Right, but I think there is a quite robust argument to be made that it is secularism and liberalism that has spawned fundamentalism, elevated fideism, etc. The two are not unrelated. It's not unlike how the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism and the Gilded Age spawned socialism. Even if one sees socialism as largely or wholly negative (and many do not), it would still be the case that it is precisely deficiencies in the existing system that strengthened it.

I don’t think there is much of an argument to be made there. The main reason is that liberalism hardly took off in the first place, and was never present in any of the formative years of modernity. The many-pronged attack against liberalism was effective enough to give us so-called “social” or “modern” liberalism, which is liberal in name only (Neosocialism would be a better term). Herbert Spencer, for instance, documented how this occured in England in the mid-to-late 19th century, but classical liberals will attest to it as well.

In fact, any advance towards the freedom of individuals, like laissez-faire economics, is consistently met with a much stronger ideology. That ideology is a mixture of the fear towards the freedom of other men, the manorial love of order and obedience, and the glorification regarding the status of the arbiters of our lives, the state. Illiberalism, the opposite of liberalism, spawned the political aberrations of the 20th century, including so-called social liberalism. Illiberalism is the common thread of modernity and beyond.

And that, I think, is the thorn in the communitarian and ethno-nationalist’s argument: that their common enemy, liberalism and individualism, never took off in the first place, and indeed was actively supressed wherever it emerged. It simply isn’t present anywhere, as a politics or a philosophy. As such, its persistence as a theme of modern decline is largely a bugaboo.

It’s quite simple, in my understanding, and is discovered in the answer to the question “who or what controls my actions?”

In other words, it’s a matter of sourcehood and identity. If something other than me controls my actions, then I do not have free will. If I control my actions, then I have free will.

In the debate so far, determinists and those who otherwise deny free will have never found any other source of the control of our actions, and the identity of that outside controller remains a mystery to them. And until that occurs, one ought to side with the existence of free will.

The only logical thing a sane, educated, and enlightened society can do is pay people for both study and jobs and let them choose what they wish.

A sane, educated, and enlightened society wouldn’t steal from the fruits of one man’s labor in order to fund the labor of another. That’s what a society of criminals does.

It would have to be a voluntary, perhaps unpaid effort, as these things often are.

Yes, that was not pointed at you. I believe one can witness a nascent anti-modernism in politics and popular thought. In my view, they’re blaming the wrong things, and should they push their resentment into political action they’re going to pull the rug right out from under themselves. Thanks for the back and forth.

I appreciate your view, and I understand why people might think that way.

I just don’t see how one can move from the belief “All there is matter” to the rest. I also don’t see how physicalism, individualism, human rights, the scientific method, or whatever these days are considered enlightenment thinking, precludes the experience of beauty, love, or meaning. I suppose Nietzsche is prophetic in this regard, but the only way one could reach such a state of nihilism is if one was already steeped in the defamation of the world and the worldly, and have laid the foundation of all subsequent thought on some variation or other of supernaturalism.

Observe the metaphor “stripped of meaning” when pointing the finger at the use of scientific language to describe the cosmos, as if some words or symbols were a kind of paint thinner when applied to celestial bodies. The language has changed since Galileo’s time, sure, but the cosmos has hardly changed at all. It’s the same with the evolution of the human species. Ideas and words just don’t have the evolutionary effect that people imply, and we’re practically the same animal as we’ve been for thousands of years. We’re just privy to more information than we once were.

At any rate, given the propensity to blame modern authors and words, and harken back to the authors of less enlightened times, it’s clear that they do not like the language of modernity rather than modernity itself, especially now that the means of communication are practically open to anyone and literacy rates are much higher. They fear the ugliness and disorder that comes with freedom of thought and speech.

If I think about what could be lost should anti-modernism be turned into political action, it may turn out to be the most dangerous form of egoism we’ve ever seen.

Jamal provides a great service and can maintain the site precisely how he sees fit. We ought to defend and respect his right to do so, even if it means our own banning.

But wasn’t wealth a means to the good for Aristotle? Status was practically built into the hierarchies of all pre-modern societies.

Because the prevailing philosophical outlook of materialism has nothing to do with the adopting of materialistic values which is so endemic to modernity?

If you mean the prioritization of wealth and status over spirituality, then we’re speaking of a vice that has long predated modernity, and is perhaps endemic to the species.

The communitarians and illiberal types are wrong in that modernity is not the result of a success of this-or-that way of thinking or ideology, nor can it be blamed on so-and-so (a very small portion of the population has read Descartes, for example). It’s due to the utter failures of the rest, those very same methods and obligations they seek to resurrect. It was Illiberalism, the unscientific method, and illiberal collectivism, that has led the rest of us into modernity.

