I just pointed out it is more than just cultural, but it is enshrined in our most sacred text, which means these arguments from policy won't likely change anything.

Cool.

I've come to the conclusion it's more of a cultural thing though and isn't going to change in the foreseeable. — Baden

It's a Constitutional thing that'll never ever change.

If they start now with an educational program that teaches people the benefits of not having guns, start reviewing all of the people that already have them and begin a restrict control of who gets one in the future they might make a difference in a couple of generations. — Sir2u

They can't even successfully educate people in the basics of reading and arithmatic.

It's like us all having to give up breathing because one person breathes by making annoying crow sounds, and then we all have to suffocate because of that one guy we'll call Keith. Yeah, thanks Keith. We're all dead because of you.

There is some truth to the claim that if we illegalized all guns, there would very little difference in the death rate among gun rights advocates because they're not the ones getting killed by guns and, except in their wet dreams, they're not using guns in self defense. They just have guns for hunting, taking to the range, and for generally having a false sense of security, but they're not using the guns for harming people. And so from their perspective, they wonder why they ought give up their guns because others can't use their guns cautiously and safely.

It's like why do I have to stop chewing gum in class because a few others stick the gum under the desk sort of thing, except with guns and not gum.

Thus luck rules supreme. — Purple Pond

Maybe everything you said was wrong, but you were just predetermined to say it.

Comfortably numb is Pink Floyd, not Nirvana.

An epidemic:

Why is it so? Why is it that only primates can pick up the smoking habit?

Does the opposable thumb come with an ability to inhale smoke? — TheMadFool

Maybe do an experiment where you put on oven mitts and see if you can make a cigarette, light it, and smoke it and do it all while using a dog's equivalence of your brain.

America is at war with the middle east in more than one way. Part of this battle is religous. Jewish people will side with Christians faster than they will a Muslim. Of course they are not going to support letting in refugees from a Muslim ruled country. This battle is like cats and dogs. — SherlockH

This is a particularly idiotic post, suggesting that American immigration policy is controlled by some Jewish alliance, and but for the Jews, the US would cease being xenophobic. Jews are overwhelmingly liberal, much less populous in southern states, and not rural, meaning there is no reason to think Jews have anything to do with limiting Syrian immigration.

I confess I've never seen the movie, and probably won't until it appears before me on my television as I sit in my comfy chair, if then. — Ciceronianus the White

Well, I win in terms of my inability to respond to the OP. While you didn't see the movie, I didn't even fully read the OP. I can say though that the word utopia, which seems to be what vibranium might acheive, is also a made up word for literary purposes, but Greek roots were used, not Roman, and I prefer gyros to spaghetti.

It seems that we justify the eating of vegetables based upon the fact that squash lacks consciousness, so it would make sense then to apply that standard to chickens as well and then allow us to eat them due to their diminished level of consciousness. There is some line I'd draw between what had sufficient consciousness and what didn't. I wouldn't be in favor of eating monkeys because of their high level of consciousness, but I would eat locust. So, no to Chimpanzee soup, yes to locust crunch snacks, and yes to chickens, but no to Kentucky fried people.

How does this relate to the ordinary understanding of what free will is? So suppose Mary points a gun at Jack and demands he hands over some secret documents and he does. Then we would say that he didn’t do so “of his own free will” and we would not blame him. But if Jack had handed over the documents despite not being threatened in any way (for example Mary bribed him instead) then we would say he handed them over “of his own free will”. And we would blame (and maybe punish) him accordingly. — tinman917

Whether one hands over documents under threat of death or whether one does so for personal advantage, both are the result of free will, yet in the former the person is absolved from moral responsibility because of the choice imposed on him.

I cannot tell you how many times I have been the person not saying anything because they would never hear me...until they are ready. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

And sometimes when you think they're ready, they're not. They're just in a moment of being pissed off at their significant other and so they enjoy the validation you're providing, but then they work things out (at least for the short term) and they're both pissed at you because they see you as someone who they now interpret as having created a wedge between them.

