For a group of autonomous agents to coexist in a limited space,
they need to behave in a coherent manner.
For that coexistence to survive in the long run,
those agents need to behave cohesively.
To maintain their autonomy while bearing in mind
the limited nature of the space in which they need to do their thing.
Riding bumper cars is great fun!
But have you tried to get anywhere driving like that on a real road?
The Government you elect
is the Government you deserve.
Thomas Jefferson
We are currently convinced that ‘an eye for an eye’ is an excessive – abusive, even – form of justice. But in its time, it was a very progressive principle.
Do not exert more punishment than the original damage.
NO MORE than an eye for an eye.
We don’t need more chaos. We need more consideration!
The likes of Trump are turning the tables on all of us!
Yes, some of those pushing left-side issues have jumped the shark. Not in the sense that the issues themselves were worthless but in the manner used to pursue them.
The likes of Trump have done nothing else but appropriated that very same manner of conducting business.
““The late Phyllis Schlafly, whom I worked so closely with, used to say, ‘If you get to claim and frame the argument, you almost certainly get to win.’ In other words, if you take their framing, it’s a woman’s right. Are you gonna put women in jail? No. It’s about a baby. Now, what do we do? Frame the argument. Own the argument,” he said.”
Recognize the lingo? The line-up of arguments?
Only this time the method is used by Ed Martin. The Trump nominee who wants to jail women for having abortions.
While the hard right argues for a blanket ban and the hard left argue for a no holds barred policy regarding abortion, real people have a hard time trying to lead a normal life. The extremes keep pushing for their stated goals while we’re stuck in a kind of limbo.
Watching them as if mesmerized by their antics…
Consideration rather than more chaos would come in handy at this point!
https://edition.cnn.com/kfile-ed-martin-rnc-platform-committee-anti-abortion-exceptions/index.html
It’s the ‘vengeance’ part which spoils the whole thing.
Evil is to be resisted, of course, only this is better done in a sustainable manner.
WWI was won for nothing. The vengeance part in the Versailles ‘peace process’ had spoiled the whole thing.
Hence the war had to be won again.
During the process, the winners had become wiser. Some of them, at least.
The peace process had been inclusive this time.
The North Atlantic region, the end result of that peace process – no scare marks needed this time, is one the most successful stories of human development.
So, when Popper doesn’t tolerate intolerance,
he is being mean?
Intolerance is something no one should tolerate.
From where I’m looking, intolerance is like a pebble in your shoe. You may walk for a while, without removing the pebble, but the damage will be there. For certain.
And if you persevere, the damage will be permanent.
Your question is a tricky one. Popper is not necessarily mean when refusing to tolerate intolerance.
He would have been mean only if he used unkind words when trying to convince the intolerant to change their hearts.
“Dans tous les cas,
la seule « condition » est de le faire
dans les limites de ce que permet la loi”
Aurel, dessinateur de presse au Canard enchaîné
Would you poke fun at a volcano?
No? Because it doesn’t make any sense?
But would you poke fun at people who, 800 years ago, prayed to a ‘volcanic god’ asking for ‘mercy’?
Why? Only because (we currently know that) ‘it doesn’t work like that’?!?
OK, forget about the volcano.
Would you make fun of Shoah? Also known as the Holocaust.
No, because it’s illegal? Otherwise you would have mocked a tragedy?!?
It’s not illegal to fall down.
And impossible to ‘ignore’ gravity. Just as impossible as it is to ignore a volcano!
We laugh our eyes out when clowns pretend to fall.
Nobody laughs at a volcano.
Hence it is us who choose what is funny and what isn’t. Just as it is still us who choose whether to obey the law or not. We’re talking about the human laws here, not about the natural ones…
Which brings us closer to the gist of this post.
For the believers, God is everything. Both the entire world and their reference point. Without their God, the world loses its meaning. Without their God, the believers lose their bearings.
Making fun of God, of any god, is no different from making fun of a volcano.
‘You’re making absolutely no sense. No sense whatsoever.
A volcano is a real thing. Sometimes too real, even. While God, all gods, …
Nonsense. Absolute nonsense!’
Do you have faith in vaccines?
Why? Because they work? Because they save a lot of lives?
Despite vaccines being rather expensive and despite the fact that some guys have become obscenely rich as a consequence of people needing vaccines, and other medicines, in order to survive, right?
Have you ever made fun of vaccines? Of obscenely rich people, no matter how they got their money?
Do you understand how religion works?
How religion actually works… Psychologically, sociologically, etc.
No more than you understand vaccines?
Or you just consider religion to be a hoax while vaccines are a scientific fact?
Why? Because you have been told so by reputable people? By people in whom you have absolute trust?
So.
You trust doctors to the tune of allowing them to mess up with your immune system.
