This betrays a reluctance to accept any criticism of Trump at all. Something I have noticed, is that, MAGA takes any criticism of Trump as criticism of them - as if they have melded their identifies with his. — Questioner

So this was just unrelated to anything then, huh? Come on, man.

I never mentioned you, but I invite you to review the things you have said about me. — Questioner

I just did and found that I have made no assertions about you at all, aside from guessing this conversation would not be productive, which it has not been. You are tilting at windmills.

I am sorry you could not discuss the issues with me instead of getting defensive. — Questioner

I disagree with your interpretation of how this conversation has gone and will not be responding further if you're going to play these games.

This betrays a reluctance to accept any criticism of Trump at all. Something I have noticed, is that, MAGA takes any criticism of Trump as criticism of them - as if they have melded their identifies with his. — Questioner

Odd, seeing as I never voted for him and said I openly disagree with a lot of what he does. I really dont forsee this conversation going anywhere; you have already have made assumptions about me without evidence

There were many, many plots made against Obama, and a lot of racist hate spewed his way. — Questioner

Plots =/= almost getting domed on live tv

Do you think the bloodlust from either side would be as bad if leadership from both actually tried to stop it? This is a both sides problem, and I'm tired of pretending like it's not. Unless you can admit that, I do not think this conversation will be productive. There is clearly a growing appetite for political violence in our society that is starting to boil over, I would argue largely due to the left catastrophizing Trump from a bad President to an almost supernaturally evil one. For all the talk about how much the right hated Obama like the anti-Christ, he never came nearly as close to assassination as Trump has.

I remain unmoved. I used to be incredibly anti-Trump and still largely disagree with him, but I have seen too many examples of actual bloodlust from friends and family further left than me to believe this isn't a politically neutral problem. What's more, the right has *always* been fine with being seen as the heartless party, so it's much more jarring to see the supposedly soft-hearted and empathetic democrats sink to their level.

I would find this more compelling if Trump wasn't also the target of political violence and threats. Not that I approve of the current flavor of political discourse, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and imo Kathy Griffin started this Trump's first term with the severed head thing and it has only continued since. People openly wish for Trump's violent death in some parts of both the real world and internet, and there have been at least 2 high profile attempts on his life.

True, and I also think the left has been more proactive in pursuing cultural influence. A lot of the ideologies of the left are oriented to such a thing in a way that the right has not been. — Leontiskos

I think this used to be true, until around when Obama won and the "demographics are destiny" folks convinced people they didnt have to try anymore. Meanwhile the right started plugging away at changing their image and taking a more grass roots approach at times. Ironically, the Democrats are arguably the conservative party now, because they want to conserve what we already have from some of the regressive changes the Republicans want to make

Agreed, and part of what I find so frustrating about the current political situation. Everyone still seems to want to play by rules for a game that isn't what anyone is playing anymore. All the talking points are out of date, but everyone still wants to be smug like 20 year old, irrelevant gotchas are conversation enders.

Well said

I would add that the reason for this is imo is likely because the left has been quietly winning most of the cultural battles for some time now, and is no longer used to having to tolerate dissent to the degree the right has in recent years. I suspect 50 years ago things were very different.

In my experience, having lived in both camps at various times, the issue comes from what people mean when when they talk about intolerance. I would argue the right side of the aisle uses a more traditional meaning of the word, putting up with things they may not like because they have to, while the left seems to want tolerance to mean acceptance and celebration, which is not the same thing.

To be honest, I'm not sure how it can be overcome. People on all sides of this issue get so oddly defense about gender stuff that really does not matter in the grand scheme of things and seem to look for reasons to get upset about it. And yes, I agree gender can be a useful shorthand for snap assumptions about a person's lived experience in much the same way race can be, but we all know what people say about assumptions. I think everyone here knows that individuals can and often go against expectations. But even if one did invent new words to better clarify their meaning, I suspect it would devolve into the same old confusion and arguments. I used to really want to engage in good faith on this topic and gender topics in general years ago, it just doesnt really seem worth it anymore. The most carefully constructed phrasing will get torn apart or misunderstood, intentionally or otherwise. We've seen it in this very thread, when you seem to be very clear you are mostly speaking about semantics. I mostly see our meat as a medium for who we are anyway, so getting hung up on the biological prison our minds are trapped in seems kind of like a waste of time to me. That said, I appreciate your honest attempts at a discussion.

