@Enco, sure companies pay taxes, but no company was going to orchestrate a mission to the moon. The return on investment as far as business development enabled by the Apollo program was 700% or 7:1 to the taxpayers.

The point is that universities and businesses work together to elevate our nation and that no business can afford to undertake risky…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Perhaps atheism asserts nothing but an atheist can assert that God doesn’t exist and here I am doing it.

God does not exist because he/she/it is impossible like a round square, counting to infinity, or unringing a bell. If that is true, then God’s nonexistence is true to a mathematical-level certainty.

Consider an…[Read more]

Unseen,

In a recent Facebook post answering a person who likes to remind leftists like me that the Democrats were very keen on the KKK and it was a Republican who freed the slaves, I said that the two parties flipped sides in 1964 with Pres. Johnson’s Civil Rights Bill. He countered that with the notion that, no, the Dems are still the party of s…

[Read more]

Robert,

Instead of the myopic view, how about if we examine the accomplishments of Harvard Medical School alone, and gauge that against the alleviation of guilty conscience by the entitled Harvard students and staff with their flawed but inconsequential support of Palestinians.

It’s consequential to hard science when some of it’s best students…[Read more]

Simon,

It may or may not be a godawful book, but I think it’s an interesting question to ask what it’s like for some totally different organism to experience the world.

An interesting question, but all for naught if we couldn’t communicate and share the answer. Again, this is the kind of stuff that encourages hatred of philosophy as empty egg…[Read more]

Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg special. Still remember watching that and feeling sick to my stomach.

Far left. Far right. Without data to corroborate but i think it is a good bet far left is better educated than far right. Less conviction but perhaps higher in empathy as well. And yet i am not sure whether it is the lefties or the MAGA who are…[Read more]

Triggering empathy is a Spielberg specialty. Most of us are running the same basic software (if you are not a sociopath). The thing is, I am never a fan of having people take pity on others if there is nothing they can or will do to really help. In fact, it results in the most helpless of feelings having to look up at “empath”, shaking their head…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:

Mirror neurons and other neural junk whose name(s) escapes me and neural pathways are activated when something observed causes alarm or joy/ecstasy. If one is high in empathy watch a movie and start crying or repulsing the automatic response to some tear jerker shit. Zeus ex machina or some shit.

That would be emotional…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

If you want to numb somebody’s sense of empathy, as well as any love of philosophical thought, just have them read that essay, as well as the others in Nagel’s What Does It All Mean?

It may or may not be a godawful book, but I think it’s an interesting question to ask what it’s like for some totally different organism to…[Read more]

Reg,

What is it like to be a Bat?

If you want to numb somebody’s sense of empathy, as well as any love of philosophical thought, just have them read that essay, as well as the others in Nagel’s What Does It All Mean?

I had to read that in a philosophy class with several other majors and to a class member, everyone was totally nonplussed by it!…[Read more]