What is it to have a place in the mind? — Banno

Being a repressed memory.

Being in conscious thought presently and causing anxiety.

Etc.

A belief is simply information/data that has found a place in the mind where it is rarely, if ever, deliberately, consciously questioned, scrutinized, evaluated, etc.

It does not mean that the person whose mind it has colonized likes it, thinks that it probably corresponds with some external reality, etc. Hence, you get people saying things like, "I don't want to believe A, but I can't shake it".

That could run foul of the Fourth Amendment, though. There needs to be probable cause, not just "red flags". — Michael

Then when I go into a retail store and asset protection / loss prevention personnel are following me and watching me--and you know that they are doing it--they are violating the 4th Amendment?

It is insulting--I feel like laughing at them and saying, "Do you really think that there is anything in this store I would find worth stealing?"--but, no, it is not likely that any court would say that my 4th Amendment rights are being violated.

But that is a private business. What about the state? Well, many times when I am at a gas pump I see a picture of a state police trooper with his arms crossed and words warning me about driving off without paying. In other words, "You are being watched". All perfectly constitutional, apparently.

Meanwhile, I am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that you do not need a search warrant if the person or property owner cooperates and gives you permission to search.

Again, the gun buyer would have the legal right not to cooperate.

And I do not see how keeping an eye on somebody from a distance violates any protection against unreasonable searches and seizures or any right to privacy. You are watching them to be able to stop them if they try to kill people, not to try to incriminate them.

Many of these shooters don't care anyway. They kill their own selves, so there is never a trial and, therefore, never any requirement of probable cause.

And your argument could be made against all police presence. Has the U.S. Supreme Court said that there must be probable cause before streets are patrolled? Does probable cause have to be demonstrated and a warrant issued before police can be present at a football game? There have been massacres that were carried out with legally purchased firearms. The Virginia Tech gunman legally bought guns at a Roanoke, VA pawn shop shortly before using them in the massacre, if I recall correctly. Therefore, it goes without saying that the point of sale of firearms can be a public safety hazard just like streets and football games with no police presence. Therefore, I do not see how police monitoring gun buyers would be any different in the eyes of the Constitution than private businesses monitoring their sales floors and asking a shopper if they can be of any assistance or the police monitoring streets and asking a group of teenagers what they are doing.

Apparently the more that we try to stop gun violence the more that we are going to interpret the Constitution to weaken the state and make it powerless to stop anything

Well, those are called ‘background checks’, and the NRA has fiercely resisted their expansion for years. — Wayfarer

The way that I understand it, background checks can result in a seller legally being required to deny a sale.

What I am talking about would not be a background check. It would occur after a buyer has already passed the required background check and made a legal purchase.

It would, basically, be law enforcement patrolling the point of sale of guns like they patrol the streets. The buyer would have the legal right not to cooperate. However, if you have nothing to hide then you should not have a problem with answering a few questions--you should not have a problem with cooperating like you do not have a problem with cooperating during a traffic stop. If a buyer won't cooperate then that would be a red flag and reason to put him/her under constant surveillance. If he/she does cooperate but the interview reveals red flags, put him/her under constant surveillance.

No matter what happens as the point of sale is patrolled, a buyer will know that he/she is being monitored.

The public would likely be safer when it has been made clear to a gun buyer that the gun and he/she are being monitored.

So - don’t hold your breath. If anything, gun laws in the USA continue to be rolled back. Trump speaks at NRA rallies. Unfortunately, in this case, the bad guys are winning, and the innocent will continue to suffer. — Wayfarer

I'm not a professional historian, but I think that it is safe to say that women's liberation, equal rights for minorities, and other progressive changes weren't wholesale, overnight overhauls. They were probably one step forward, two steps backwards--one minor victory followed by a major setback--until through attrition and other factors the tide turned.