I really do think it takes real maturity, understanding, and the right objective temperament to listen to people when they tell you what they see. It's not like you have to agree with them, but if it's someone you trust, it's foolish not to want to tap into what another set of eyes and ears has perceived. Sometimes having a co-pilot assist in the navigation is wise, although that doesn't mean you're not still the captain of the ship and the one who ultimately decides.

That reminds me of the table at the doctor's office with the paper you can pull down and tear off. I'm going to start bringing my crayons to my physicals so that I can doodle when I get my prostate exam so that I can not think about it.

"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." In the case of love between two people, I would say never listen to others. — TimeLine

I know what you're saying, but what I'm saying is I don't care what you think. I don't mean that in a mean way, but in a philosophical sort of way, like how is it persuasive for me to hear what you kind of think I ought to do? I just know for a fact that you can love the wrong person, but you say in an underlined way that I should never listen to others when they tell me not to jump off the metaphorical cliff because I'm going to land really hard. They've been right. You just don't know what recklessness is I don't think and what sort of consequences result.

If you want to spend a rampant weekend with some relatively unknown woman of obscure origins and your friend tells you that is a mistake because she might have an STD or the moral dimensions are problematic because you have a family, then yes, listen to your friends. The purpose of love - namely that of moral consciousness - as I have iterated earlier is that it works as a tool that enables authenticity, so if you doubt yourself and are insecure to such a degree that you follow others and do what you are told, you are automaton and no longer exist and often such people end up spending rampant weekends in secret to try and escape from their own misery. There is no authenticity in their behaviour. — TimeLine

It is not self doubt that runs people head first into brick walls, but it is an unwavering certainty of indestructibleness. The guy who no longer does that but who listens to others perhaps is now showing a sign of maturity.

I do think we're talking past each other because what you seem to be talking about is a lament, like a regret someone would have if they allowed self doubt brought upon by social pressure to push them away of doing what they knew was right and instead of having had the experience, they had only the regret and the not knowing what could have been. I say sure, there's that, but there's the flip side of the coin. In fact, what you said has a really humorous sarcastic application, like if I were about to jump into something pretty objectively stupid and I told my friends I just had to do it because I couldn't deny myself my right to live authentically.

When a person experiences an inner anxiety or subjective discomfort, that is the inner 'I' telling them that something is wrong, an intuitive awareness explaining that they are conforming to their social environment but they are not consciously aware that their choices in life is really them seeking approval and as such live in this quiet desperation. — TimeLine

This is a bit of psychobabble isn't it? I mean, sure, denying oneself happiness because you feel a need to conform could be one reason for anxiety, another might be that your risk taking has resulted in great uncertainty and changes in your life you aren't ready to deal with. I suppose there are also many who find comfort in fitting right into the middle of the pack. The best we can say is that their existence seems sad and wasteful, but maybe it's not to them.

Yeah, you are clearly having some trouble understanding the purpose of this thread. I am attempting to explain it using sophomoric language but perhaps epistemology is a bit beyond your scope? — TimeLine

Either I just can't understand what you're saying despite your kindly dumbing it down for me, or else it might just be you sorting shit out in your head in a way that has profound application to you, but (as I've sort of been trying to point out) it simply does not have universal application. Sometimes following your heart is stupid as shit. It just is. I wish it weren't. I'd have a hell of an omniscient inner guide if it weren't.

Under multiverse thoery we have no free will becuase there is a bunch of other people doing what you didnt. So your action is the only action left not taken. — SherlockH

If there were an infinite number of universes, why couldn't there be multiple ones that did that same thing?