They are children and you are their father. The claim “there is nothing wrong with spying” pertains to all those who “get the urge to spy”, who “want to find out what someone is up to“. Are you fine with them checking up on the whereabouts of your children?

Who have you spied on?

There's nothing wrong with spying.

Good lord.

Spying on your political opponents in a fishing-expedition to find evidence of criminal activity, because there was no probable cause to justify the spying in the first place, is anti-Trumpism manifest. Trump and his ilk are such obvious criminals that we must corruptly abuse the justice system in order to find the crimes, which in the end we couldn’t. All the usual corrupt rogues are of course present in this ever-growing scandal.

Jan. 6 probe potentially investigated over 150 Republicans, documents show

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/29/trump-january-6-republican-senators-fbi-arctic-frost

No it's not. The example I provided had dissimilar methods for acheiving the same result. The submarine example has dissimilar methods for acheiving dissimilar results.

The example you provided had two water pumps, but I was speaking about an organism versus a machine.

The question is whether Z can result from method X or Y. Your argument is that it cannot because Z will necessarily be different if from X as opposed to Y. That doesn't follow. The same thing can arise from different processes.

The question was whether machines can act like humans, can do things humans can do, like thinking, typing, being conscious. My argument is that they cannot because they are different things, have different structures, and so act differently.

Following your logic, suppose text on a screen results from X or Y, a machine and a human. We generate text on a screen by typing. Machines using AI generate text on a screen by using algorithms on user prompts, and performing a vast array of mechanical actions that results in legible text on a screen. Is the machine typing?

I don't see how you arrive at the second sentence from the first.

The things involved and the movements they make are different. It’s like saying submarines swim.

My take is skeptical, according to your definition.

For the simple reason that machines are not biological, they do not have similar structures, components, parts, or what have you, to any organism, let alone humans. If they do not have similar structures, they do not act in similar ways to humans. If they do not act in similar ways, they should not be described in anthropomorphic terms. In that way, it cannot be said there is knowledge, consciousness, learning, thinking, or any human-like acts involved in anything these machines are doing.

In my opinion the field requires new terms to describe the activity of AI; or if these terms are already available and established, they should be used instead.

One clear one is the US Constitution if you ask me.

I don’t think a document suffices, personally, especially one that allows slavery.

Both assume mankind is collectively improvable, and that the political means are the only way to achieve it. But the fact that 6000 or so years of both trial-and-error and pure reason have been applied to every conceivable form of “political and moral order”, yet have produced very few noticeable results, it ought to have informed all parties a little better.

It is a good thing that people cite another’s writing whenever they are using it to pad their own, especially when it comes to AI, because it serves as an indication that I needn’t read any further. One of the pleasures of viewing art or reading writing is the knowledge that someone put some effort into it.

If there be a rule it ought to be that sort of indication.

According to who? And certainly, it can at least be imagined as such. One can say many things about the Neoplatonists, or say the Sufi poets, but that they lacked imagination is not one of them.

According to me. My apologies, but when I was referring to the “communitarian” I was referring to an advocate of the modern philosophical movement. I was assuming you were one of them given your writing as of late.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/communitarianism/

In general, when there is an appeal to ancient framings or norms, the idea is that they are better, not that they are merely old (although to be sure, some folks do tend towards tradition for tradition sake, just as some see innovation as an end in itself).

I couldn’t see how such a framing could be better. There doesn’t appear to be much of a good life for the individual wherever Aristotelian traditions were particularly popular. In any case, communitarians often commit the fallacy of selecting a philosopher and assigning his opinions as the spirit of the age, as if everyone today has read Rawls and were all good liberals now. I’ll try not to make the same mistake.

That is, it is precisely the epistemic presuppositions that absolutize the individual in solipsistic bubbles that make it impossible for the Good to be recognized as diffusive (because the "desirable" just becomes "whatever is currently desired by an individual). It becomes impossible to know the Good (particularly in a naturalist frame where teleology is stripped out) and so what we really have is emotivism established by axiomatic presupposition, with the "Good" now demoted to a sort of procedural ideal for the allocation of an irreducible multiplicity of goods sought by individuals. But this isn't the result of logical necessity or any empirical finding, but simply flows from axiomatic epistemic assumptions.

That’s the thing, though. The Good is not diffusive. Until the communitarian comes to terms with the fact of our separateness, of our individuation, the communitarian Good can never be imagined in any other sense as individual, selfish desire. He wants conformity to certain ancient ideals, to return us to ancient ways of life, and so on.

