TheVat

I think the ultraconservative bloc that put up Donalds is like a dog chasing a car. Perhaps the Democrats should all vote for Donalds: OK, you caught the car. Now what? Well they could use someone who can feather their nest.

Weird how the same trans discussion keeps rearing its befuddled head at SFN. Documented incidents of straight cis male teachers/coaches ogling or fondling or sexually harassing female students -- 34x10238 Documented incidents of trans teachers/coaches etc -- 0

I am enjoying that Patty Murray is currently second in line of succession to the POTUS. Though highly unlikely, it is amusing to contemplate that only six people would need to jump ship to elect Hakeem Jeffries. Five, if "Present" changes their vote.

In the Matrix postulate, reincarnation would seem easy to toss in: live, grow old, die, your memory is archived and your basic consciousness is loaded into an infant simulation which then grows, lives out its life, etc. Between simu-lives, you can access the archived memories of previous simu-lives, perhaps retain traces of skills, wisdom, traits that were developed in those previous lives and which influence your next life. Indeed, I would say that reincarnation as a concept only has coherence and a plausible mechanism in such a virtual existence and nowhere else. Unfortunately any possible coherence is being added ad hoc onto a hypothesis, the Matrix hypothesis, which is already loaded with assumptions about computer simulations. Many of them untestable. So you could puzzle over this, or just pick up that razor. If the Matrix Plus Reincarnation postulate starts to fail, it allows people to endlessly summon ad hoc hypotheses to keep it from being falsified, and so it really doesn't seem worthwhile. No matter how you test it, a believer can then hypothesize new ways that the simulation can fool everyone and be able to recycle conscious minds. The basic problem of the Matrix hypothesis is just worsened by tossing in reincarnation.

I agree. In Rawls ethics, it means opportunity in the sense of equal access to social amenities that allow one to educate, nurture skills, etc. I don't think he meant specific opportunities (or capabilities) were insured for a person. More that being born with special inheritance would not mean pushing others away from their access to advancement, i.e. create an underclass. As I said, it's more an "omega point" rather than a specific stage. As @CharonY noted, one would start with fixes and stopgaps that bring more equity and fair dealing in the system. As others noted, sometimes the practical approach is to remove barriers and stigma, and not worry about optimal outcomes.

If optimal outcomes for all is unachievable (agree with that) then the next best thing might be justice for all. That's a need that's apparently hardwired into humans - studies of children as young as eighteen months find them getting deeply upset at any perceived injustice directed toward others or themselves. This is where Rawlsian ethics comes into play: his "veil of ignorance" idea is that a person would prefer a society where it did not matter which family they were born into. No matter your parents ethnicity or creed or socioeconomic status, you would be born into a place where you received equal justice and opportunity. I don't know if that's going to happen here, but it seems like a good omega point to aim at.

I appreciated the nod to a realist interpretation. And dig at string theory. I think my earlier comment on cowering from probabilistic theories was confused by some - @Mordred was one - as me not seeing the uses of probability in physics. Well of course I do. What I should have said was I'm leery of acausal theories (aka nondeterministic), which seem to skirt thorny ontological problems and just tell you like a stern schoolmarm that it's all stochastic. Here's a lump of twenty trillion thorium-234 atoms. Some of them will soon beta decay to protactinium-234. Some of them won't. Let's give each thorium atom in the lump an address. And name. At 221-B, there is Sherlock. At 10, is Boris. Either could, randomly, decay. As it happened, Boris decayed first, before Sherlock. At a macro scale, such an event seems to have a cause. We have an ontology of macro scale Borises, and can understand why they decay so easily. But the thorium atoms all seem identical. All intuitions seem wrong. Ontology can help. Maybe.