The way that I understand history, it was television--the horror of peaceful activists being met with vicious police dogs and fire hoses being broadcast onto TV screens all over the U.S.--that turned the tide in favor of the Civil Rights movement. But even with that momentum the margin by which civil rights legislation passed Congress was, if I know history correctly, very narrow.

Even with major legislative victories finally secured, equality has been realized slowly. Just one example: an African-American did not start at quarterback in a Super Bowl until 1988.

This whole gun violence business may be equally difficult to change, unfortunately.

I was concurring with your idea. I was showing how I have already developed a similar idea in a way that could withstand Second Amendment challenges and even give the two sides common ground.

The bad guys will fight tooth and nail until they are narrowly defeated, just like they did against the Civil Rights movement. But I don't have any reason to believe that they won't eventually be defeated.

"Perpetual economic growth" is not possible. — tim wood

Theoretically, I would say that it is possible.

GNP is what is used to measure economic growth. The only thing required for an increase in GNP is for something to be produced and exchanged and money being used in the transaction. Basically, anytime a commodity is maneuvered through a market you have economic growth.

I love being under a clear, sunny winter sky. Being under a massive dome of a bright shade of blue found only in the winter is one of the most awesome experiences I know. Right now nobody owns the rights to viewing the sky. Anybody can view the sky without the permission of anybody else. But there may come a time when viewing the sky is commodified and exchanged in markets. To view all or a portion of the sky one will have to pay whoever owns the rights. The transaction will be counted in the GNP. That is economic growth!

No pun intended, but in economic theory the sky's the limit with respect to economic growth.

In the real world, however, civilizations collapse, the environment changes--there are ice ages, continental drift, and other things like that--and no economy lasts forever and shows us how long perpetual economic growth can be maintained.

Furthermore, as you can see, all it takes is a few accounting tricks to have economic growth.

Again, it is all about money, and, again, it has a magical, mythical quality to it.

If you want to argue the case for zero or negative economic growth, that would be a great contribution to this thread. Just be sure you make clear what you mean by economic growth. Remember, economic growth is not generally understood as merely the extraction of raw materials. Humans and non-human animals have been extracting things from the Earth for a long time, but nobody called it economic growth until recently. Economic growth is a cultural phenomenon that includes things like accounting tricks.

— dermanhuby

For a riveting account of how the most oppressed people in the world may be finding solidarity and moving beyond the kinds of problems you bring up, I recommend reading Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri-Prakash. I read the 1998 edition.

The authors' account of the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism was especially riveting.

Also, the authors are quoted in the article in my previous post.

— dermanhuby

The status quo is maintained by keeping people divided and obscuring the true causes of their strife, not by suppressing altruism.

If people do not know who their true friends and true enemies are, their altruism cannot be marshalled optimally.

"Francis insists that members of human communities encounter one another first as persons, before ideas, traditions, and ideologies, and that we strive to encounter the poor and excluded primarily and most deeply: “We need to build up this culture of encounter. We do not love concepts or ideas; no one loves a concept or an idea. We love people.”10" -- Intentional Communities in Our Common Home: Building Interfaith Cultures of Encounter in a New Appalachia

What if, in order to buy a military-grade weapon, one had to report to the local Militia Leader and undergo an interview for one’s suitability to own such a weapons, to contribute to civil defence? And that such weapons were required to be kept in a secure armoury and registered as such? — Wayfarer

I have thought for several years now that when somebody buys such weapons that a point of sale interview should be conducted by law enforcement personnel. "Why are you buying this type of weapon? What training do you have in its use? How long do you plan to own it? What measures have you taken to prevent unauthorized use of it?..." Don't prohibit the sale based on the results of the interview--that would be flirting with Second Amendment infringements. Instead, if there are any red flags put the buyer under constant surveillance.

If people know that they are being monitored their behavior will probably change.

The Second Amendment may guarantee the right to possess firearms, but it does not guarantee freedom from being treated with suspicion.

How can any rational person now not see the purchase of weapons designed to kill large numbers of people quickly as suspicious?

