Peterkin

There are many things we don't know about each other. Shall we agree to keep it so? (*end of derail fmp*)

My Grandpa Isaac. Can't you tell?

And in a truly Christian world, there would be even fewer. Two, to be exact. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. “This is the first and great commandment. “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37–39).

I'm not quite following how the attempt to get out of an elevator - i.e. serving one's self-interest - is related to morality. Wouldn't this come under lateral problem-solving, or team-building, rather than ethics? Even the mightiest king or pope would resort to the expert knowledge of a social inferior when they needed a horse shod or a holy relic saved from a flood. That doesn't mean they would feel obliged to do more than throw the vassal a coin as reward, or treat him like an equal thereafter. It's the same with the crippled elevator repair-woman: you consult her for specialized knowledge, then you use the strongest navvy to hoist the most agile youngster through the little escape hatch... without ever wondering who died and put you in charge. You all get out of the elevator. Your social status doesn't change. Once you/they are out of that car, the privileged go right on feeling superior; the religious go right on believing they're more virtuous. Because they live in a vertically stratified society, and that's how things work. In a horizontally organized group dynamic, chances are, the oldest person present would be expected to seek opinions and consensus, then organize the co-operative effort, because that's how things usually work in their society. But that's not about morality, either; it's about habits of thought.

I don't. It's how he's branding himself. Yeah, so? Do labels matter, or do actions? Orban's fascist party is called Federation of Young Democrats–Hungarian Civic Alliance. How did that come about? What happened to the moderates, the reasonable, the conservatives who believed they had something to conserve, rather than just somebody to hate and oppose by all means possible? The Democrats didn't make those conservatives go away - they were purged by the reconstituted (* giddit? https://www.businessinsider.com/constitutional-convention-conservatives-republicans-constitution-supreme-court-2022-7 Republican party. Don't count on it. They're gathering steam, and power, and more adherents; incorporating the extreme right fringes of bigotry and undirected rage, attracting more clueless people who can just about wrap their heads around a slogan, or are so scared, they'll follow anyone who puffs himself up pretending to be strong. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/far-right-extremism-global-problem-worldwide-solutions/ It is to be hoped, for the sake of Europe, and just tough beans for the helpless Hungarians. But The EU itself is far from safe.

Yes, like that. In moral systems, it would be something like: Vertically, I will give you the full pound of potatoes for your penny, because if I'm caught with my thumb on the scale, I could lose my vendor's license. Horizontally, I give you full value, because that's your due and what I expect in return. It's the same behaviour; both instances result in fair dealing - as long people are bound by, and believe in, the same rules. In daily life in modern society, we routinely use both kinds of interaction, as we deem appropriate to a situation.

Rank? I described how societies work, what models are likely in use in which kind of organization, and made some reference to why they choose one path rather than another. I don't see anybody ranking anything. Within the dynamics of a group, yes, but any moral precept works only as long as the basic world-view and value structure is generally shared by members of the group. When it's not, the society begins to disintegrate. Both the functional application of a system and its breakdown can be described, without necessarily subscribing to the particular model. Oddly enough, it does help to communicate and explain a great many concepts.

You're right. Evil may be perfectly sane. Of course, we all base our our opinions on our beliefs - at least those who still believe anything. Viktator (Not mine; it's what Hungarians call him, before they're disappeared) Orban's problem is not with NAFTA. He's a megalomaniac, on the Trump model, except Trump hasn't been able to do to the US (yet) what Orban has done to Hungary. But his good buddies are trying real hard to make America bend over. Hell has no bats in it, probably.

When it comes to conservative batshit.... ttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62431415

There are some excellent documentaries on the evolution of computing, https://newpathconsulting.com/2020/09/the-machine-that-changed-the-world-full-documentary/

Nitpicky point of clarification: though they can be considered the 'parents' of the computer, Ada Byron didn't marry Babbage; she married William King-Noel, later made Earl of Lovelace.

