Those who have won will not let anybody else ignore them or form coalitions against their control. The worst part is, they've always been able to persuade plebes to do their oppressing of other plebes. — Vera Mont

Divide and rule is always the rule, and solidarity is the only resistance, but solidarity can become an oppression of its own. So education, so humble teachers always learning, so democracy in education.

I have no final solutions, I'm just describing what I think I see. And yeah, history is long, and never finished.

Everything passes, everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do;
And some day baby, who knows, maybe
I'll come and be crying to you.

To Ramona - Bob Dylan.

How do you map all of this onto what is happening now? How does it apply? — Amity

What is happening now is the collapse of capitalist democracy. There is a transfer of power from democratically elected politicians to the oligarchs. Everyone who is not an oligarch is oppressed, including politicians. I will also include the rest of the natural world.

So we have been playing monopoly for a century or so, and now we can see who has won. So that game is over, and we can ignore the winners counting their money and gloating, and get on with our spirited levelling without them. It's a better game, and lasts longer. Start here, or wherever you may happen to be.

How we liberate one another, oppressed and oppressor, and find our humanity, is through the spirit level. — Vera Mont

I don't understand. The state of oppression is exactly a state of inequality, and the solution is exactly to move to a state of more equality. So how does that happen?

A century and a half or so of the women's movement has gotten women the right to own property, the right to vote, the right (in principle) to equal pay. I think it is done by establishing an equality of the oppressed. And from there the education of the oppressor can begin.

If you're waiting for your oppressor to liberate you, don't hold your breath.

Rather, as Paulo Freire explains, it is the oppressed who must liberate themselves and the oppressor from their toxic relationship. This is because the oppressed are motivated to understand and transcend the social order. The oppressor will always appeal to the authorities and mistake the social order for the moral order, the natural order, the unchangeable, necessary order.

Niet.

The philanthropist that easily springs to mind in Andrew Carnegie. — Amity

In terms of philanthropy, I commend to you one Jimmy Carter, whose foundation has worked quietly to eliminate the Guinea worm, a truly disgusting and agonising parasite. They have almost succeeded, and I hear no credit being given to the founder because, who (else) cares about Africa!

"I may not get there with you, but I have seen the promised land." (MLK)

Herewith, a call to arms, along with a realist's mea culpa.

Oh dear, we are in deep shit, are we not?! :sad: — Amity

I forgot to mention the environment and climate change. Deep and wide, and nary a paddle.

You're so much more succinct than I am. — Vera Mont

Thanks! I'll be a bit more verbose then. :wink:

Here is the economic situation. The invisible, or blatantly obvious, hand is operating according to new rules. The old rules were endless growth, mass production, and mass consumption, with the 'entrepreneurs' taking the cream of the surplus. The ideology still prevails, but the realities have changed, and the 'entrepreneurs' have noticed a long time since.

AI and robotics mean that the mass of human labour force is no longer part of the means of production. This means that the majority of humans are economically redundant. Consider, for example, the size of the entertainment industry. it produces nothing - no bread, only circus. Add on the bureaucracy, the caring industry, beauty and fashion, sport, ... production of anything tangible is the province of a tiny minority.

But the literal killer is that production is becoming possible on a one off basis, with 3d printing for example. The end point for all this is indeed medieval — a few robber barons with robot armies instead of serfs. 'The People' will cease to exist. That is the vision towards which the oligarchy is moving the world. It doesn't even require a conspiracy, because it is plain economic sense. The world will be so much easier to control without all these wretched greedy peasants.

Write to your president with your objections, or post them here. Either will be equally effective.

Mill called women’s forced dependence on men “the primitive state of slavery lasting on” — Libertarianism - Introduction to Mill's The Subjection of Women

Again I have to disagree with the great man. The state of slavery is not primitive; it is a sophisticated systematic exploitation of one group by another. It is not a natural occurrence and it doesn't happen by accident.

It is very important to understand that patrilineal inheritance, which allows for men to inherit property from their fathers, absolutely demands as precondition the sexual control of women. This is normalised by patriarchal religion and enforced by the laws enumerated above, and enforced by the threat of rape. Uppity women are "asking for it".

(2) The adoption of this system of inequality never was the result of deliberation, or
forethought, or any social ideas, or any notion whatever of what would be best for humanity or the good order of society. It arose simply from the fact that from the dawn of human society every woman was in a state of bondage to some man, because •she was of value to him and •she had less muscular strength than he did. — The Subjection of Women - John Stuart Mill

I hesitate to argue with you John, but it seems to me more likely that the dawn of civilisation would most likely have been matrilineal, because there is rarely much doubt of an offspring's maternity, whereas paternity would be hard to establish. It follows that the subjugation of women, essential to a patrilineal system that predominates today and since historical times, was indeed a deliberate, revolutionary act that inverted the 'natural' order. The difference in muscular strength is too small to overcome alone, the natural advantage of giving birth, and thus knowing one's offspring with certainty.