If the gun rights lobby does not like the reputation that certain weapons and their owners now have then they should correct the behaviors that have built that reputation. Their own irrational, robotic responses to massacres would be a good place to start. Meanwhile, they could show that they are serious about gun safety and responsible gun ownership by volunteering to conduct some of the aforementioned surveillance at no cost to taxpayers.

What kind of perspective shows people that the mass murder of strangers accomplishes anything, let alone anything good?

Where did this perspective come from?

I see--and directly experience--almost every day the kinds of things that people get bent out of shape over in this culture. "Give me another pack of sauce", they command. You tell them that that will be 25¢ and start to ring it up. "You mean I have to pay for sauce?! What horrible people you are charging me for sauce!". And so on.

Out of all of the things in the world that there is to be angry about, they get angry about a pack of sauce. They verbally abuse you over a pack of sauce.

Therefore, I am not surprised when I hear that, again, somebody in this culture has gone on a shooting spree and killed many innocent strangers for no reason.

Aren't all free wills the same thing? Whether it be religious or scientific it is still free will. — René Descartes

You mean "God gave you free will" and "You believe that you chose soup instead of salad" are interchangeable?

Even if science could leave no doubt that a belief like "I chose soup instead of salad" is an illusion, would that falsify "God gave you free will"? The former is simply about something in one's mind. The latter is, as I understand theology, about our entire nature, constitution, being, etc.

Where did beliefs like "I chose soup instead of salad" originate? Didn't "God gave us free will" originate in a completely different way?

I sense that we may be dealing with a category error.

As for the actual flow of time, real time, the duration of life, everyone who is alive has experienced it every day of their life. — Rich

If we do not need any concept of time to explain and make predictions about the physical world, why does this "flow of time" matter?

Occam's Razor seems to apply here.

Of course we have free will. — René Descartes

I do not know if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me.

Is the free will in "God gave us free will" the same thing as the free will in, say, a neuroscientist saying "Free will is an illusion"?

And you know this how? Had anyone ever seen your memory? — Rich

They are not my words.

"Our illusion of the past arises because each Now in Platonia contains objects that appear as "records" in Barbour's language. "The only evidence you have of last week is your memory. But memory comes from a stable structure of neurons in your brain now. The only evidence we have of the Earth's past is rocks and fossils. But these are just stable structures in the form of an arrangement of minerals we examine in the present. The point is, all we have are these records and you only have them in this Now." Barbour's theory explains the existence of these records through relationships between the Nows in Platonia. Some Nows are linked to others in Platonia's landscape even though they all exist simultaneously. Those links give the appearance of records lining up in sequence from past to future. In spite of that appearance, the actual flow of time from one Now to another is nowhere to be found.

"Think of the integers," he explains. "Every integer exists simultaneously. But some of the integers are linked in structures, like the set of all primes or the numbers you get from the Fibonacci series." The number 3 does not occur in the past of the number 5, just as the Now of the cat jumping off the table does not occur in the past of the Now wherein the cat lands on the floor." (emphasise mine) -- "There Is No Such Thing As Time"

I think you may be right here, but maybe you can elaborate. — schopenhauer1

Imagine solitary confinement at a jail/prison. Imagine a person living in that environment from the moment of his/her birth with no exposure to society. Imagine him/her then being free at the age of 18. He/she would know nothing about "sex", let alone have the attitude that it is "part of life".

The biology that we classify under sexuality, such as being sexually aroused by certain experiences, might function involuntarily, but everything else, such as what to do when aroused (approach a person and introduce yourself; think about something else and get back to work; rebuke Satan; perform a certain sexual act; etc.) will have to be learned. 99% of what we call "sex" is like the latter--it is learned, not something one is born with.

People unwittingly concede the fact that so much of it is learned when they talk about, oh, teenagers "experimenting" with sex or when they say that if you don't enjoy it you don't know how to do it right.