There has been talk for 60 years and more. There is more talk now, and there actually are some available options. Each of those other fuels produces less CO2 emission than fossil fuel, and at the moment hydrogen seems to be the odds-on favourite. However, each also has disadvantages, some more obvious than others, regarding their source, method of extraction and production, manufacture of components needed to implement, containment, conveyance and handling, commitment by interested parties in formulating and carrying out a plan, as well as economic feasibility. For example: ...based on a bunch of assumptions for which there is inadequate basis in the sate of the world as we find it right now. That optimistic prediction was cited in a wind-generated energy newsletter in 2019. Given certain assumed conditions, each of the alternative fuels has some merit. The two biggest problems are the scale - e.g. the sample size in the OP is enormous, and it's only one of 126 major ports - and "givens" - of which there aren't any. That study, only a few short years ago failed to consider a longish global pandemic, major political upheaval in the US, a more than usually insane war and reverberating missile-rattling by insecure world powers, the insecurity of world powers, the devastation of climate change-induced weather phenomena, the economic consequences of all these events... If you're looking to retool a single fleet of vehicles or factory, alternate energy sources should be considered according to your specific needs, capabilities and location, taking into account all the variables you are aware of (and mindful that it's those notorious unknown unknowns that cause most failure). But as a means of saving the world from extinction, a change of fuels at this stage is a futile gesture.

I make a distinction - with some trepidation, since they're so closely related - between morality and governance. I reduce it to the fundamental question at the center of each. Horizontal morality asks "Is this fair to my fellows?" while vertical morality asks, "Will this please the Man Upstairs?" Horizontal government asks "What works for the most citizens?" while vertical government asks "Who gives the orders?"

When was anything in the colonial Americas horizontal? No, that's not a fair question, because some things were - and still are, Seventh Day Adventists and a number of functional communes, as well as consensus-based undertakings, being cases in point. These tend to be small numbers, but can be diverse in membership. I mean, it was really both, wasn't it? On the community/discrete settlement level, there may have been a social contract that bound all the white men to one another in a mutual respect, mutually dependent relationship, but it didn't include Natives or women. At the same time, all of the colonies were legally ruled, indirectly through governors and garrisons, by the kings of their respective parent nations, and morally ruled, through priests, pastors and ministers, by the church hierarchy of their denominations. Except the Quakers, who had a remarkably different take on morality from the mainstream Christians of their day. https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/history-of-quakerism

Oh, sure. Just answering the question.

For all those mega container-ships? Yes, it might be better than diesel, eventually, but all it does in the longer term is reduce the particulate and CO2 emissions from shipping all that unnecessary crap around the world in all those giant containers. The unnecessary crap is still going to be manufactured - according to whatever the regulations, or lack thereof, happen to be in the country of origin, by whatever labour practices obtain there, packaged in miles and miles and miles and miles of plastic wrap, and whatever other packaging happens to be deemed marketable by the manufacturers, and taken from places of cheap labour and dirty water to places that used to be more prosperous when its citizens had jobs in manufacturing that no longer exists, but are not buying the unnecaesary crap on credit, which is driving their entire entire nations into a pit of debt, in ships that disrupt migration routes of sea-life and birds and drived whales mad enough to commit suicide. A nose-frontwards approach might be to make necessary goods and food products close to where they'll be used.

Turing. It's not about the mind or the contribution: all scientific knowledge builds on previous knowledge. It's about the circumstances that propel a particular branch of science forward. War gets government funding and backing for enterprises that might otherwise come to naught, or just have to wait for the next big push.

I don't think the link to numbers is a direct one; I think the situation (or etiology of vertical morality) is more complex than simple arithmetic. It's more like geometry. As number grow, and because of the means by which numbers grow, so does the complexity of a social structure. The more complex and stratified it becomes, the more up-to-down control is required to keep order, and the more agencies are put in place to exert that control. How large numbers of human population come about is a major factor. It's not normally though the growth of a single genetic grouping. If that were so, the society would simply keep its same world-view and divide into satellite colonies, the way that ant societies do. Rather, it tends to come about through expansion by conquest and domination. When one group dominates another, the up-down system of governance and law-making is established. The subjugated group is inferior in power and readily seen as inferior in every other way. (My guns are bigger than your spears. My king can beat your chief. My God can out-magic your gods. I'm better than you.) Humans enjoy a sense of superiority, so the rulers exploit that desire in their agents. This is why all despots have willing minions to carry out their will on the less powerful: they like it. In this way, and with the aid of other forms of coercion and manipulation, they can establish an entire system of belief and values to displace the subject people's original belief and value system. This is how the Roman Empire spread Christianity and how the successive Muslim empires spread Islam into territories that were previously pagan.

