LuckyR

One cannot determine the success or failure of an entity without a concensus on what that entity's goal is. In my opinion, organized religion's goal i...

I commend you for your honesty, though I'm not putting much stock in a generalization based on an anecdote with an N of 1. I'll take your silence on m...

Used to think? Well now that you're smarter and more experienced, what do you think now? As to your last paragraph, I'm curious what the source of inf...

Okay, but what about the situation when killing oneself is the answer to the problem? The rest of your posting treats death as an option that those wh...

According to the observer. I'm not talking about a value judgment, rather a statistical analysis.

Well there's "natural" and there's "Natural". To use the umbrella term of Natural (describing each and every thing that occurs in Nature, including 6 ...

Good one! Obviously folks can be normal in a few (cherrypicked) variables, but to possess the overall quality of normal (implying being normal in each...

You seem to be conflating influence with coercion, I meant the latter.

I see your usage of organically/naturally, ie without external intervention. Meaning "if left to their own devices". Though the more common lay usage ...

For clarification, my understanding of the terms trans sexual and trans gender seem to differ from your usage here. That is, to my understanding trans...

So if a flat chested woman gets breast augmentation to look "feminine", that's succumbing to social preferences that women should have large breasts. ...

It's moral if the individual is competent, free from external coercion and dealing with permanent agony/suffering.

Natural, in my understanding, is normal for nature. Normal, almost identical to common, can apply to nature as well as manmade systems.

Well, if I say that women wear their hair long, that's a gender (social) norm. Hair is biology (like left toes), yet the choice of how to wear it is s...

I get what you're trying to say and I don't disagree with the central tenets. Though folks who discuss these issues use terms like "I'm a man" and "yo...

You mean it's "normal" meaning? wink, wink...

I agree there are situations (such as body temperature) that a range is at least as accurate (to the common meaning of "normal") as a single number. I...

Got it. The presence of life, necessitates the presence of death. Thus death itself is not abnormal or "evil" or "wrong". Assuming humans have agency,...

I see your point, but haven't heard a reason why a range around the mean is superior to the mode. Especially in cases of a bimodal distribution.

I disagree. If the question is: having how many fingers is normal? The average or mean (less than 10) isn't "normal", neither is the median, nor your ...

Are you referring to human life or all life?

Are post traumatic stress syndrome and autism spectrum disabilities? How about learning difficulties? Being tone deaf or maybe having stage fright. Wh...

Define "defective".

Well that's one theory, but as you noted we don't know why the cat behaved the way it did. Another, equally possible explanation is that the cat is in...

I don't agree. If a cat "plays" with a mouse until it dies, yet doesn't eat the mouse, many would call that torture.

There is plenty of data from depressed folks who attempt suicide, regretting that choice.

Several things. First, I am happy that you found something on your own, bigger than yourself, to work towards. And in my experience, having tangible g...

In my experience, you're looking at the issue incorrectly. Humans are not "evil", as a label. Rather all humans will, on occasion, perform "evil" acts...

If you mean there is no physical proof of a metaphysical entity, then we're in agreement.

You're, of course, correct especially among lay persons, but here we should be interested in accurate communication. The operative word being: "should...

Part of the problem with discussions on this topic is that anatomy and genetics are objective, while cultural gender roles are subjective. Thus when s...

I get what the OP is saying, and the moral "dilemmas" are part of the story, especially in Season 1, but in my opinion, this sort of story (when taken...

Exactly. Some try to exaggerate what is known. As it happens there's nothing wrong with admitting that the answer to this question is, as yet, not pro...

Wrong hands? Ha, ha. Reminds me of a story my wife's cousin told whereby his employer was forced to downsize and thus offered early retirement (which ...

We subjectively by all appearances exist as if we have Free Will, however there is a pathway whereby our decision making could be Determined. This pat...

I agree with your observations. My point is that if making new discoveries and getting paid are someone's goals, they can be met currently. If someone...

I'm not seeing the problem. There are research jobs in industry where folks are paid (often quite well) to push back the frontiers of ignorance, ie ma...

I notice you use many job related analogies. But remember, most folks who work (which is not everyone), only work for the paycheck, that is, performin...

Well, since usefulness (and therefore uselessness) is a subjective term, everyone's answer will only really be meaningful to themselves. Thus advice o...

Yes, I know it isn't a true illusion. I said it's a "functional illusion", meaning that since the chocolate conclusion was set at the Big Bang (as you...

I concede that the term "randomness" in the context of this conversation is not true statistical Randomness, rather a placeholder term to describe the...

Well, since the value of money (and thus economies) is inter-subjective and not objective, these values can increase indefinitely, if humans agree to ...

Yes, that's their design. And when someone is contemplating an important decision, they bring all of that design to bear on the problem. How much of o...

Exactly. I said you were "ignoring" randomness, your wording is "denying". Same thing. Just so you know, randomness exists, human denials notwithstand...

It's not either/or. It's a percentage thing. Of course there's randomness involved, but in most important situations it's a tiny percentage of the pro...

How? Because you're ignoring another major factor in Human Decision Making, namely randomness. That is, while commonly recalled (important) decisions ...

Yeah, both descriptors are reasonable. But regardless of which one we choose (or even a third one), basically you get out of life what you put in. Thu...

This question can only be answered by an individual who has the perspective of knowing/experiencing two different time lines. Since noone has that per...

Exactly, very few get beyond the emotional component elicited by reviewing their past in order to access the learning points from those past events in...

To my view, there is no qualitative emotional difference between the past, future and the present. That is fears of the future could in another's hand...