Humans may be born with a sex drive, but it is a fallacy to jump from that fact to saying that the countless attitudes, understandings, actions, etc. that constitute "sex"--especially sex that is enjoyed--are programmed into our genes to ensure the survival of our species. But not only is it popular to have that questionable--and probably scientifically shaky--ideology, it is popular to use that ideology to justify promiscuity; attack traditions, especially religious traditions; build support for certain policies; etc.

We recognize the wide scope of culture with respect to just about everything else. We recognize that people in some cultures practice communal defecation while in other cultures the thought of defecating in the presence of others, let alone outside of a stall with a toilet to sit on, is never even on 99.9999999 percent of people's radars. Yet, with something as complex and varied as human sexual behavior we like to think of it as all being in our genes.

It is some of the worst narcissism and ethnocentrism you will encounter. Not only can people not see sexuality other than from their own perspective, they say that their perspective corresponds with immutable laws of biology and the entire natural world.

But then one reads that physicists are saying that time is an illusion and that we live in a static universe.

Therefore, maybe the observation in the OP confirms the latter rather than invites speculation about anything metaphysical.

The only certainty that we have is that experience exists. — bahman

Are you certain of that?

If your answer is yes, then that makes two certainties.

An instinct is simply an unlearned response.

If that response is regularly repeated, it becomes habit.

When I was robbed at gunpoint I doubt that 1% of my response was "learned". Sure, some of it, such as cooperating with the robber and not trying to be a hero, was things I had been taught. But if I could remember every detail of every second of the experience I doubt that there would be much that I had been taught by others.

I have not been robbed at gunpoint any other time, and I likely never again will. Therefore, my unlearned responses to being robbed at gunpoint will never become habit.

Sometimes you hear a coach saying that a player has "good football instincts". Other times you will hear coaches and athletes saying something like, "In this situation your instinct is to do this. But you really need to do that". Clearly, an instinct is not necessarily beneficial or detrimental. It depends on the situation.

I doubt that any response is purely unlearned or purely learned.

As far as I know we don't have the ability to control every variable and isolate any mental response that is in no way learned, no matter if we are studying humans or non-humans. Therefore, to attribute anything purely to "nature" or "nurture" is probably being either ignorant or intellectually dishonest.

I do not know if it is due to ignorance or dishonesty, but one that a lot of people really love to completely attribute to "nature" is sexual attitudes and actions. I see from the opposite pole: things like arousal are involuntary biological responses, but probably 99% of "sex" is cultural.

— Time

History as an intellectual/academic discipline may no longer exist in 2118. We seem to have decided that the liberal arts are luxuries that contribute nothing to economic growth. Perpetual economic growth is our global addiction. Consequently--or coincidentally--governments are gradually eliminating support for the fine arts, humanities and social sciences.

People may not even interact intellectually in formal schooling much longer. Instead of a dialogue on brick and mortar school campuses education will be a monologue that students absorb at home on a computer. The content will be nothing more than technical training in STEM fields.

Transhumanism may prevail, and the past may be something erased from all minds.

Even if the past is preserved, humans may not be the ones interpreting it. Fast, powerful AI may replace human historians.

It is not just the fine arts, humanities and social sciences. I have read that AI may replace humans in the natural sciences.

I can't comment on the non-West--I have no experience there--but, living in the West my observation is that we are becoming increasingly anti-intellectual. At the rate that that is unfolding, people in 2118 may not think for themselves, let alone evaluate the past. Human thought may be completely controlled by the people who control communication technology, and the content may be all fantasy. Only a small minority of people now seem to care about reality, and the trend seems to be in the direction of barely anybody caring about reality.

Basically, if people in 2118 think at all about 2018 the content will be what they want, not any rigorous attempt at arriving at objective reality.

