Steve Dustcircle

Have a great week everyone and a very Happy Christmas!

Unseen wrote:
It’s often “framed” by people who aren’t facing the question and the woman facing the choice has already set aside “greater good for the child” question.

We don’t know how the individual women see it.  It must be pretty subjective.  As men, we never will understand it directly.

It can be argued that it’s very important soc…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
They real plan is to privatize social security/medicare and get that money into the stock market. So first they have to screw it up and then they will get away with it. America is dumber than a box of hammers.

Hopefully, dumb as they are, it will become undeniable that the food shortages, restaurant closures, increasing rents, and…[Read more]

They real plan is to privatize social security/medicare and get that money into the stock market. So first they have to screw it up and then they will get away with it. America is dumber than a box of hammers.

Fuck around and find out, as they say. And the GOP will find out, I predict, in the midterms and in the next presidential election.

Immigrant workers are already going back into the woodwork rather than risk deportation, and the Republican dream of taking everyone off entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid and forcing them to accept the vacant…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I frame the question of abortion as a healthcare choice.

Well, yeah, but (as a pro-lifer might say) what about the health of the baby?

There is a deep divide over this issue and it’s not a disagreement over facts (which would make it solvable). Rather, it’s a disagreement in attitudes.

Idiocracy.

I frame the question of abortion as a healthcare choice.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
It gets more complicated when the acts are individual (like whether to get an abortion) rather than social.

But the abortion question is framed as the greater good for the child – on either side.

It’s often “framed” by people who aren’t facing the question and the woman facing the choice has already set aside “…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
It gets more complicated when the acts are individual (like whether to get an abortion) rather than social.

But the abortion question is framed as the greater good for the child – on either side.

The debates on the existence of free will have been poisoned by “the god question.” The science on this topic is inconclusive. Science does not presuppose the answer. Theists however must have it exist to satisfy religious claims. They need relieve their god of the suffering and evil in his world.

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
“Evil” is defined in different ways in different times, places, and communities. In Sparta, for example, it wasn’t evil to murder deformed or weak babies.

But they were doing it for unselfish reasons: for the greater good. That’s not so different from our conception of good and evil.

It gets more complic…[Read more]

After hearing Trump today on the spending deal, I have decided to stop listening to him and to Vance when he takes over. Who voted for Elon Musk, btw?

We have a pond on the property. In it, lives a really old, really big snapping turtle. I watched it grab a blue heron by the leg as I was lounging on the beach with a dram of whisky. The bird would get free and then get pulled under again. Over and over. Finally, just a few feathers floating in the water. All because of Eve. The lion does not lay…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
However, I don’t think a lay person should accept a philosopher’s word that he has a solution to a philosophical problem if it’s one that only other philosophers or people who can intelligently read philosophy can understand.

“I have solved the free will problem and if you read my 400 page treatise and have a solid backgro…

[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
“Evil” is defined in different ways in different times, places, and communities. In Sparta, for example, it wasn’t evil to murder deformed or weak babies.

But they were doing it for unselfish reasons: for the greater good.  That’s not so different from our conception of good and evil.

_Robert_ wrote:
This is the logic of christian apologists.

I was wondering when we’d hit post #55555. I missed it by one!

Unseen wrote:
Now, a final word on introducing the quantum world into the discussion. There is no predeterminism because quantum level events can influence events in the world of everyday Newtonian/Einsteinian physics.

I agree, and I feel responsible for potentially confusing a free will discussion with a mostly separate discussion on potential,…[Read more]