(In a matrilineal system, men can still dominate in some ways, but the offspring they would primarily regard as "theirs" would be their sister's children, not what modern man takes to be his own, usually on faith.)

If we do not change our mindset and move beyond national rivalry, ideas of racial superiority, and greed—humanity will be doomed. — Rob J Kennedy

This is true, but they are not the product of a lack of empathy, but of a mindset or ideology that is socially induced, that actually relies on empathy for its propagation.

Scientists are a conspiracy to attract funding? But these are businesses, putting their money where their mouths are - or rather withdrawing their risk coverage from where their mouths are.

There's not necessarily a contradiction. His critique of religious ethics boils down to 'you can't establish an 'ought (conclusion) from an 'is' (premise)'. And the right hand of his scepticism similarly boils down to 'you can't get a will-be from a has-been.'

Accordingly, neither predicted utility nor ethics are rationally founded, but the former relies on habit, which may be taken as a form of sentiment.

No arrangement of words, howsoever cunning, can oblige the world to be thus and not so. Words have to follow the world as servants and let the world dictate to them. Only then do they begin to be meaningful. All else is fiction, nonsense, confusion, or magical thinking.

Somehow I predict you would be a lot less eager to prolong this war if you had to make similar sacrifices. — Tzeentch

Where's your proof? :rofl: You know that's not even an argument don't you. But you repeat it as if it is a strong point. Even if you were right and I am a hypocrite, that does exactly nothing to show that I am wrong. It's a feeble ad hominem for which you have no evidence whatsoever, and just shows how weak your case is.

I don't want to prolong the war for a single minute you idiot. But allowing Putin to dictate terms for a ceasefire would guarantee that the war will be resumed at his convenience. and the evidence for this is that it already happened like this; he took Crimea, restocked, and attacked again. There is no peace available without security guarantees, or absolute defeat for one side or the other.

Dude I am 72 with epilepsy and a bad back. Only the Russian army would have me. I suggest We kick the US out of NATO for threatening to invade a fellow member, and invite Canada to join, and step up our military aid to Ukraine, because Russia is already falling apart militarily and economically, and is relying of N. Korea for both troops and weapons. Some super power! No, Ukraine cannot be totally defeated. Russia is overextended to the point that it cannot defend its own territory and has to send soldiers on crutches to the front line - as pathetic as it is disgusting.

After all, peace is appeasement, and Putin is Hitler. — Tzeentch

No one has said either of those things except you. Obviously, (except to you apparently), appeasement is not peace, but surrender. And equally obviously surrender is not a particularly good or necessarily peaceful outcome for those that do it.

And Putin is like Hitler in that he is an absolute and ruthless dictator with no respect for human life and huge territorial ambitions. And Trump is a wannabe.

Nobody is arguing that peace is unacceptable. You are trolling and this is unacceptable. — Amity

But one might argue that when the robbers and rapists are in your house, then peace is indeed unacceptable. I remember a peace-loving reverend was placed in this exact position, and decided that peace was the best option on the basis that his daughter being raped was a recoverable assault. He came to bitterly regret that choice in the aftermath. And what is true of one's home can apply also to one's neighbours and thus to one's country.

Weren't you a few comments ago implying peace is appeasement and Putin is Hitler? — Tzeentch

No. Putin, Trump, and Hitler are fascist dictators. The evidence that their words are not to be trusted is overwhelming, and therefore a peace without security guarantees from other parties whose word is a little more trustworthy is merely a pause in the aggression while sanctions are lifted and the aggressor consolidates their illegal gains and prepares for round 2. No, round 3 it would be.

So you have no proof? — Tzeentch

Don't be ridiculous, the proof or disproof of any prediction whatsoever has to await the event or non-event.

It looks to me as the choice for the US is between fascism and civil war. Either will produce a big decline in global influence and possibly economic collapse.

Russia is already collapsing - needing the support of N Korea even to give a semblance of continuing the war. China now owns the world, though it too has economic troubles.

The place to look is at the collapse of the Roman Empire into corruption, and possibly Europe has enough of a cultural memory not to succumb yet again.

But everything depends on the economy. Economic decline is always blamed on the government (in the UK's case it was the EU 'government'), until the fascists are the government, and thereafter on foreigners. Thus economic decline leads inexorably towards fascism. The only hope is to identify the real cause of decline - the climate. Our accumulated labour of buildings and infrastructure and cultivation, aka the manmade environment is being burned, drowned, or blown away, and we are poorer.

Unfortunately this coincides with the left in a major transition from being the party of labour to being the party of the disenfranchised. Labour as such, trade unions, have lost their economic power due to automation, leaving the left scrambling for the same tawdry populist garb as the right. Thus in the UK, labour are in power, but their policies are indistinguishable from rightwing policies.

Humans are even losing their importance in the conduct of war, which Ukraine is showing can be largely better carried out by robotic machines guided by AI. Now if humans en mass no longer have economic or strategic value, can their moral worth sustain them in a godless world, that has reduced morality to sentiment and mere whim? We are all foreigners now.