There are two aspects to philosophy: those who philosophize and those who talk about or otherwise repeat those who philosophize. AI falls into the later camp. All it can do is repeat the claims of philosophers in somewhat legible text (like many here). But it is unable to philosophize.

AI is a glorified search engine and its threat is overblown.

It’s so glaringly untrue that one can only wonder why one is really saying it. The phrase serves as a piece of doublespeak, not necessarily a statement of fact. So the purposes are probably myriad: to “go along” with the act, to train the one who chants it, to signal allegiance to the cause, or to bully those who deviate.

Another potential terrorist foiled by authorities in Washington. One might assume his politics (and his mental capacity) by noting the potential targets.

A man had more than 200 handmade destructive devices — including bottle rockets and molotov cocktails — in a tent on the steps of a D.C. cathedral where Supreme Court justices were expected to attend Mass on Sunday, court records show. During his arrest, Louis Geri threatened to ignite explosives and handed authorities pages of his notebook that, according to court records, expressed animosity toward the Catholic Church, Supreme Court justices, members of the Jewish faith and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/10/06/bomb-threat-catholic-church-supreme-court/

These sorts of acts, along with the ongoing insurrections occurring throughout the country, hint at a country on the verge of civil war.

If all available options violate rights, can morality demand a choice at all?

Whatever the choice would be, should it violate rights, it would be an immoral choice.

Does the reframed problem prove that utilitarianism is the only viable framework when non-interference is impossible?

It only proves that one has to remove other options for utilitarianism to be a viable moral framework.

Can an individualist ethic survive scenarios where all choices involve direct harm?

Yes. The future is unknown. One cannot know if his choices result in direct harm until that time comes. One can only do his best to avoid inflicting that harm or protect others from it. In your scenario, his only option is to try to stop the train or remove the people from the track.

Is the moral guilt of killing one equal to the moral guilt of killing three, or are outcomes morally significant regardless of principles?

I assume killing more people equals more guilt, but then again I’ve never killed anyone.

Does the reframed trolley problem show that philosophy must move beyond rigid doctrines and toward pluralistic ethics?

Next time we might try removing the utilitarian options and asking the same question.

I think Japan is going the robot route to handle elderly care. Apparently they’ve been working towards a technological solution for decades. According to the article below, such a solution might only end up creating more work. It will be interesting to see if this option prevails.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1065135/japan-automating-eldercare-robots/amp/

The labor shortage means a decrease in tax revenue for the state, which in turn means less state “services” for those who were promised retirement, healthcare, and so on, in their twilight years.

One might logically think that with a decreasing population, the size of the state would decrease in tandem, as it has less people to account for overall. Government for the people and all that. But the state refuses to decrease. So it will move to replace the waning population with new populations. Therefor immigration and campaigns to increase the birthrate is their only choice, and I suspect this is the way they will hitherto move.

That’s right, it’s Comey’s word versus McCabe’s, and it’s frightening that this stupid dynamic was once present at the highest levels of law enforcement management. These were supposed to be the experienced adults in the room, and they all turned out to be bickering hacks. Now Comey’s lawyers are going to have to convince a jury that McCabe is a liar and Comey isn’t. That’s hilarious.

On the other hand, your inexperienced prosecutor convinced a grand jury that there was enough to indict.

Andrew McCabe testified to the inspector general that Comey authorized leaks. Comey in 2020 testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he did not. One of them lied and obstructed justice. Given that during a hearing in 2018 Comey said he “can’t remember,” “can’t recall” and “doesn’t know” 245 times I’m leaning towards him being the liar. They threw people in jail for far less.

Fair enough, I’ll take your word for it. But there is another way to frame it, and it doesn’t involve attributing to scratches on paper and articulated sounds from the mouth special powers and unseen forces. Perhaps your disposition is to blame for your purchases, and not the words.

I’m with you. The sheer amount of causal theories is mind-boggling.

But I’ve come to prefer a version of the so-called Transference theory of causation, where causation ought to be reduced to the transference of physical conserved quantities, like “momentum” or “energy”, from one object to another. Though I’m not sure I believe in “physical conserved quantities”, it is at least intuitive and empirical to say that one object hitting another caused the other to move.

The statute of limitations to indict disgraced FBI director James Comey for lying to congress expire next Tuesday. Knowing the two-tiered justice system, I doubt we'll see charges.

Justice Department weighing whether to charge former FBI Director James Comey, sources say

Why would we have advertising, prayer, speeches or Fox News if language was powerless?

Just curious, but how many products have you bought in ratio to how many advertisements you’ve seen? Using the power of your speech, perhaps you can convince those who say “nay” to hate speech legislation to believe otherwise. Both of these demonstrations ought to inform you on just how powerful speech really is, and that we’re not just thinking magically.