What about the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Perhaps a mitigating factor is that countries with such high standards of living also tend to have lower fertility and population growth rates... — prothero

But that high standard of living depends on a large supply of cheap manual labor in the Global South. If everybody in the Global South is suddenly in an air-conditioned building with amenities like a cafeteria and an exercise room and in a cubicle doing paperwork, who will there be to assemble the iPhones and Nikes for pocket change and with barely a bathroom break?

If automation replaces those humans as the source of cheap labor, why should we believe that those people will suddenly live like the American middle class? Many of them are young people who were taken away from their families and moved to cities. How do we know they won't go back to the villages they came from and return to peasant life and culture?

Perhaps with education, opportunity and family planning services it will turn out all right after all. Remains to be seen, in any event not much to do except the above. — prothero

Or perhaps overconsumption in the Global North continues, increases, and/or is increasingly exported to places like China and India, and no change in global fertility can make up for that.

That is what almost always seems to be ignored in the narrative about the problem of population growth: overconsumption.

I should add that the incentives in traditional cultures to have large families also explain why giving those people modern birth control technology does not lead to smaller families.

In those groups where growth is the highest, I believe the primary motivation to have children is still economic survival. — Monitor

Not necessarily.

According to Wealth Flows Theory, in traditional societies wealth flows from children to parents, therefore it is in people's best interest to have large families. Probably everybody reading this knows that in industrialized societies the opposite is true: wealth flows from parents to children (saving for one's children's college education, for example). Therefore, in industrialized societies it is in people's best interest to have small families.

In Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism Richard H. Robbins gives at least one example of Wealth Flows Theory inspiring and informing a program that successfully led to people having smaller families, if I recall correctly.

In Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism Richard H. Robbins shows that it is governments in the West who have been the alarmists about human population growth and overpopulation. It is not the potential ecological consequences that motivate such alarmists. What motivates them is that they are scared to death of the national security implications of extremely large populations in the non-West.

I'm okay with opressing racists. — StreetlightX

I don't doubt that you are.

That does not make it any less irrational, self-defeating, and morally wrong.

Fighting evil with evil has not been the strategy of any sane, rational person who has ever been brought to my attention, let alone any person thought of / remembered as doing / having done good.

Obviously. But then, it would be rational to be ashamed in some circumstances. — StreetlightX

Cloaking one's true beliefs out of fear of being shamed is not rational.

A society in which people walk around harboring repressed thoughts and are silenced and/or say only "politically correct" things out of fear of being shamed--or worse--is not rational. It is not a free society either. It is oppressive.

And if we are going to suppress speech that has negative consequences we may as well ban all speech. Any words can be used to do bad/evil.

The David Smail quote in my previous post addresses almost everything that this thread is about in just a few paragraphs. The only things I don't see in it are the issues of free speech and the First Amendment.

However, if racism, the power of words, the social psychology and politics of how people respond to words, etc. are your concern, Smail sums up a lot of reality in just a few paragraphs.

Pay particular attention to this statement:

"However, it is a conceptual mistake of the first magnitude to attribute the causes of such oppression to internal characteristics or traits of those involved."

without implicit racism or other nefarious character flaws being involved. — Erik

But is racism a "character flaw"? David Smail seemed to unequivocally assert that the idea of racism, sexism, etc. being features of a person's character, personality, psyche, etc. is patently absurd and that it distracts us from the true sources of our strife:

"There is of course no disputing that in modern Western society whites often oppress blacks and men often oppress women. This is bound to be the case in a social context in which people are forced to compete for scarce resources and to differentiate themselves from each other in any way which will accord them greater power, however illusory that power may be (nothing, after all, could be more pathetic
than the belief that 'whiteness' confers personal superiority or that men are in some way to be valued more highly than women).

However, it is a conceptual mistake of the first magnitude to attribute the causes of such oppression to internal characteristics or traits of those involved. So long as sexism and racism are seen as personal attitudes which the individual sinner must, so to speak, identify in and root out of his or her soul, we are distracted from locating the causes of interpersonal strife in the material operation of power at more distal levels5. Furthermore, solidarity against oppressive distal power is effectively prevented from developing within the oppressed groups, who, successfully divided, are left by their rulers to squabble amongst themselves, exactly as Fanon detailed in the case of Algerians impoverished and embittered by their French colonial masters.

