What about China's shit ass space station probably going to fall out of the sky and hit Canada next year! I say world war three is in order. — Wosret

The mounted police going to go to Beijing eh? Do what, apologize for having not provided a comfortable enough landing spot?

think this happens to most people at least a few times in their life, but many years ago in 6th grade i'd occasionally forget how to write certain letters of the alphabet. — Albert Keirkenhaur

That never happened to me. Do recall any specific triggering event that caused the onset of your forgetfulness like being struck by a rock or inhaling noxious fumes?

Part of me actually finds this to be kind of horrifying. — darthbarracuda

You find it horrifying not because you've decided it's horrifying, but you find it horrifying because you're compelled to find it horrifying, just like it hurts when you stub you toe.

Fortunately, I believe in free will, which, according to you, I believe in because I am compelled to. You might try to convince me otherwise, but I would ask that you save yourself the breath because I'm going to believe what I am forced to believe regardless of what you say. But, then again, you're forced to try to convince me regardless. We're all just sort of doing what we must, which includes our having this futile conversation.

And how is what you say different? It's also dogma. Except that you provide no argument for it, and merely expect me to accept it. You strung a sentence together, without any appeal to experience or reason. That's nothing but dogma. — Agustino

You've presented an argument as to what is required for happiness, which is adherence to virtue, which you then define as including adherence to various traditional social norms. You have the burden or proving your case because you made the argument. Your appeal to experience limits the application of your argument to you, considering my experience varies from yours.

Good for you, I'm not disputing it. — Agustino

If your argument is that the abandonment of virtue (as you define it) leads to unhappiness, then my counterexample of someone who has abandoned that virtue yet is not unhappy disproves your argument.

Yes, only that we don't need to measure it in order to know it's hot, which is my point. — Agustino

You can objectively measure heat, not happiness, which is my point, making your analogy of happiness to heat disanalagous.

This I more than disagree with. Virtue is the key to happiness. No that's wrong. Virtue is happiness itself. — Agustino

Again, this is dogma. Obviously if you proclaim virtue the highest of all goods, then those who have the most of it will be the best. The rest of what you say is just mindless repetition of what you've already said: those who adhere to the virtues you find virtuous are the bestess. What constitutes virtue is largely defined by you (like don't watch pornography) and once it falls into that class, you've just got to do it.

That's like saying "I wouldn't necessarily include a chapter on being careful to preserve your bodily integrity. People who lose a leg learn from their mistakes and still manage to live good lives" - that's just stupid. — Agustino

Is that stupid or is it stupid to analogize watching pornography with losing a leg?

I only kept in touch with one, who was struggling with a drug addiction last time I spoke with him. He also had some child with a woman he wasn't married to, nor was he in an active relationship with, much less married. So no - I don't think so. — Agustino

And so I know a person who did in fact visit prostitutes when he was young. He has been married for over 20 years and they have a very successful daughter. So what now?

I don't need to show how that is measured for it to be true that I am a better person than I was. Similarly I don't need to tell you how to go about measuring the temperature of the water to know that the water is hot. — Agustino

I'm pretty sure we can measure the temperature of water.

No immoral act is trivial. — Agustino

Your dogmatic premise is what makes much of what you say useless to anyone who doesn't happen to believe as you do. You condemn adultery, pornography, and prostitution as these horrible evils that will destroy your soul, trash your relationships, and cast you out from honorable society. I can't dispute that they might, but I can dispute that they must. People are complex entities, and while I will certainly advise you to never cheat on your spouse, I can't say that people never recover from it and from there live happily ever after. I also think there are plenty of folks who don't have any (and I mean any) ill effect from pornography or prostitution. They go from cradle to grave no more or less happy or fulfilled than the most vice-free person. I would imagine many of your friends who visited prostitutes have married, had kids, remained faithful and every thing else. You can insist your resistance made you a better person, but you'd be at a loss to show how you measure that.

If I were writing a book on how to be fulfilled and satisfied, I wouldn't suggest that lying, cheating, stealing, screwing around, or watching porno was the path to success, but I wouldn't necessarily include a chapter on avoiding sexual vice. The truth is that most who engage in sexual behavior that does not lead to happiness simply learn from their mistakes and stop.

People who sin significantly (I mean, real solid sinners) destroy their relationships with others, they cast themselves out of the community if they haven't already been cast out. — Bitter Crank

Amen my brother.

But then you say:

The morally incompetent are not going to suffer much from their sinful behavior. Only the morally competent are able to suffer from sin. — Bitter Crank

I would argue that the apparent malice associated with the deed would increase the sinner's ostracism, but even a clueless sinner is going to find himself cast out, although perhaps he won't understand why.