Does all this then mean you approve of the political correctness which societally, though not legally, mitigates hate speech as previously defined, this as the optimal mode of societal checks and balances?

Not at all. I disapprove. I’m just trying to argue that speaking speech that can be construed as hate speech is riskier than hearing it.

So if we take away all political correctness, what checks and balances remain to prevent speech that can easily lead to mass murders and genocides?

More often than not, hate speech incites violence on the one who speaks it. It’s why police defend the KKK and the American Nazi party to hold their rally’s and marches, in order to protect them from violence. That threat of violence is always there, I suppose, and acts as somewhat of a deterrent.

On the other hand, hate preachers, holocaust deniers, and racists of all types are viewed as cranks in American culture. Chomsky makes this point, that anyone can publish works of holocaust denial in the US and no one really pays them much notice. If you do that in Europe, where it is often illegal, their work gets all sorts of press.



If you’re ever in New York go watch the Black Hebrew Israelites hold their very public displays of street preaching. They speak hate speech pretty much daily, out in the open, with little to no effect on anyone. It’s almost comical to watch.

At any rate, the idea that free speech leads to genocide is ridiculous in my view. No government ever involved in genocide had any commitment to free speech. In fact, quite the opposite. Clearly the issue is state-sanctioned mass murder.

I believe the checks and balances is greater free speech.

You answer that, in light of your support for the Trump Administration's threats to ABC.

Personally, I do not think those in power should wield that power to limit free speech. I believe that is likely unconstitutional, but absolutely believe it is wrong.

There you have it. That’s a principle. I guess it’s a good thing Kimmel, the multimillionaire who celebrated other people being fired or censored, is still doing his show.

We just found out the other day from Google that the Biden admin pressured them to remove accounts for misinformation, many of whom were Trumpists like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Terrible isn’t it?

Enjoy Kimmel tonight.

https://nypost.com/2025/09/23/us-news/google-to-reinstate-youtube-accounts-banned-for-repeated-violations-of-covid-19-content/

But you can lie and say I turned off Electrical Grid B to an electrician, perhaps in theory even just walking by without being employed by the company, and an electrician goes to work on it and gets killed. That's illegal. Or, you can stand by a bridge you know is dilapidated and cover leaves over it and if a person asks if it's safe, you can say "Sure", and they are also killed. That's quasi-legal, simply because no one can prove you did anything. So, no, this idea that speech cannot lead to real human death, possibly mass causality has already been legally codified. That ship has sailed, mate. So, that realization hitting you (or anyone who was ignorant of such) aside. What are you truly hoping to proliferate?

Here’s a chance to prove your case. Let’s see you injure me with words.

The capacity of speech to injure, or the capacity of speech to lead to injury? How can speech injure?

You can damage someone’s ear if you yell too loudly. That’s about the only way to injure someone with speech.

As you know these sorts of censorial claims, used as they are to justify silencing others, are testable. Injury is measurable. We can simply ask them to injure us with words and examine the results. I would even offer myself as the victim and sign a waiver. At the very least it would be interesting to know which combination of sounds can lead to the worst injury. But you and I both know that no such tests are forthcoming and the claims are piffle.

You abhor government censorship.

The President and the chair of the FCC using their words to threaten their critics into not saying the things they're saying and/or to have them deplatformed under the pretence of legal responsibility is government censorship, even if not said face-to-face, officially and formally. It isn't just them casually speaking their mind. No reasonable person accepts "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" as plausible deniability. You're engaging in poor apologetics, plain and simple.

I abhor all censorship and I oppose ABC’s decision. I also respect their right to do whatever they want to Kimmel. He’s an employee. His waning popularity and the collapse of ratings probably made the decision much easier.

Watching everyone now twisting themselves into pretzels to blame Trump, after a decade of trying to silence him and his movement, is just added enjoyment on my part.

Now that you abhor censorship I hope you carry your new-found principle further and oppose the censorship prevalent in your own country, union, and continent. Sadly, I doubt that’s something I’ll ever read.

Yes, because that's what he was doing. Whereas Carr and Trump are using transparently tenuous and bullshit justifications to attack their critics. Everyone other than absurd apologists like you can see it for what it is.

Uh oh, “attacking their critics”. Scary stuff.

I don't know what you believe, but what you said in earlier posts was a defence of Carr's and Trump's words, pretending that they weren't doing the very thing that you claim to abhor.

I don’t abhor speaking. In fact I want to know exactly what those in power are thinking and what they believe, and I wish they’d speak more.