It may go better for societies if all social reform is recognized as experimental in nature. If education allowed people to recognize the complexity of modern societies, and that the success of any proposed alteration is not guaranteed. (This might also reduce the utopian expectations of some)

Always worth asking how these lists are put together, especially when it comes to claims that an invasive outcompetes other species. As @studiot noted, species like vinca minor can make the list (I had to chuckle at that) for trifling reasons - someone had a spot of trouble in their garden? Periwinkle are well behaved, and little threat to biodiversity....unlike the bindweed (Calystegia?) that overruns our yard and sets about choking other plants and forms immortal and indestructible deep root systems. If it weren't for our mule deer friends, who like snacking on it, we would be barely keeping up.

I thought DeB-B had both particles and pilot waves. Not my field, so if I'm wrong or not even wrong that's par for me. Am sorta a fan of DeB-B, due to my apelike gropings over, and cowering from, probabilistic theories.

I know Asian carp have been an invasive scourge in the Mississippi rivershed. In the southern US, there's been kudzu wreaking havoc for decades. My spouse when she was young in Arkansas can recall old sheds and entire trees completely covered with the stuff wherever there was neglected property. The tumbleweed, though movies often use it as a symbol of my western area, was a Russian invasive. The emerald ash borer is another nightmare. Some on that list are not a major ecological threat. The Burmese python is a problem if it eats your cat but then it's probably saving some endangered birds by doing so. And it's unlikely to venture much north of Florida Everglades. The satiric writer Carl Hiaasen has a novel in which a Burmese python plays a central role*. The cane toad is another one like that - your dog might get sick, but the toad isn't likely to ravage the ecosystem (in the USA; however in Australia they are a serious threat). It's the little guys you have to watch out for, like ash borers, bark beetles, African land snails. * "Squeeze Me"

In Highsmith's novel, Ripley ends up getting away with everything and is a rich yachtsman. Highsmith leaves you with one line about a moment of paranoia where Ripley wonders if there will be policemen waiting on the next pier, then he shrugs it off. Herschel Walker's loss in Georgia makes me think even fairly conservative states have limited tolerance for such over-the-top levels of fabrication, so maybe the SANTOS act could get some traction. It might get pared down a bit in committee, but anything would be welcome. Fraudsters like Santos drain public confidence in government further and waste the time of legislative bodies when there is real work to be done.

You have perfectly described my relationship to home renovation. Some gets done, but often only when I've found a workaround for the drudgery part (e. g. wood strips for sheetrock joints instead of plastering and sanding - "rustic charm"). A lot of human creativity has been driven by the desire to avoid drudgery. I second @iNow on walking. A person who sets out on a walk returns a saner and smarter person. (unless they walked behind too many buses inhaling deeply)

I did not revise any definitions, so that's a false characterization of what I said. I pointed out the distinction between moral objectivity (i.e. that there is some objective condition that is a moral state) and objectivity of measurable social outcomes. I suggested that the latter is a real part of science and can make findings as to how moral/ethical beliefs and practices affect the viability of societies and welfare of its members. Nor was I confining objectivity to "what I know," which borders on a trollish insult but perhaps you meant well. Indeed, I was opening up an entire world of data across multiple fields such as anthropology, ethnography, sociology, psychology, economics, population biology, et al. It would seem to me that it is you who is choosing to ignore the most salient points of my previous posts and feeding them back in a dumbed-down form. I already have sensed that you are not likely to acknowledge this or any other mistakes in reading, so I won't trouble you further.

Thanks to Milankovich cycles, however, that eccentricity gets more pronounced every 100,000 years or so. When Earth’s orbit in the Milankovich cycle is at its most elliptic, about 23 percent more incoming solar radiation reaches Earth at our closest approach to the Sun each year than does at its farthest from the Sun. (it's currently at 6.8% because we are at the least elliptical part of the cycle) This would have a sort of seasonal effect even without an axial tilt. The effect wouldn't be as pronounced as we get from obliquity, but it would be something.

For completing a project, another useful thing is to create a place where you can only do the one thing. A desk, a chair, the bare minimum of whatever tools a job requires. A minimalist space that says you are here to work. Ideally, outside that space is an area to walk in that clears your mind and does not distract it. It seems paradoxical, but creativity blooms in a boring setting.