I have no idea, but if you're actually looking to save the environment, it's a completely back-assward approach.

That's a relatively low consideration, when you count in the carbohydrate content of legumes and nuts. Hazelnuts are pretty good from several points of view. Not as nutritious as almonds, but far more sustainable to cultivate, and doesn't take as long as walnuts, which are also pretty good. Better yet, peanuts - less tasty, but high in protein and fat, contain calcium, potassium, fibre; they're also cheap and less demanding of the environment than tree nuts. Good approach. There is a lot know. Be mindful that you will probably not always have the luxury of dietary experimentation. If you embark on an experiment, it's best to get your information lined up - not just from the physiological point of view, but all the other considerations: access, price, environmental impact, life-style changes, social implications. Don't forget to take and keep good notes!

Clever! A little way outside my scope, but very clever. I'll remember it next time somebody tries to sell me a beautiful Russian girl. Have you noticed they're not much on the screen lately?

Thanks, that's funny. I leave the possibility of error open, though, because when there was a problem before and I brought it to their attention, they fixed it . That doesn't much happen, so I owe them a little goodwill. In normal size, which is not advantageous for the game, the video runs concurrently in a small window. And has a pause button, so I can stop it while I'm playing. I hate unwanted things jumping around and strangers talking at me! I leave still ads alone - except the really distasteful ones.

One thing I noticed recently. An online game I like to play runs ads, sometimes that videos that run for 10-12 minutes, behind the the game, completely invisible, when I have it on full screen. I assume it's a programming oversight, since there doesn't seem to be any point in running an ad that's not even seen - it's just eating my bandwidth. But, of course, there could be a whole host of stowaways and parasites in your computer, running all kinds of programs. Our bank was recently hacked, so we had to move all our financial information to a dedicated computer and now have to monitor all transactions very closely, to see if our data's being misused. The sharks are out there; better get all the cages and repellents you can!

You could equally well call those the 'civilized' and 'primitive' world-views. What we usually refer to as civilizations are all hierarchical, pyramidal structures, with a broad base of workers/peasants, distinct specialized artisan, military, clerical and merchant classes, culminating in a small elite and a single powerful head. Civilized societies tend to be strictly stratified, with the rulers (the great and the good, as the British used to say) being considered most valuable, while the lives of the ruled are worth relatively little. Laws and directives, as well as allocation of resources come from the top. Such societies tend to become urbanized, with concentrated populations that result in overcrowding, and therefore suffer cyclic shortage and require growth of territory - usually achieved through conquest of other peoples... who, being non-consenting subjects, must then be ruled with force and fear. Primitive societies tend to be more egalitarian, with a generalized labour pool, with all able-bodied adults and children contributing as needed - hunter and warrior and canoe-maker and fisher; builder and gatherer and shoemaker and butcher - and so is division of resources. They usually have no surplus population, so that each individual is needed for the welfare of the group, and no unaccounted surplus of supplies, which affords less opportunity for hoarding and gouging. They're usually monolithic in ethnicity, related by blood, plus incomers by marriage. If they war with other tribes (when you have no disposable manpower, this is not something undertaken lightly, or on a large scale), the captives are either killed outright, sold for ransom or assimilated. Governance is commonly by consent of the governed and law is administered by a council of elders or leaders. Morality is a function of life-style: what works in the group whose relationships it regulates. The model on which religions are based are a direct illustration of the world-view of the people who adhere to that religion. Even Christianity, which is structured on the Roman model of governance, works differently in each of its denominations, and quite differently on the level of a church as a whole from the level of single parish or monastic order.

Nothing.