This, together with your non-responsiveness elsewhere, And that you like to opine without making clear what you are talking about - which I doubt you even know - proves to me you have no genuine interest in your own topics, that you are deeply disingenuous, and are only interested in preening your own opinion of yourself, in short being a waste of time on TPF. You can remedy this by making clear just how truth is reality, what that means, and going back and answering some other, similar questions. — tim wood

:100:

But in natural units, c is 1, reducing the formula to E=m which doesn't sound very bangy at all. Energy is proportional to mass, but has different units. — noAxioms

This, on the other hand, is excellent evidence of someone who does know what they are talking about. And therefore it is ignored. Those interested in understanding something of natural units might try looking at this: https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~amyers/NaturalUnits.pdf — but please don't ask me to mark your homework.

A momentary irritation on my part with reading a thread mired in confusion. I'm not really a great burner of books, or even threads.

For instance, causing offence =/= committing an offence. And what does and does not constitute committing an offence varies from place to place, just as what causes offence varies from person to person. I imagine in some countries it might well be an offence to burn a holy book. And there it might be a revolutionary act to do so, and a brave one.

But in London in front of a mosque? Actually it might be considered a hate crime and an incitement to violence. We're funny about stuff like that. And it did incite violence. What you burn in the privacy of your own incinerator is your own business except that London has strict anti pollution laws, so you would have to use smokeless Korans, Bibles, or Fifty Shades of Greys.

Christians are of course famous for turning the other cheek, and being tolerant of others with other faiths, as long as you totally ignore all of history completely. And the secular are even more tolerant because they have neither books to be burned nor axes to grind. That's right isn't it?

I wish I could burn this thread. Imagine all the smartypantsonfire! Would y'all be offended? violated? the great god Ego desecrated? Perhaps some moderator will try the experiment, and see who instructs their lawyers/sharpens their hatchet first?

This is certainly the heart of the challenges that we face. And this site faces, for example here.

But the threat to decency and wisdom is at every level, from UN to government to every social group to each individual. 'Flood the zone' disrupts every agency as can be seen. I don't think it can be resisted until 'stupid' learns the hard way. I know that sounds pessimistic, but that is what I see - that the world has gone mad from top to bottom, and most of us will be dead before it comes to its senses. Like WW1, but worse.

As I sip a glass of wine, I am conscious of the cool yet warming liquid, the taste unfolding, the memories of youth spent at the grape harvest, and thoughts of long forgotten friends.

How easy it is in thought, to list the things I am conscious of — a world, a body, thoughts, and feelings, time passing, and those senses - a drone of light aircraft, and the warmth of winter sun, the faint pulse of an aching back. Yet these thoughts are not themselves conscious, until another lends them life in reading, for a moment.

How hard though for consciousness to be conscious of itself; conscious of the inner space that contains everything one might be conscious of. For that one must be very, very quiet, and listen to the sound of silence.

The internet eventually formed the best way for the stupid to be louder than the wise, and they are constantly loud because they have time for it as they do not engage with knowledge with the time and care that the wise are. — Christoffer

I agree. A similar thing happened with the invention of the printing press, which played a major role in a Europe wide witch hunt over the course of the following century or so.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/social-sciences/printing-press-witch-trials/

We seem to have somewhat adapted or learned the pitfalls of printed matter; perhaps we will eventually adapt to the internet. Or is it that the internet is exactly that witchcraft that the ancients were so afraid of? :scream:

Please watch this YouTube video by Sabine Hossenfelder, and think about whether it applies to climate science. — Agree-to-Disagree

It does, but not in the way you think. Rather, the institutions, academic and governmental, downplay and even outright reject the more pessimistic papers and predictions, despite their having been proven accurate. Thus it is the voices I post here and below, that are marginalised and ignored in favour of more reassuring IPPC positions that everything can be sorted out in a few decades time.

More Chinese solar power, now with added sheep!

I thought this was my home.
— unenlightened

Not unless you own it. — Arcane Sandwich

I cannot let this piece of elitist capitalist ideology stand unchallenged. :wink: Home is where the heart is. You may have your heart in your wallet, but not necessarily. Most of us do not own our own home. But "Everybody's got to be somewhere."

Stupid behavior is often about putting the intelligence in the service of self interest, at the expense of the good. — EnPassant

:100: I find it is much easier to diagnose other people's stupidity than my own. That is surely stupid of me.

This is a comment from Mikie to Agree-to-Disagree from a week ago: — frank

If I had been moderating, I would have deleted and warned @Mikie too, several times. I might even have deleted some of my own posts. If you are trying to make an argument that the standards are very low, too low, I agree. If you are trying to argue that Mikie is the main problem here or in the other thread, well that would be another matter entirely.

In general, I would be more tolerant of occasional flaming from a decent poster, than prolific low quality posters.

But, you can only get such a setting in your own home/on your own site. — Patterner

I thought this was my home.

I'll let that be my final comment on this topic.