iambiguous and Pedro I Rengel don't contend

[Lorikeet]

Athens, or Rome.

[Gloominary]

I know Satyr's philosophy is more descriptive and adaptive, than prescriptive.
He's a timocrat.
My best guess is he's in favor of some social and state intervention, to help those who (currently) can't help themselves, like say a pedestrian, through no fault of his own, was hit and crippled by a car, and has no family to support him, I think in this instance he'd be in favor of society or the state intervening to support this man, if the man wasn't a vegetable and wanted to live, but not to help those who, made their own bed, sort of speak.

Of course, because I also believe in tribal competitions and survival of the fittest ethnicities, bloodlines etc.
i do not separate body form mind, nor memes form genes - mems are but a continuance.

We, are, of course in particular circumstances...a Behavioural Sink....look it up.
Planet earth is our sink, and we the rats.

What do you think of corporate welfare, should some corporations be subsidized, bailed out?

[Gloominary]

Athens, or Rome.

Interesting

[Lorikeet]

why?
Sparta never had Timocracy.

[Gloominary]

But America did.
It may not have been a timocracy, but I know you're fond of it for other reasons.

[Lorikeet]

But America did.
It may not have been a timocracy, but I know you're fond of it for other reasons.

What reasons would those be?

[Gloominary]

Their general, survival of the fittest, approach.

[Lorikeet]

Their general, survival of the fittest, approach.

There was a romanticism to those early days...mainly because controls were so lax and a man could disappear in the the wilderness. .

[Gloominary]

I want to pin this guy down, because his philosophy is quite unconventional and interesting, but I still don't quite fully understand it.

That's never the point with minds of his ilk. Understanding it means agreeing with it.

Now, how about your own philosophy? In particular your moral and political philosophy. To what extent are others permitted to come to very different conclusions regarding right and wrong behaviors...and not become "simpletons"?

While I have strong opinions about some things, I'm pretty openminded, live and let live.
Some people's opinions are simpler than others, regardless of what they are, and they hold them for simpler reasons.
If I think someone is simple, I tend to keep it to myself, I just may not engage that person much.
I do distinguish matters of opinion, which I'm more openminded about, from matters of fact, which I'm less openminded about, but perhaps not nearly as starkly as you do, to me there's more overlap between them.

[Gloominary]

But America did.
It may not have been a timocracy, but I know you're fond of it for other reasons.

What reasons would those be?

They also had a mixed constitution.
While they were not a timocracy, like timocracy, from what I gather, they were neither wholly autocratic, nor wholly democratic, they had a mix of dual monarchy and democratic oligarchy.

[Lorikeet]

Timocracy is no longer feasible. Not unless new frontiers become accessible.

[obsrvr524]

But with a privilege comes a responsibility, and so a citizen must serve the state and constantly prove his acumen, or risk losing citizenry.

So you are a fascist utilitarian? Get rid of the useless?

Not "get rid" but strip them of citizenry and the vote.

In reality what is the efficacious difference?

"If we don't see use for you, we will reject you from all our favor. Go try to survive the wild and die."

Even the Athenians had slaves and people that lived in the city without a vote....until Democracy was adopted as a concession to increasing populations demanding a say. this was the beginning of the end.
There was never a true democracy after those first days, because the masses were not to be trusted with the fate of the city...so contrivances were invented to maintain the illusion of participation by manipulating psychologies....and directing their judgments.
In fact no modern system has ever been practiced as it was written in theory.....

Agreed

How could the fate of the powerful in the US, for example, be abandoned to the whims of illiterate mostly uneducated irrational hoards? that would be suicidal.

Just look at the actual 2020 US Presidential election (void of the fraud).

They actually chose a President who seemed to have been doing everything good for their nation. And against horrific odds. The only problem has been the opponent's willingness to commit fraud, antidemocratic criminal activity, and to oppress them even further - the authoritarians - the Left - the communists.

[Lorikeet]

They actually chose a President who seemed to have been doing everything good for their nation. And against horrific odds. The only problem has been the opponent's willingness to commit fraud, antidemocratic criminal activity, and to oppress them even further - the authoritarians - the Left - the communists.

you cannot be that naïve ...can you?
Of course you can.
Trump is a product of an internal conflict between two factions of America's elites.
One is established and wants to continue with the old Cold War methods of perpetual warfare - such as Biden will return to promptly - the other, more conservative, but less powerful, sees a risk in maintaining a strategy in a changing world, with China rising and India....and what to return to isolationism, consolidating America's power so that it can survive longer.
Americans have no clue...they are sheeple following whomever has the money to buy television propaganda spots...the few who do see are too few to make a difference.
The US has been dumbing-down its population for decades.