It is not that racist or sexist attitudes do not exist - they may indeed be features of the commentary of those who exercise or seek to exercise oppressive, possibly brutal proximal power. But that commentary is not the cause of the process that results in such proximal oppression and it is as futile to tackle the problem at that level as it is to try to cure 'neurosis' by tinkering with so-called 'cognitions' or 'unconscious motivation'.

This, I think, explains the otherwise puzzling success of 'political correctness' at a time when corporate power extended its influence over global society on an unprecedented scale. For this success was in fact no triumph of liberal thought or ethics, but rather the 'interiorizing', the turning outside-in of forms of domination which are real enough. The best-intentioned among us become absorbed in a kind of interior witch-hunt in which we try to track down non-existent demons within our 'inner worlds', while in the world outside the exploitation of the poor by the rich (correlating, of course, very much
with black and white respectively) and the morale-sapping strife between men and women rage unabated.

Once again, we are stuck with the immaterial processes of 'psychology', unable to think beyond those aspects of commentary we take to indicate, for example, 'attitudes' or 'intentions'. The history of the twentieth century should have taught us that anyone will be racist in the appropriate set of circumstances. What is important for our understanding is an analysis of those circumstances, not an orgy of righteous accusation and agonised soul-searching." -- David Smail: Power, Responsibility and Freedom

What I did say is that deplatforming makes it shameful and isolating to hold certain points of view, and that this can be desirable. — StreetlightX

In other words, people will think / not think things and say / not say things based on emotions such as shame, not as the result of rational consideration/reflection. And we will all be free! Mind control / manipulation will be defeated! The triumph of reason!

If the latter, then rationally debating with the racist is pointless and the only issue is how best to limit the effect their views have on the irrational. Here I think legitimising them by including them in the discourse is as likely an outcome as bolstering them with the kudos of being banned. — Pseudonym

In other words, "racists" do not treat certain people with dignity and respect, that is wrong, and the solution is to not treat "racists" with dignity and respect. Two wrongs make a right!

In other words, "racists" treat certain people as less than human, that is wrong, and the solution is to treat "racists" as less than human. Two wrongs make a right!

In other words, let's marginalize a particular group of people, "racists", and let's do it in the name of inclusiveness!

Let's flex our rational muscles! What could better serve the cause of rationality than to use coercion and the brute force of the state to marginalize the "irrational" and keep words from reaching their brains?

Yes, let's trust the same government that does things like force children to attend schools and be taught self-glorifying, self congratulatory myths about its character and history to even further regulate the intellectual lives of people. Yes, let's trust the same government that denies and covers up its acts of genocide and other crimes to even further regulate the intellectual lives of people. What could better serve the causes of rationality, free inquiry, etc.?

And let's base all of this championing of rationality on an ambiguous label: "racists". What could be better for the cause of freedom and liberty than to instantly dismiss a large, vaguely-defined, homogeneous group called "racists"? After all, efficiency is the greatest good in the economic thinking of the free world!

FDR knew in advance that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, and he did not intervene. It was his way of getting the U.S. into WWII.

I don't know if that qualifies as a conspiracy theory--I've seen it presented as both known historical fact and as a conspiracy theory. Anyway, it's the most reasonable one I can think of.

Focusing a lot of money and attention on 1/10th of 1 percent of the population to play professional sports and neglecting the other 99.9% just isn't a good idea. — Bitter Crank

Something else to consider is that these days that 1/10th of 1 percent is often the product of performance-enhancing drugs, human growth hormone, etc.

Apparently a lot of people are so in need of entertainment, spectacle, domination, heroes, etc. that to meet that consumer demand organized sports has to push the envelope whatever way they can get away with. Whatever maximizes ticket sales and TV ratings.