It is unforgivable that he would steal and then distort (for such base purposes) Jonathan Miller's classic Beyond the Fringe line. IIRC Miller's original line was "I'm not a Jew...but I am Jew-ish..." If he won't step down, he should like James Traficant be expelled from the HoR.

If you read my posts, I explained that I meant objectivity only in the sense of measurable outcomes for social groups and their members. Twice. And clarified how it was not a religious or metaphysical take on intrinsic moral good. Have a good day, or night, depending on time zone.

If your survival depends on the welfare of your tribe (which is a reality I would suggest is demonstrable), then you can say there is an observable value to the ethics of a social contract. I wasn't actually saying "should." It is an objective fact that humans, the vast majority of individuals, desire to live and thrive. It can then be objectively measured that a social contract of mutual cooperation has benefits to everyone's survival. Benefits that Hobbes' "war of all against all"* does not. I won't quibble semantics. If you prefer to call this intersubjective agreement, that will work, too. But that agreement has powerful objective markers (if one can zoom back from one's life and realize all the benefits and privileges that we subjectively take for granted). *(Hobbes actually used the Latin phrase, bellum omnium contra omnes)

Bon aire, indeed.

I think you may be misunderstanding my context in using "objective." I am referring to facts about how a certain moral valuation would impact the viability of a species or society. No one is suggesting that those valuations have objective existence, rather that a certain moral rule could have a measurable consequence in terms of survival. For example, "eating your children is bad," is subjective, but the result of widespread adoption of the principle could conceivably have a measurable outcome which could be objectively stated. ("Tribes B, K, and X, which forbade infantiphagia, grew and prospered, while tribes A and M, which served them up with fava beans and a nice Chianti, died out...") IOW do our standards for the rightness or wrongness of actions have some grounding in external measurable facts about the human condition? So "objectivity" here only referred to an external state of affairs, not some numinous inner goodness. Does that help clarify?

We have a recent thread that discussed this, so it may work well to merge these threads.

In normative ethics, it is possible to look for standards of behavior, of what is right or wrong, that have some objective foundation...for example, the surviving and thriving of one's species, or the integrity a society. So a normative ethics could begin with suicide in terms of asking what is the effect on society, i.e. is there some verifiable effect, as from social science research, that it has on our lives generally. Many data sets and ways to analyze your data....e.g. what is the effect of someone with young children committing suicide? In that case, you could look at life outcomes for the spouse and children, for starters. Maybe compare such events with suicides by older persons (and those more along the lines of the ceremonial cliff in "Midsommar," say). I honestly don't know what could be learned, but it seems like it could maybe give us a glimpse beyond "personal priorities" given that our actions ripple out and effect others. And maybe answer toughies like "who do we become, if we decide we are okay with this, or against that?"

And for everyone with relatives that have highly specific and convoluted personal requirements and numerous taboo topics of conversation, try a little bourbon or rum in the eggnog! And don't forget the motto of Possum Lodge: Quando omnia vincit, moritati. (When all else fails, play dead)

Happy Xmas, Festivus, Near Solstice, 7th day of Hannukah, and summertime in Australia to you all. And more snowcats and generators to Buffalo NY. if possible. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/25/1145468209/millions-in-the-u-s-are-hunkering-down-from-a-freezing-and-deadly-christmas-stor I remember what a pleasure it was replacing our metal-handled broom with a wooden one. The wooden handle, if it's not real cold out, you can sweep snow off the porch and not need to get gloves. IIRC wool fibers absorb water inside the fiber rather than let water permeate the spaces between the fibers, thus preserving the air pockets. The water inside each fiber then migrates to where it will most rapidly evaporate and not just drip/ooze into the spaces. The fibers are also more kinked than other fibers like cotton, which increases the total number of air spaces. Nature is amazing.