To take an example opposite and equally silly to your shirt, if I happen to own the whole world, and my property rights are unfettered, then you are in trouble unless I happen to like the cut of your jib. And take your shirt with you on your way out, but don't use any of my launchpads. — unenlightened

The issue then isn't whether there should be property rights generally, but what limitations should be placed on property ownership where others could claim an unfair deprivation of their right to own the property. Your example is not completely far fetched, as it likely was the case at some point in English history I suppose where all the land was owned by a fairly small group of designated landholders. The common man couldn't own land both by law and due to the fact there was no land for sale. It's entirely possible my understanding of ancient English real estate law is wrong, but such a scenario is imaginable.

And so if you look at American law, you'll see what great efforts are made to assure the fair availability of real estate to everyone. It's considered a major violation of one's civil rights to exclude them from owning real estate. The point being that the evil isn't in the deprivation to you by my property ownership, but it's in the complete deprivation to you of owning something similar. It's not unfair you don't get to wear my shirt as long as you get to buy a shirt of your own.

This is the very specific form of libertarianism popular now in the USA, not libertarianism as it has been generally understood — mcdoodle

I know there are all sorts of brands of libertarianism, but the one that seems to cause the greatest objection is the one I referenced and the one I assumed was again be objected to. It's the Randian type. And I'm really not advocating for it, although I suspect there's the assumption I would based upon my generally American/conservative viewpoints. I will fully commit to the virtue of private property ownership though, even if I don't accept libertarianism as I've described it.

The freedom referenced by libertarians is rooted in the right to property ownership. It deals with the right of two people to generally contract to do whatever they want as long as the two consent. I don't know what two people could contract to without reference to some material possession or to its financial value. That is, contracts are about conveyances of things for money generally. If you can't own things, then what is libertarianism at all?

Your reference to "walls and fences" I suppose must be figurative because we're not talking just about real estate and land, but we're questioning the right to property ownership generally. I suppose you can say that you're less free because you can't wear my shirt, but it seems we're both less free if neither can have exclusive rights to our respective shirts. In some academic sense you might claim greater freedom if all things in the world were at the library and free to check out, but in practice it would not be. It's doubtful anyone would produce anything just to have to hand it over to the common good, and, whatever obligations were imposed requiring that we labor to produce for the common good would be what the libertarian means by lack of freedom or coercion.

But, to the particular question of how the libertarian would seek to prove his point that private ownership leads to more freedom, he would likely point to the lack of freedom in nations where private ownership has been forbidden. I'm not suggesting that empirical evidence is necessarily needed for an ideological libertarian (nor for an ideological communist) for them to continue to hold as they do, but I do think there is sufficient empirical evidence for them to credibly argue a link between private ownership and freedom.

This isn't as much a criticism of libertarianism as it is a dismissal of it. I think a libertarian would be content if you acknowledged his views logically flowed if we accepted that property ownership were an inherent right. The fact that you challenge a fundamental premise of libertarianism would likely not bother a libertarian as he would not feel the need to justify a premise that he finds so self evident. This isn't to say he wouldn't rely upon what he considers to be empirical evidence supporting a link between property ownership and the general freedom of the citizenry, but that fundamental attack isn't one I think he'd be terribly worried about.

By analogy, you might get a priest engaged in a debate if you challenged some of the inconsistencies within his belief system, some of which might actually cause him to reconsider some of his theological views. On the other hand, if you presented an outright challenge to the existence of God, I don't think your debate would yield any fruitful results. By the same token, if you admitted to the priest that you believed that all the Catholic theological views logically flowed and were clearly true if there were a god, I think he'd be very content with that admission, even if you then told him that you happened not to believe in God and therefore Catholicism.

Why just a woman? Why doesn't it apply to a man committing adultery as well? Or does it, but it most often ends up being women who would be accorded? The law should apply uniformly. — Agustino

It applies equally to men and women.

But I agree that adultery is not the only factor included there, but it certainly is one of them. — Agustino

The question is what is in the best interests of the child period. To the extent the cheating parent's ability to best provide for the child's welfare is truly impeded by his adultery, I'd agree it should be considered. I would be opposed, however, to moralizing for its own sake, as if we think we've accomplished something to re-declare adultery bad. That is, if cheating mom is the better parent all things considered, I wouldn't concern myself too terribly with her infidelity to dad.