And you trust those thinkers who try to convince us not only that God doesn’t exist but also that religion is the “opiate of the masses“. “An ideological tool that legitimates and defends the interests of the dominant, wealthy classes in the population.” According to Marx, that was. Karl Marx. The guy advertising the advent of the communist happiness uber alles…
Let’s backpedal for a while.
You’re OK with vaccines and hate the fact that some people get way too much money for selling those vaccines. You’re OK with the idea of making fun of rich people but not of vaccines. Because vaccines save lives while obscenely rich people are… well… obscene!
Let’s get back to religion.
Making fun of vaccines doesn’t make sense. To you. To us, actually. Because they’re not funny. Because they are a scientific fact. And because they save lives.
Making fun of God also doesn’t make sense. For the believers. For those who truly believe in God.
For those who have a different understanding of the world than we do.
What would you think about people who dismiss vaccines?
The scientific concept of vaccination, not a specific vaccine.
You consider them…?
From your point of view, their reference point is way out of this world? That they have lost their bearings?
That they actually deny the reality? Your/our reality?
That’s exactly what also happens when people make fun of God. Of any god.
Those who believe in God – in the particular god which is the target of the joke but also in all other gods – feel queasy. ‘Sea-sick’. Their world and their bearings are being put into jeopardy. Which puts them into a very difficult position.
There are only two ways out of their conundrum.
To consider the jester as being clueless. As having no idea.
Or to consider the jester as an ‘agent provocateur’. To consider the whole thing as being an insult.
You have a concern and you want to express it? As the law allows you to do?
How about doing it in a considerate manner?
In an efficient manner! In such a way as to get through…
Insulting people, or being considered clueless, doesn’t help if you want to be heard by the other side.
If you want the other side to listen, carefully, to what you need to say.
“Facts don’t care about your feelings.“
It’s the act which does the trick.
It is the fact that it was you who had determined whether to keep them or not as they were given to you which actually affirms ‘it’.
Simple, actually, if you consider it with an open mind…
And here’s another question.
How wise is it for people to not care about other people’s feelings?
‘Cause I don’t expect facts to care about feelings. Mine or anybody else’s…
Is this a wise thing to do?
To ride a motorcycle without any eye protection? Whatsoever?
We’re constantly being modeled by everything which happens to us. By what we do and by what is being done to us.
We are what our past has made of us.
Our ego is the intersection between ‘what we could have been’ and ‘what the circumstances allowed us to become’.
Which intersection, no matter how wide or narrow, is inhabited by our I-s. By each of us.
Those intersections, where are crammed all the pasts that have already happened to us, are the only places in the world over which we, each of us, will ever be in command.
In each successive moment of our life, in what we call ‘the present’, we have the freedom to choose where we want to be, inside the place where we can be. Inside the intersection I was speaking about just now.
Inside those intersections there’s nobody but each of us and each of our pasts.
Are we comfortable with our past?
Have we digested our past? Have we learned from it?
Have we cleared it?
Have we made it transparent enough? To see the future through it?
Are we comfortable enough with our past?
Comfortable enough to bring it, with us, into the future?
Free market works for only as long as it remains free!
Which is the problem.
Before meddling with the free-market, we need to agree first about freedom. About what we mean when we think/speak about freedom.
Freedom for all versus freedom for only those who happen to fit a certain set of criteria. To be wealthy, in this case.
Functional freedom – as in the kind of freedom which preserves, which remains sustainable over the long run – versus ‘absolute’ freedom. The kind of freedom which leads to anarchy. Which anarchy, necessarily and very shortly, becomes a rigid hierarchy. Then ends up in shambles…
Free market works for only as long as it remains functionally free. Free enough to do its thing.
To provide enough for enough of those contributing to the collective effort to make ends meet.
To understand what Blair Fix has to say, we need to identify the key words in his speech.
“It appears” and “I argue”.
In fact, he tries to convince us to see ‘the world’ as he sees it. He tries to convince us to be ‘on his side’.
He divides ‘the problem’ and then takes sides… which only contributes to the world/market losing its freedom.
As for what ‘evidence suggests’…
It suggests two things.
That yes, the ‘free market’ has, indeed, become an ideology. There are too many people who consider the market should be left to the mercy of the powerful. Who don’t understand how freedom actually works…
The second thing being an evidence. Not a suggestion.
All other markets but the free one work worse.
“Doubt everything” instead of ‘trust the scientist until proven wrong’.
‘Illiberal democracy’, whatever that might mean…
“Abolish capitalism”. As if there was any viable alternative!
What’s going on here?!?
If it did,
it probably had to happen!
“Trump, a Florida resident, has said he would vote against the ballot measure, after initially appearing to suggest he would vote in favor.” Reuters, 2024-11-06
nicichiarasa 