Personally, I find it annoying to be repeatedly reminded how superhuman Tiger Woods is. Personally, I prefer a 2-1 pitchers' duel over a 10-7 home run derby that is probably the result of juiced baseballs.

That is what is great about sports like women's college basketball. It is just watching student athletes working hard and competing in a game they love while knowing that after graduation they'll go to medical school or something like that. I think that they are worth supporting. I don't think that they are the same as that 1/10th of 1 percent.

A rematch of last year's national championship game produced the first sell-out in the history of Mississippi State University women's basketball.

People don't care about the sex of the participants. If the best in the game are facing each other, people will be interested. Sex/gender does not matter:

In rematch of NCAA title game, No. 2 Miss St tops S Carolina

Are we agreeing or disagreeing? — René Descartes

I don't know.

Why do you think that these invasions, conquests, occupations, etc. that you detest happen in the first place?

Are people superstitious--do they say that it is in the alignment of the stars that they must invade? Are governments bored? Did Bush say to Cheney, "I'm bored. Who should we invade and occupy today?"?

Or is there, like I said, a global system in place and individual and collective economic and political actors are doing what that system requires of them?

You are not answering these basic, essential questions.

European colonization, American neo-Imperialism and the Chinese control of Tibet are all bad in my opinion. Hopefully soon enough, both America and China will finally let go of their Colonialist interest just as the European powers have. Although it took hundreds of years for Europeans to do so, and not without resistance. But to me, these examples are all equally bad. To oppress and conquer peoples who do not speak your language and do not have the same culture and who do not want you on their land is not right. — René Descartes

Why do you think it happens?

Is it the result of superstition? The U.S. believes that the stars in the sky are aligned a certain way and therefore we must occupy Iraq?

Or could it be that it is how economic and political actors rationally act in a global capitalist system?

For example, in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (6th edition), Richard H. Robbins shows how the beef industry in the U.S. was the result of demand in Europe--Americans preferred pork--but for that market to work they first had to get rid of the Native Americans.

We like to make it sound like the behavior of individual and collective political and economic actors on the globe is about ideals, morals (or lack of morals), etc., but let's not forget that there is a global economic system according to which people are all consciously or sub-consciously acting and reacting.

It does little good to beat one's self-righteous chest and call other people and/or their actions evil, immoral, etc. If you want to make a difference, recognize the system that people are acting according to and reform or eradicate that system.

So the obvious takeaway from his position was that, contrary to public perception, the Chinese government should have been seen as liberators interested solely in the well-being of ALL Tibetans and not primarily motivated by other, less elevated goals like, for instance, the possible geostrategic importance of Tibet in light of China's regional interests. — Erik

Where have we heard this reasoning before?

Europeans colonizing Africa, maybe?

President George W. Bush deciding to invade Iraq, a country that had not attacked the U.S., maybe?

Etc.

Also, context is missing.

A statement with no context is meaningless.

Put the statement in context and then we can evaluate what it means/says.

Here's context: A person walks up to a stranger on a city street and says, "I am lying", and then walks away.

TheMadFool — TheMadFool

It is an incomplete thought.

"This sentence is false". False about what?

"I am lying". Lying about what?

Gerald47 — Gerald47

"In a fragmented global culture and economy of exclusion that deem entire peoples and the earth itself expendable, Francis insists that members of human communities encounter one another first as persons, before ideas, traditions, and ideologies, and that we strive to encounter the poor and excluded primarily and most deeply: “We need to build up this culture of encounter. We do not love concepts or ideas; no one loves a concept or an idea. We love people." -- INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES IN OUR COMMON HOME: BUILDING INTERFAITH CULTURES OF ENCOUNTER IN A NEW APPALACHIA

Erik — Erik

Read Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri-Prakash, for accounts of how the world's oppressed majority is already moving beyond all this and the authors' belief that that is evidence of a unified movement. I read the 1998 edition.