Second the property should be so divided such that the parent who has custody is given a larger share of the martial property or alimony in order to be able to care for the child. — Agustino

Georgia law, and I suspect most, simply state that the assets and liabilities be divided equitably, which means fairly, not equally. All that means is that we must trust our judges to have the wisdom to figure out what is fair and not. I'm not objecting to your considerations, and think that every case would have its own peculiarities to be considered.

Furthermore the point of the law is precisely to punish as well as to repair damage which can be repaired. If you steal my car and you get caught, you don't just give it back to me, you go to jail - or in some places you can agree to settle it with me for sufficient sum of money (and my car on top). So same in the case of adultery - perhaps the punishment should be financially harsh on the adulterer. — Agustino

The purpose of civil law isn't to punish, except in the unusual instance where punitive damages are sought, but that concept doesn't exist in a divorce proceeding. Punishment is a criminal concept, and, to the extent anyone still cares, adultery is on the books as a criminal act in many states to this day. I doubt you're going to find any actual prosecutions for it, though because most don't consider it a matter for the state's interest.

The legal trend, as I understand it, is to provide less alimony to divorcing spouses. This trend is the result of women being largely equals in the workforce and just as capable of men for self support. While it's always been the case that either spouse could get alimony, it has most often been for the woman. This traditional rule wasn't a bad one, considering a woman would be basically trapped in a marriage if she weren't working, had stayed home to raise the kids, and would basically be broke if she left.

Georgia's rule (where I live), which eliminates the right to alimony where a spouse has committed adultery, is not based upon progressive principles of egalitarianism, but the rule is instead rooted in strict morality. It's largely punitive, stating that if the woman wants to cheat, she's on her own to figure out her own finances. I'm not saying it's necessarily unfair, but it is punitive because it looks neither to her financial needs nor the husband's ability to pay.

My own view is that I can't really see generally where the division of marital property should be affected by adultery, nor do I think that child custody should necessarily be affected by it. Only if some nexus can be shown between the adultery and the reason for the court's decision should it matter. For example, if you could should that your wife spent large sums of money traveling with her lover, then you should get more of the marital assets because she has already used some of them inappropriately. I don't think though that you should just be able to get her car just because she's a cheater. I also think that if you can show her parenting skills are suspect based upon something that arose out of the adultery (like she left the kids unattended to screw the pool boy), then custody issues could be affected, but there needs to be that sort of evidence. The question of custody is always what's in the best interests of the child, as opposed to using the child as a means to punish one of the parties for misconduct.

In the final analysis, there's no legislation that can be passed to make people honest, to love their significant others, or to be better people. Legislating goodness never works.

When one is divorced, the marital assets are equitably divided. Equitably means fairly, as opposed to equally, which means cut in half. Sometimes equitably is equally, sometimes not. I would expect a judge or jury to consider the adultery when deciding how to spilt the assets. Additionally, alimony (in Georgia at least) is unavailable to the unfaithful spose.

My point here is just to say that committin adultery already negatively impacts the adulterer in a divorce. As with all contractual breaches, the "punishment" is not of the criminal type (like fines, imprisonment, community service, etc.), but is just one where you get financially the short end of the stick.

At any rate, I'd be more in favor of a law forbidding unsympathetic conduct betwen spouses than in one forbidding adultery because I think that is a greater cause of marital unhappiness. I also think both are equally impossible to enforce.

don't see innovation as a feature of capitalism. People innovate regardless of the private ownership over the workplace. — Moliere

Then you simply fail to see a key element of capitalism and why it's preferable over other systems. Financial incentivization is very effective. Robots are being created to do more work not to give humans an easier life, but to make the builders of them more wealthy.

Sacred is deserving of religious veneration. It's not so hard to draw out that labor is considered sacred when it is both part of existence and created by God. Did you not bring in the allusion of the Garden of Eden?

I don't think I'm being unfair in using the word. You'd be far from alone in thinking that labor is sacred — Moliere

I'm not suggesting that labor is not sacred, Puritan work ethic and all. What I'm saying is that your comment that labor is not sacred is a meaningless concept when uttered by you because you don't hold anything to be sacred. If I'm incorrect here, then give me a specific example of what you hold to be sacred.

The 80 hour work week is far from unknown to the working class. — Moliere

Very, very few working class people work 80 hour days (11 hour days 7 days a week). If you own your business, you might put in that kind of time. Certain doctors might end up working that much. Other than that, it just doesn't happen. You're just making stuff up.

But I don't think that the unboundedness of human desire explains why people would work themselves to death. — Moliere

A bit of hyperbole here? Jobs where people work themselves to death would include dangerous jobs and high stress jobs.