That's the point. It doesn't matter, you follow that gut instinct especially if it stands in contrast to what people would like or approve because then you know it is your decision. Many people follow, they have their token partner and approval from their parents, environment, culture, religion etc and thus live in that quiet desperation. As long as it is your choice, it doesn't matter if it is a mistake or not. — TimeLine

If your reason for deference is because you seek approval, then it's a bad decision and an abandonment of your right to decide. It's possible also that you have noticed a rather poor ability to decide, like if you seek out the same crazy every time and thereby experience the same predictable results, then maybe you should listen to others. Isn't that the purpose for a therapist to some degree, to gain some perspective and objective feedback to try to avoid the same mistakes or limitations?

As long as it is your choice, it doesn't matter if it is a mistake or not. — TimeLine

Aren't the prisons filled with people who made bad mistakes that really did matter? It might be better that I not ride a motorcycle without a helmet at 100 miles per hour, even though the rush I get from having my pony tail flowing in wind is so freeing.

There is a lot of maybe this and maybe that and of course there is nothing wrong with listening to friends, but ultimately you know more, you have experienced an intimacy that far outweighs what anyone else could offer and it is your life that you put at risk. Sometimes rationally you could think a thousand things of why someone is wrong, but your gut still tells you otherwise, that gut feeling is yours. — TimeLine

Sometimes you know more about some things but not about other things. It just seems like with all decisions, they are no better than the information upon which they are based, and I'd think your gut is but just one piece of data, and you'd be wise to judge evaluate your guy based upon how well it has served you in the past.

If you fall in love with a girl that has all the wrong qualities and that everyone you know thinks is wrong for you and appears to be an all round wrong person, but yet you feel she is right, you trust that above all else. We move up and away from thinking what we are told to think to appreciate our personal feelings and responses. Otherwise you are safe, but miserable. — TimeLine

Could be that you're wrong and they're right but you're drunk off the emotions of love.

. We move up and away from thinking what we are told to think to appreciate our personal feelings and responses. Otherwise you are safe, but miserable. — TimeLine

Or maybe your confidence is reckless and you've got a great big helping of misery on the horizon. A lot of time friends don't tell you they think your significant other sucks because they don't want to alienate you, and then when it all falls apart they say "yeah, I knew she was a train wreck," and you're like, "why didn't you tell me," and they're like "because you wouldn't have listened" and you're like "true." So what I'm saying is that there is a degree of maturity in listening to others and hearing them out. Other people can bring a perspective you don't have, and it's not an abandonment of individuality to listen to them.

Sometimes that little birdie in your head steers you wrong.

Thanks due to Hanover. — Banno

You're weh'cum

In the example - which you set up - recording devices, physical evidence, personal recollections are ruled out ex hypothesi. Any such device would make the example public, nullifying your argument. — Banno

Two responses:

1. Why is a document written in my chicken scratch that is truly only decipherable by me "public," if It only conveys information to me and it helps me recollect prior events?, and

2. Why is having George available helpful in me recollecting past theories I've held if I have a better memory than him?

It's not just interesting similar patterns, but a political statement comparing religious symbols to capitalist ones. You're philosophical when you don't mean to be.

God I hope so as I have no desire to start over. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

But you'll get complete control over the remote.

We can see that he held two different beliefs.

That is, in order to understand this situation, we are needed.

Beliefs require the Other. — Banno

This is just an empirically incorrect epistimological statement, declaring that the only way to establish knowledge of prior events is through witness testimony. Recording devices, physical evidence, personal recollections are all other ways, not withstanding that witnesses can just as easily forget as you can.

I'm not saying it's fine or not. I'm just saying he apparently held two different beliefs at two different times and now he holds an incorrect belief that he's never changed his belief. I'm also saying George helps us none. There's no reason to believe George's recollection will be better than Bob's or that George won't just confuse matters due to poor recollection.

Suppose that Bob's theory changes over the time spent on the island, but Bob doesn't notice. There's no written record to compare it to, and George has no idea.

Slowly, over time, Bob comes to think the exact opposite of what he first believed, but does not notice.

