My staff are mostly very young - I call them 'the kids'. — Tom Storm

Yes, as I got older, my colleagues got younger and younger till most were younger than my youngest child. Sometimes, if I was having a hot disagreement with an older coworker, I would say - "Not in front of the children." Some of them thought it was funny and I never got a notification from HR, so I guess it was alright.

However, physics is not suitable for describing living systems. — Wolfgang

Of course it is, although it's not enough by itself. As @apokrisis notes, the "other organizational principles than inanimate nature" you refer to have to do with the interactions of constraints from above and below. Life has to work thermodynamically or it doesn't work at all. Every discussion of abiogenesis I've read gets down to thermodynamics eventually.

I think in the Zappa song, ultimately there is no boss, horses get rid, cawfee gets drunk, and no work gets done. — Metaphysician Undercover

We engineers and physicists know, W = F x D. If nothing moves, it's not work.

You must know "Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow". — Metaphysician Undercover

Now that you mention it, yes.

maybe the fact that I called them underlings didn’t help. — Jamal

As all us bosses know, the correct terms are "minions" or "lickspittles."

I wasn't sure about what I wrote. I was going to look it up, but I know how much you enjoy that, so I left it for you.

Doesn't change my original statement about the different ethnicities of the people of Central America.

I can't really say being a boss is better than being an employee. As an employee, your job is to do your job, but a boss' job is to make sure others do their jobs, and the only ones you deal with are those that don't. — Hanover

After I quit college I worked for a living for 15 years. Ice cream scooper, warehouse worker, carpenter, cabinetmaker. Then I went back to school, got my degree, and became an engineer. Engineers are not automatically bosses, but many of them are or have the ambition to be. I did not, but even I had people to manage either as a supervisor or project manager.

I can tell you that being a boss is better. You get paid a lot more and you get to make decisions, plan how work will be done. I was really lucky to work for the same company for 28 years. I worked with a lot of the same people during that whole period - competent people I liked and respected. Best of all - tolerant and accepting. You may find it hard to believe, but I can be difficult to work with.

So, yes. Being a boss is better.

I don’t always laugh at your jokes, but this is one is comedy gold. — Jamal

My jokes are generally funny. This wasn't one of them. Yes, I do recognize your irony.

I’ve been a big Zappa fan since I was twelve — Jamal

The song's great. — Metaphysician Undercover

Zappa is definitely not my kind of music. "Movin to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon" are the only lines I know from the only one of his songs I can name. That's only because my brother liked him and used to play it.

Well, you know, they are all kind of related, having arrived in the Hemisphere at roughly the same time--some 20,000 years ago. It's like, say, if the French were the only group to find the western hemisphere 20,000 years ago and crossed on the since-melted glaciers, we'd now have a whole hemisphere of food snobs, haute couture, and pointless philosophy. — BC

If I remember correctly, there was more than one migration into the Americas, so I'm not sure how genetically similar the various indigenous people in the western hemisphere are.

Capitalism is just about making a profit. Capitalist politics is about creating volatility. If you think of it as just being about greed, you're missing something important about it. — frank

What possible connection is there between capitalism and trading currency futures? At least in an ideal world, maybe fantasy world is more correct, capitalism is intended to establish a relationship between the bosses, the managers, and the workers in a way that's consistent with human nature. What value added is there to that process from Forex speculation? It's purely raking cream off the top.

[deleted]

Assuming the reference was to some song about Montana, what does me going to New Hampshire have to do with it? — Hanover

You wrote:

I'll be traveling to NH soon. Jackson. — Hanover

That is close enough to "Movin to Montana soon" that my LLM tagged it and triggered the dental floss tycoon response.

And don't call me Jackson.

I am referring to all law in my theoretical critique of law per se. — quintillus

Most law is not about motivation at all. It is about how things are to be done or who's going to pay for it, not whether or not they are done at all.

Not doing something is what is known as a negative act. — quintillus

As I noted, it may be true that law is not effective in motivating positive acts, that doesn't mean it can't be effective in motivating negative acts, i.e. preventing people from doing prohibited acts.