I should preface this by saying I mostly don't think gender should exist at all, as it places unnecessary limitations on people for acting outside of what we as a society consider normal or expected for a certain sex. That said, this discourse seems like it's not going away anytime soon, so I think it may be necessary to create new words to meet the problem. Currently the question "Are trans men/women men/women" feels like it falls into the same trap as "Is water wet?" The question itself is inherently vague in a way that invites misinterpretation and arguments.

I think this largely boils down to semantics and modern discourse not having the words to talk about this in a way that makes sense. To my mind, this discussion makes more sense if you equate "sex" with biological sex and consider "gender" as a type of social class that is different from but heavily informed by society's interpretation of the roles a person should fill based on biological sex. The gender/sex split has, in my opinion, greatly confused modern discourse on this as people constantly conflate the two.

The point of hate speech laws was the ability to turn state crimes into federal ones for the purposes of trials being taken out of places considered too bigoted to adjudicate properly.

I believe there are likely many examples in history of people happily (at first) giving up their freedoms. It seems like a pretty human thing to do.

Tbh I have had a similar problem. Most places that discuss philosophy are full of bots, spam and bad faith; then you have places like this forum which is nice and I do enjoy, but sometimes seems to expect an uncommonly high level of formal knowledge on the subject. I just like to think about deep things and talk about it with smart, open minded people; I don't want to read math journals, ethical treatises and philosophy books in the original French. Sadly there isn't really a place for people like us, as communities inevitably trend towards one or the other in time.

I'm hesitant to put into words, not because I doubt your ability to understand but because I doubt my ability to describe it well. Something about this topic does odd things to my mind, and I end up leaning a bit poetic about it at times.

To some degree I think reality is self-reinforcing, contradictory and recursive, is the best way I can think to put it. There is something instead of nothing, because there is something there. Reality exists because it does. Things are the way they are, because that's the way things are. What seems like a recursive, thought-terminating response is actually the truth of it. It's fascinating to ask the why's and how's, but on a fundamental level, I sometimes think we overthink it.

Perfect truth and knowledge are ultimately unattainable, so we will never run out of new questions, and the answers will never be complete. As none of us is capable of perfect understanding, on some level we all have to accept our imperfect/incomplete truths *as* truth in order to live our lives. I believe this tension between what we internally hold as true and the actual reality of the world around us explains much about humanity as a whole, though I think there are many ways people end up reacting to it.

I also think that's why we ask so many questions we're not capable of understanding the answers to, which only leads to more questions with imperfect answers as we eternally seek the impossible totality of understanding. What drew me to OPs post originally was that I have also had thoughts about the interplay between 1, 0 and infinity. I am not educated enough in math or philosophy to even pretend to know if any of my or OPs thoughts are actually feasible under our current model of the universe, but I can't help but feel some truth to it in my bones, if only in a poetic sense.

Fascinating to see others independently come to similar realizations as myself. I can tell you from experience though that this line of reasoning (however true) has tended to be more harmful than helpful, in my experience.

Why must everything have a point?

Yes

Why is there something instead of nothing?

Because there is.

Personally, I can't recommend it, as one who has also followed this line of thought. It's enlightening but alienating.

Interesting. I will admit to not being deeply read on philosophy these days, but is that related to gestalt consciousness?

In The Mystery of the Mind (1975), Penfield wrote:

“The mind seems to act independently of the brain in a way that we do not yet understand. ... It is not possible to explain the mind on the basis of neuronal action within the brain" (ref}. — Wayfarer

I'm curious if that is at all related to the brain/gut interactions we are discovering now.

Pardon the intrusion, but I think the fact that they are ontologically incapable of not responding to it, even though it would arguably be beneficial to ignore it in the current moment, illustrates that their actions have become more ideologically motivated than meant for real change.