It would be very strange to claim here that Bob had a theory. — Banno

1. Why would it be strange to claim Bob had a theory?

2. If George understood Bob's theory, and both of their recollection changed over time, did Bob not have a theory?

The exchange of excitement for security seems really reducible to exchanging uncertainty to predictability. If I were a rock star, possibly I'd never look for monogamy because I know that there will always be a ready supply of available partners, but if I were a lawyer, maybe I'd find the most compatible match and hold on to her.

All of this of course assumes the cynical approach, which is that love is not the motivator for monogamy, which really seems a real motivator for most. Even rock stars find that special someone. And most don't discard their monogamous partner when they get sick or otherwise cause greater insecurity than singlehood. Isn't that the whole point of "for better or for worse..."

The toxic concept of masculinity has strong causal roots that prompt many young men to suicide - or at the very least experience major depression - because these men parallel their identity to socially ingrained concepts like being the breadwinner or being professionally better or even more intelligent and women are often used as the tool to enable this. — TimeLine

I'd need a cite for this because it makes the specious claim that traditional male role modeling is objectively unhealthy.

As a result inserting someone's name or nickname into the written story increases the connection between the reader and her inner being that she often keeps protected from being put into vulnerable positions. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

And this is how I learn how my name has been demeaned and used for a cheap thrill?

Why all the hand wringing, rationalizing. TL has made it pretty clear she doesn't find it welcome. Does anyone interpret her response differently than that? What more is there to say? — T Clark

I read it as she's majorly into him. Stop interfering.

The best gifts your partner gives you are ones which are deeply unpleasant to receive. — fdrake

Clever reference to anal sex that most would have missed, but fortunately we're both on the same wavelength so that your humor is not lost.

You should have sent some earlier. — unenlightened

I did. I addressed them to "Timeline of Australia or some such shit." She should be getting them soon. You'll notice when she gets them by her happy change in demeanor.

I used to buy my ex the sappiest cards I could find, and she would get really emotional and cry, like the words were so touching even though written by a corporate cog in a factory designed to blow sunshine up people's asses. It really worked, until it didn't, so that's why her name is ex, but I got a sneaky suspicion that had more to do with things other than the cards I got her.

Besides, is it not the case that any banned member with the know-how and discreteness required could return and continue to participate on the forum? — Sapientia

it would not be possible to avoid my detection.

How universal do you want to get? If every interaction is a game, then 'game' is just another word for 'interaction'. If one can never unmask, then a mask is just another word for a face — unenlightened

I'm satisfied as saying that if it's sincere, then it's not a game, but that fails under @TimeLine's description because she attempts to impose an objective standard on what is and isn't a game, with Valentine's Day being a game but flowers when it feels right not being a game.

Unless TL is willing to admit that it is unfathomable for her to believe someone could actually get something sincere from a Valentine's Day card, and that for some reason such gestures are per se insincere, we're left with games being whatever violates TL's idiosyncrasies.

But to you, do you think buying a Valentine's Day card is a game if both find it a meaningful gesture that truly expresses love?

Indeed! But in the genre of erotic tragic comedy, the fantasy-crashing contrast reality provides is like a happy-sad-sobering bucket of water in the face. We're jolted awake from a sweet dream and left with the hilarious and bitter pill of our own human peculiarities and the taboo mystery of what might have been. A spoon-full of sexy sugar helps the ironic absurdism go down!

P.S. Do you really think it's well written? I've never been roused to write anything like this before, but its obvious satiric element aside, I do hope it struck a pleasing note. I'm anxious to hear back from my muse :D — VagabondSpectre

Alright, some serious literary criticism:

Your story was (1) lame, (2) creepy, and (3) not absurd. It was (1) lame because the first part attempted to sincerely paint a romantic and sexually tense moment, yet it didn't. It was (2) creepy because it felt like you were truly trying to woo someone with your comments but they were (1) lame. The punch line (the fart) was (3) not absurd, but simply a faux pas that could actually happen.

Don't take this the wrong way. I'm trying to be helpful.