My proffer is that we first render everyone reflectively free. — quintillus

By which you mean:

...being in possession of reflective understanding of his or her existential ontological freedom... — quintillus

Easier said than done. Much, much, much easier said than done. Very easy to say. Perhaps impossible to do in groups larger than five people. It is not an achievable method of governance in our society.

[deleted]

Congratulations to T Clark - the first person to mention "dental floss tycoon" on TPF. — BC

I'm surprised I haven't used it before. As an early example of a large language model (LLM), my processor was trained to type the phrase "dental floss tycoon" whenever it's sensors detected the word "Montana."

Law is an existing written factual theoretical construct which, because it is a given state of affairs, cannot possibly be determinative of the acts of human beings, who act solely on the basis of not yet achieved absences. — quintillus

Some thoughts 1) You seem to be talking about criminal law, which is only a small part of the law. For better or worse, a capitalist society needs laws to regulate commerce, finance, and especially property ownership. 2) Criminal law is not primarily intended to get people to do things, it's to get them not to do things. Although I agree law is not generally effective in promoting motivated action, it often works to prevent unwanted actions, e.g. I don't always drive the speed limit, but I do drive more slowly than I would if there were none. 3) Criminal law is not only intended to act as a deterrent, it is also meant to figure out how to deal with the consequences of illegal acts, e.g. restricting future actions of people who violate the laws.

Thanks for the information. My friend was in the Peace Corps in the late 80s, early 90s. It's funny that coffee in a country full of different indigenous ethnicities has a North American Indian on it's label.

I thought this was interesting:

Translocation of shorebird siblings shows intraspecific variation in migration routines to arise after fledging

- Tracking reveals enormous variation in migratory routines, but what is the source?
- Young hand-raised godwits, matched for parentage, were moved 1,000 km east
- Translocated juveniles adopted the pattern of migration of the population at release
- Thus, migration of young godwits is not just shaped by genes and maternal material — Current Biology

It indicates that what we call "instinct" is not just automatic behavior, but also involves learning.

Are you in Honduras? I have a friend who went there in the Peace Corps and married a Honduran woman. They live in the US but own a house and a small coffee plantation in Honduras.

He, and the news media, tell me it can be a very dangerous place to live.

Velveeta was specifically designed to provide nourishment in a post apocalyptic, radioactive world. It was meant as a provocation to the USSR. It says: we're ready for whatever you have to launch in our direction. We have stockpiles of hydrocarbons that will never rot due to technology extracted from alien spacecrafts. Yes, it tastes like secretions from some unspecified orifice (which it is), but we don't care. We can take it. — frank

This seems accurate.

If science has been made paramount due to the hourglass perception that the mirage will end when all of us run out of sand, is there a conflict raging between the existential angst of the morality of perception and its symbols which is reifying defensive materials which are strong and durable but are not hopeful symbols of an ideal oasis? — introbert

It's not science, it is conceptualization, language, of any kind.

Lao Tzu said it much more simply - The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.

I'll be traveling to NH soon. — Hanover

Are you going to be a dental floss tycoon?

I don’t know what Velveeta is. Sounds disgusting. — Jamal

Velveeta is discussed here on the Shoutbox often. You're not paying attention. There is some... controversy about whether or not it is disgusting.

Velveeta is a brand name for a processed cheese product similar to American cheese. It was invented in 1918 by Emil Frey of the "Monroe Cheese Company" in Monroe, New York. In 1923, "The Velveeta Cheese Company" was incorporated as a separate company... The firm was purchased by Kraft Foods Inc. in 1927. — Wikipedia

I would like to do a tour of all the places that the British controlled, exploited, owned, or destroyed. More impressive than your short list of little CIA-sponsored coup d’etats and illegally funded right-wing rebel movements. — Jamal

I was limiting myself to Latin America and my lifetime. England didn't have much of a chance to screw things up there. The Spanish and Portuguese beat you to it. But, yes. You're right. England is the Velveeta of imperialist tyranny.

I thought you were in South America
— frank

I am not, and never have been, and would one day quite like to be, at least for a couple of weeks. — Jamal

↪Jamal
Me too. — frank

I'd like to do a tour of Latin America with stops in all the countries where the US has tried to destabilize the government in the last 100 years:

• Mexico
• Cuba
• Dominican Republic
• Grenada
• Nicaragua
• El Salvador
• Panama
• Colombia
• Chile
• Venezuela

Who did I leave out?