Experience is not measurable in the same way mass is. But I assure you that my anecdotes are far from singular. You may not believe me, or find them to be of minor consequence from your experiences -- but dismissal is the sin I've been calling out this entire time, no? — Moliere

I don't believe them, so I dismiss them, which isn't a sin. It's a reasonable response to your unfounded assertions.

I don't buy it. That's not how the English language works. We capitalize the first letter of a word when it's at the start of sentence or when it's a proper noun, naming an individual person, place, or organization. This isn't that kind of context. — Michael

Much like the difference between God and god, the former suggests that there is but one and the latter that there could be many. One who believes in God, but refers to gods is likely suggesting that the lesser gods are not really gods at all, but are misnamed entities.

The suggestion is that the capitalized version is the correct, absolute version, whereas the lowercase version is a weaker, subjective version. I'm not sure how this applies to faith, but with the word truth, if one says Truth, they mean what is actual, whereas truth would refer to perhaps a subjectively accepted reality that may not be actual.

I understand that there is but one truth, but since comments like "that might be the truth to you" abound, it can, in certain contexts, make sense to distinguish that which you believe to be true and that which is actually true to the extent it comports with reality.

Yet, though labor is part of human existence, how it is organized is indeed coercive because of how ownership is handled. — Moliere

It's handled efficiently as is evidenced by the never ending innovation and increased productivity. In fact, it is this very system that is producing the robots that you believe will lead to our salvation, yet for some reason you condemn it.

Further, that it is part of existence differs from thinking that labor is somehow sacred -- which it is not. — Moliere

You're speaking gibberish. The term "sacred" means nothing to you. It's a hollow concept that fools insert into sentences to create meaning where there is none. Unless you can tell me what is sacred, it seems a waste for me to explain why labor might be sacred.

And there is a leisure class of owners responsible for these decisions -- yet you call that a diatribe. — Moliere

These leisurely folks work much longer hours than the guys on the assembly line.

If the job gets done faster, yet we have no more leisure, what reason would you attribute to that? — Moliere

Our thirst for more things doesn't end when one task is completed, but we produce more things.

It's a desire to not suffer. I've known people who have been worked so hard they are disabled to provide stupid services for entitled rich people. — Moliere

And I've seen things that don't suck. That is to say, I'm dismissive of your anecdotes.

The desire to be free isn't a teenage utopia.

Labor isn't something to enshrine from now to forevermore. I rather doubt that robots can entirely replace work, but that was addressed before in previous exchanges with others -- it doesn't need to entirely replace labor in order to have an effect.

Further, the entitled ones in the world we live in now don't even work. Rather, they convince laborers to work for them through coercion. — Moliere

The requirement of labor is a reality of existence, not a decision made by coercive elements to cause pain to the masses. Someone has to pick the fruit from the trees even in the Garden of Eden. Your reference to those who organize labor to produce a product as "the entitled ones" sinks this discussion into just a diatribe against capitalism. I get it, boo capitalism!

There's no question that dishwashers and washing machines have freed us and allowed us more leisure time. Cars rush us around and get us places that would have taken weeks. Technology speeds up our lives, allows us to accomplish more, and generally makes our lives easier. None of this has resulted in shorter work weeks though.

You're just being dismissive. Do you have a reason why it wouldn't work? — Moliere

Well, first off, my point was that what you envision is some sort of teenager utopia where you reap all the benefits of labor without having to do anything. Simply replace your "full automation" premise with a money tree, a rich parent, a sugar daddy, or someone else's tax dollars and you'll arrive at the same conclusion. You're trying to eliminate the "labor" from the labor force.

If someone makes robots that can do everything, obviously someone has to design them, build them, operate them, and maintain them. What this does is actually the opposite of what you want. It rids our need for low level workers and the wealth flows to those more highly skilled workers who can operate the robots. Any effort to redistribute the wealth down to those who've been made obsolete will land us right back where we are today: a disproportionate amount of the wealth will be both created and controlled by a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

That is to say, technology isn't kind to those whose contribution is brute force. Sure, they can lift the boxes of the robots and put them on the floor, but we've got fork lifts that can do that too.

There positive project can be boiled down (and they are the ones who do this outline) to 4 demands:

1. Full automation (meaning, robots do a lot of work)
2. The reduction of the working week
3. The provision of a basic income
4. The diminishment of the work ethic. — Moliere

I like this idea, but instead of #1, I'd replace the robots with a money tree. Assuming the tree flourishes (which I'm sure it will), 2, 3, and 4 will follow naturally.

Maybe #5 would be to have a young woman (my preference at least) handing out sexual favors without limitation or objection beneath the tree. Then this garden would be perfect. I certainly hope no serpent arrives and casts me out, as that's how I recall the story going.