In terms of (1), that's the hardest thing to correct because that will require actual literary skills in conveying a truly romantic moment. If you wish to draw from your past, like actually tell us about a precious moment with you and someone else, to where we really believe you're conveying a important event in your life, you're well on your way to a pretty good punch line when you fuck everything up with an absurdity.

In terms of (2), leave that part out. It truly gave me lame chills down my spine.

In terms of (3), absurd isn't a fart, it's a penguin flying into someone's vagina and pecking through their cervix to extract their 12 year old son who's annoyed because you disrupted his poetry reading.

Lemme know if you need more help.

I remember a friend who was punishing her partner for not getting a Valentine gift and he spent over a week grovelling and trying to make it up to her and the entire thing just made me nauseous. It is an unwritten game they are playing with each other to prolong ignoring whatever is wrong with their relationship; there is no actual communication and they rely on these designed activities to declare something they are unable to do within the intimacy of their mutual understanding (or lack thereof). — TimeLine

I disagree. What you're telling us are your expectations in a relationship and the sort of behavior you find appealing and that which you find revolting, but just because that's how you feel doesn't mean the rest of the world does or even that it ought to. There are actually couples who find Valentine's Day a wonderful day filled with meaningful gestures of caring and who are not otherwise suffering from communication breakdowns. You might find those folks morons (testing, 1,2, 3, moron, moron, moron), but morons might legitimately be expressing their love in a very deep and meaningful way when they give one another flowers and chocolates on Valentine's Day.

I like flowers, I love flowers. But why buy it on Valentine's day or where there is some reciprocal reward for this gift exchange? Why not give me flowers some random day when you simply just want to see me happy, or a way of telling me that and not because of any underlying motive where you benefit. — TimeLine

Alright, let me write this down... Timeline doesn't like the societally imposed Valentine's Day game, but she likes the random day of the week game. If you wish to play the game with her, buy her flowers not on Valentine's Day, but do it for a different time, like right after she has had a bad day, the day she got a promotion, or just a Wednesday. Let me listen to her and figure out the rules to her game and not the rules dictated by the Hallmark Card company.

My point is that it's all a game. You haven't transcended the game playing just because you insist upon writing your own rules. As long as the intent was to make the other happy, how is that a bad game?

What you're missing is that the guy who buys you the Valentine's Day gift is just as much trying to make you happy as the guy who buys them on a random day. It's just that second guy has figured out your rules better.

I don't find what we're discussing now particularly intimate, painful, or frightening. I think that's why I'm having trouble figuring out why you are upset. — T Clark

I see it sort of as @unenlightened here. You did, intentionally or not, make a provocative statement, namely that your wife feared you. We, not knowing a whole lot about you and absolutely nothing about your wife, asked the sort of expected questions, like "why?" Could it be she's timid or that you're overly aggressive or are you just making a generalized comment that you've noticed in all relationships where there's a fear factor. There were even posters who tried to read your post very generously, by suggesting that maybe what you were saying was that everyone feared their partner at some level and did things to be sure that fear wasn't aroused. You clarified that you didn't mean that, leaving us still to wonder what you're specifically referencing.

And so this conversation is left so vague that all we can do is offer platitudes like: No one should live in fear, open communication is the key resolving conflict, everyone has the right to certain boundaries, and on and on and on.

I'm not trying to goad you to reveal the personal details of your life and would be perfectly satisfied if you made up some details and presented this as a hypothetical, but I truly don't know what sort of fear you're talking about that exists between man and woman that you've noticed that you believe violates stated norms but exists pervasively nonetheless.

Touche' however If I were living in a deterministic universe, I suppose I could have the illusion that I chose to believe in free will. — AlmostOutlier

And if you had that illusion, you just would and there'd be nothing you could do about it.

My own view is that the concept of free will is incoherent and I also believe that the world is incoherent without free will. Neither a world with free will nor a world without free will makes any sense.

For example believing in free will rather than determinism because the latter belief makes it difficult to act as a self motivated individual. — AlmostOutlier

How does this make sense? You can't choose to believe in free will if you don't have it.