Discussions active within the last day:

• Is consciousness present during deep sleep?
• Subjective and Objective consciousness
• The Naive Theory of Consciousness
• What constitutes evidence of consciousness?
• About algorithms and consciousness

Suggested new discussion - How come everybody but me is wrong about consciousness?

Thankfully I did not resemble a tardigrade. I was and still am a toothpick. — Noble Dust

That's my smiley face tclemoji.

More thoughts about doughnuts:

Krispee Kreeme glazed doughnuts are really good if you eat them within 30 minutes of when they are cooked. After that, they go downhill fast.

Plain doughnuts from most places taste good if you put them in a toaster oven for a couple of minutes till the outside gets a little crunch. Microwave doesn't work.

This is also true of Dunkin Donut's coffee rolls. You have to be especially careful that the sugar doesn't catch fire, although a little caramelization can improve the taste.

I was a weird kid. — Noble Dust

That's a good donut. There's also a Boston cream pie version with custard inside and a dark chocolate glaze on top. — frank

I'm not a big filled doughnut fan, but that's just personal preference. I judge a doughnut maker by two doughnuts - plain and glazed. Plain should be tender, cakey, and sweet. The really good ones I've had have been small. I think that's because they cook better - When they're bigger the surface tends to get tough. Glazed should tender and fairly dense but not cakey with a thick glaze that crumbles a bit when you bite it and gets all over your lips. Thornton's Bakery in Martinsville Va.

sufganiyot — Hanover

Sufganiyah... is a round jelly doughnut eaten in Israel and around the world on the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. The doughnut is deep-fried, injected with jam or custard, and then topped with powdered sugar. The doughnut recipe originated in Europe in the 16th century, and by the 19th century was known as a Berliner in Germany. — Wikipedia

Ich bin ein sufganiyah.

I only ever ate the Bavarian and the jam one in fairness. — Baden

Actually, I've been known to eat and enjoy Dunkin Donuts. They are definitely the Velveeta of breakfast pastries.

Are doughnuts a thing in the rest of the world, or are they primarily American? Even here it is rare to get really good ones.

Definitely will try it again sometime in the future, but, I wasn't really feeling it at the moment, especially towards the last 100 or so pages of my reading. — Manuel

As you've seen here, you aren't the only one who had to come back later. My suggestion - get a good running start and read as fast as you can. Whenever you think of stopping, just say la, la, la over again with your fingers in your ears.

Or, like me, wait till you retire to finish reading it.

It is impossible that 100% of the time when a UFO crashes, the government gets to the scene first and cleans it perfectly outside the presence of any witness or video. — Hanover

Also, no one has mentioned how crappy the alien pilots must be to keep crashing all the time. I can only think of two possible reasons 1)After you get three DUIs on Koozebane, they sentence you to Earth 2) Earth is where all the college kids on Venus go for spring break.

To me this means it's the worst of chocolates. — Noble Dust

Well, for what it's worth, I think many of the discussions we have on the forum could be considered the Velveeta of philosophy. For that matter, many of the discussions we have here on the Shoutbox could be considered the Velveeta of the forum in general.

And, yes, yes, I will happily claim the title of the Velveeta of philosophers. Wait, no, I am the Chedobit of philosophers. That's the knockoff brand A&P used to sell when I was a kid. I guess that would make Kant the Velveeta of philosophers.

On the other hand, this is problematic. — Noble Dust

I'll have you know that Hershey's is the Velveeta of chocolates.

I don't think Hersey's milk chocolate is especially great, either. — BC

I like Hershey's chocolate a lot. Some of that comes from the fact I've been eating it for 70 years, but I find all those highfalutin, namby-pamby chocolates too sweet.

Nestle's is Swiss, like cheese. — Hanover

Nestle's chocolate is not as good as Hershey's, at least not in the US. Maybe they use a different recipe here. It's waxy and tastes like plastic.

Those are alright. They were 50 cents each in Thailand. Ate plenty of 'em. — Baden

If you think Dunkin Donuts are good doughnuts, your opinions on other American foods are meaningless.

That photo might be worse than the teeth thing, — Noble Dust

I edited it to protect your sensitive feelings.