which really seems plausible (we are...
That's a good theme. One of the things that torments/amuses me is that angst-ridden critics of capitalism are also its products. One can become rich a...
In this video, Hariri suggests in different words the dominant but endangered religion of our times is liberalism/humanism, by which he basically mean...
Granting that humanism is the dominant 'religion,' does it know where it's going? Does it lack self-consciousness? Given the gloomy mood of our times,...
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