I don't know what we're supposed to be arguing about in this thread. Assuming I provide an honest response to the OP, can I be wrong?

The consequence of godlessness is an inability to assert universal rights and wrongs. This is the case despite the fact that the godless do in fact assert universal rights and wrongs. They just have no basis for doing it, which is a problem for the godless. Of course, being god fearing offers up a whole different host of problems, but it at least explains why there are god fearing folks.

I don't know what to make of this either. He's been declared dead, his estate distributed, life insurance benefits handed out, eulogies said, wife remarried, children adopted, all his slaves freed. I inherited his cat mat. Must I return it?

The things what you say are mean and if I had the knife that went through the interwebs, I would stab each of everybody here.

I'm talking stupid so you can understand me.

The question isn't why some haven't come over, but it's why some have.

Oh no! That was mean. I take it back.

So predictable.

Since it's clear Banno will not be coming back, let us on this day hereby consider him dead. A eulogy is in order, but I am too emotional to begin. I will therefore turn the podium over to others to speak to all he was. The only thing I can muster at this difficult time is to say that unlike others who are struck down in the prime of their lives with so much more to give and so much more to say, Banno had lingered in good health far too long, having nothing more of value to give and nothing more to say.

And now I invite others to speak...

Trump? Yes, yes I do. Our wall is going to be fantastic.

Suppose you heard Banno was run over by a train and that he was definitely not ok, what would you then do other than just sort of knowing it? Give me your best showing of concern.

Here's mine: Did you hear about Banno and the train? Sucks, no?

I say we call him. I believe Tiff has his contact information. Of course, once he returns we will wonder why we summoned him.

In the meantime, I'll be him:

The cat is on the mat iff the cat is on the mat. Duck rabbit.

Which old bastard?

Not sure what you meant here, but my position is that the concept of being swayed by argumentation is meaningless without free will. You would not be "swayed," as if to suggest you could decide either way, but you would be compelled one way or the other, and the potency of the argument may or may not be a causal factor in the way you decide. Believing yourself swayed and believing that you were free to accept or reject an argument is just a compelled belief in a deterministic system. That is, the reason you believe you have accepted a particular argument is largely irrelevant, considering your belief is just the result of some pre-determined force that may or may not have anything to do with what you believe caused it.

Belief in free will is a necessary precondition for any meaningful understanding of the world. To deny it is to admit you deny it because you are compelled to deny it. To argue against it is to admit you are compelled to advance those arguments regardless of their persuasive authority.

I embrace Cartesianism. He was right that there is something distinct between mental states and physical states and we aren't really any closer to figuring out how the two interact today than we were when he identified the problem.

Enough of this shameless encouragement to have me create a video.

Aww. Who can stay mad now?

The question of how much authority a current Supreme Court gives to its prior rulings (stare decisis) depends upon the personal ideology of the Justice ruling. It's clear that there have been Justices that were willing to over-rule Roe v. Wade in the past, but I don't think it's something the current Justices want to wade (see what I did there) into now.

I'm pretty sure that would require an Amendment. — Michael

It wouldn't require an Amendment. Just like the Court ruled that abortion was a Constitutional right, they could rule it's not.

You make an interesting point that only an outsider would make. You assume that there must have been some clear textual support for the right to abortion, else the Court could never have held as it did. With that assumption, you infer that if the Court were to over-rule Roe v. Wade it would need to first have the Constitution amended so as to remove the text that provides the right to abortion.

The problem (from the right at least) is that the Constitution is silent to the issue of abortion and it was the Justices who created that right through a tortured reading of various parts of the Constitution. They sort of found that right implicit in the Constitution. The truth is though that the right is not there in any textual sense, so to over-rule Roe would only require that this set of Justices fail to see what a prior set was somehow able to decipher.

Can you guys come up with a better brouhaha? This one is boring.

I find that Republicans and Democrats are generally the same when it comes to self preservation. One isn't any more moral or selfless than the other in that regard.

Unlike BitterCrank, though, I do see the fundamental difference between the two parties is that the Democrats believe they can solve the country's problems by creating an underclass entirely dependent upon the producers. Democrats believe the most charitable act is to take an able bodied person and to jam his face into the biggest teat he can find so that person will no longer have to work.

Other than that, both parties are just about the same.

As a straight pundit put it, "The Democrats and Republicans are both going to screw you; it's just the Republicans will use condoms and the Democrats will use abortion." The funniest jokes always end with the word "abortion" I always say.

Pretty much everyone is cool here. — Baden

I can't help but feel that you meant me. Thanks! You're cool too.