To add on a bit of a late point, I have often found that people who are pro-woke tend to retreat to theoreticals and philosophy while neglecting the material concerns that were brought up. It's an understandable impulse, but a frustrating one. I am sympathetic to moral concerns, obviously, but I find woke actions often have a startling lack of pragmatism backing them up. It gives off the vibe that they would rather lose than compromise what seem to be increasingly rigid beliefs. While I find this admirable to an extent, it makes attempts at rational discussion about pragmatic solutions all but impossible sometimes, even when you ultimately share similar goals.

I believe humans, like all animals, are inherently mostly selfish. That is not the same as evil, but it often overlaps. I sometimes take solace in the fact that other animals, if in our position of global dominance, would likely handle it just as if not more poorly. That said, I do sympathize with that viewpoint. It's easy to look at the world and history and see only the tragedies.

Interestingly enough, I tried my hand at developing what I called a "meta-religion" called Narrativism a while back. The gist of it was to essentially establish a permission structure between religions by offering the framework of Narrativism as an addition to their beliefs instead of as an alternative. The basic idea was that whether or not you believe other religions, the stories and wisdom that we share culturally can still be enlightening or individually helpful. Narrativism is about finding those stories in other religions/cultures and finding useful ways they can be applied to the self and others. I had some basic tenets and whatnot written up at one point but I'd have to dig them out.

Edit: Found them

The Principles of Narrativism

-We do not concern ourselves with the truth of a person’s religious beliefs.

-We understand that belief is a constructed narrative that we choose to accept as true about reality and our lives.

-We accept that while there is much overlap in belief between and among established religions, each person’s interpretation of reality, religious phenomena and/or dogma is deeply personal and unique to them as an expression of how they experience life.

-We understand that while someone may not be open to specific dogma or belief systems of other religions, certain narratives within most religions overlap in ways that an inspiration from one may help a practitioner of another.

-We will work to help ourselves and, with consent, others construct or modify personal beliefs for the benefit of the believer and others through promoting education, tolerance and open-mindness.

Appropriate it's called a daimon because my path in life has been hell, lol.

Less that it's the tech itself and more that it lets us see "the soul." Imo the soul is the electrochemical processes happening in your body, making the soul more of an active process than a fully static aspect. Either way, it's an invisible energy that makes you who you are and leaves the body on death. Sounds like what people thought a soul was to me.

Welcome.

I realized years ago that what ancient peoples referred to as the soul was likely them attempting to understand internal body electrochemistry. So in that framework, you can see the "soul" with a variety of different medical imaging technologies.

Vietnam and Afghanistan proved an entrenched and armed populace can defeat a technologically superior foe. America was even founded by doing so.

There will be very few gun owners willing to risk a drone strike on themselves or their families to take a potshot at a soldier or cop. — RogueAI

We have people that would literally do that right now in this country with very little excuse. You cannot comprehend how much some Americans like guns and hate authority.

Guns are literally why Americans have civil liberty in the first place.

Time is a predictable cycle on a large enough scale. It will destroy them too in time. The question is how much damage will be done before that happens.

"When every second counts, the police are only minutes away!"

Agreed. My mom almost got kidnapped when she was pregnant with me. Without her gun threatening the guy off, it's very possible she, my younger siblings and I might not be here. It's honestly wild to me that some people are so excited by the idea of making sure the most vulnerable among us have no personal protection in exchange for some nebulous idea of safety.

*shrug* Not sure what else to say to that. Giving up personal freedom for an imperfect promise of safety does not seem rational to me.

The President is Commander-in-Chief of the military and has historically broad applications for deploying the national guard, was more my point. And no, I don't see it as a distraction. I see a lot of attempts at gun control as a very deliberate attempt to make the populace easier to control. Proper gun training, safety and respect for the power of the tool does more good than banning them does. To be clear though, I am not fully against some level of gun regulation.

To your broader point, I don't see giving up individual power as an equivalent exchange for what you get in return. Countries that have banned guns also have wealth inequality and violent criminals. What sense does it make to ask that someone give up their personal protection for an imperfect promise of external protection?

So just to be clear, your argument is that you want the government (currently run by Trump) to be the only people allowed to have guns? And you see no problems with this alternative future?

Perhaps. If true though, I can't say I'm upset, as woke is a poison pill for ideology. Hopefully if the GoP doubles down on identity politics, this will swing us back to the middle again as they fracture their growing coalition.