Some are awakening to the lie that edumucaiton was to be the great equalizer...erasing racial and gender disparities, because they believed that sex and race were social constructs...but it didn't turn out as they expected...so they need someone to accuse and blame for their school debt, with no six figure salary....they need to blame systemic racism...or anything....Trump, but never themselves...never their own convictions.

[obsrvr524]

Trump is a product of an internal conflict between two factions of America's elites.

Agreed

One is established and wants to continue with the old Cold War methods of perpetual warfare - such as Biden will return to promptly - the other, more conservative, but less powerful, sees a risk in maintaining a strategy in a changing world, with China rising and India..

Agreed

..and what to return to isolationism, consolidating America's power so that it can survive longer.

Agreed as well, although "isolationism is a bit extreme. It has been "more isolationism than has been going on". It is pulling back on over-reach.

Americans have no clue...they are sheeple following whomever has the money to buy television propaganda spots...the few who do see are too few to make a difference.
The US has been dumbing-down its population for decades.

Both true and false. All of that "dumbing down" is real and has been happening. But the actual evidence is that they voted for (in 2016) a President to stand against it -"drain the swamp". They still knew it was a swamp. That is not "sheeple" who have been fooled.

And then again in 2020, they stood up even more than before. They recognized that their prior guess was actually right despite HUGE anti-populist campaigns by the MSM. Despite HUGE media attempts, those "sheeple" STILL believed against the propaganda.

Some are awakening to the lie that edumucaiton was to be the great equalizer...erasing racial and gender disparities, because they believed that sex and race were social constructs...but it didn't turn out as they expected...so they need someone to accuse and blame for their school debt, with no six figure salary....they need to blame systemic racism...or anything....Trump, but never themselves...never their own convictions.

Agreed. But how many of "them" accepted that blame-shift compared to how many hasn't?

The actual legitimate US Presidential election is proving that the "silent majority" apparently sleeping, apparently merely more sheeple, were not really asleep at all.

It might be too late for their awakening to save them. But they have proven that they were not the sheeple the propagandists were hoping for. They are proving that without exterior interference, they actually choose the better of the choices given. But I agree that they are not great at that. They seem to not know how to keep the George Soroses out of the system.

[iambiguous]

I want to pin this guy down, because his philosophy is quite unconventional and interesting, but I still don't quite fully understand it.

That's never the point with minds of his ilk. Understanding it means agreeing with it.

Now, how about your own philosophy? In particular your moral and political philosophy. To what extent are others permitted to come to very different conclusions regarding right and wrong behaviors...and not become "simpletons"?

While I have strong opinions about some things, I'm pretty openminded, live and let live.
Some people's opinions are simpler than others, regardless of what they are, and they hold them for simpler reasons.
If I think someone is simple, I tend to keep it to myself, I just may not engage that person much.
I do distinguish matters of opinion, which I'm more openminded about, from matters of fact, which I'm less openminded about, but perhaps not nearly as starkly as you do, to me there's more overlap between them.

What would be interesting to me then is a discussion between you and someone like Satyr with respect to a set of behaviors in which you hold conflicting moral and political value judgments. How far would you go in defending your point of view given that Satyr will reject it if it is not in sync with his own.

In any event, I don't have any "strong opinions" about the conflicting goods that pop up in the news everyday. Or, rather, I make the assumption that however rational and/or visceral my opinion "here and now" seems to be, it is still no less a political prejudice rooted subjectively in the arguments I make in my signature threads. And thus subject to change given access to new experiences, relationship, information, knowledge or ideas.

And here at ILP there seems to be a tug of war [for me] between those who might yank me up out of "fractured and fragmented" hole "I" have thought myself into and the extent to which I might succeed instead in yanking them down into it with me.

Precipitating many different reactions to say the least.

[obsrvr524]

What would be interesting to me then is a discussion between you and someone like Satyr with respect to a set of behaviors in which you hold conflicting moral and political value judgments.

There you go again.

"Everyone focus on HIM and THEM on the issue of conflicting goods!"

[MagsJ]

How many Lorrys does it take for mankind to be doomed?

Truck loads?

[Lorikeet]

Agreed. But how many of "them" accepted that blame-shift compared to how many hasn't?
The actual legitimate US Presidential election is proving that the "silent majority" apparently sleeping, apparently merely more sheeple, were not really asleep at all.

It might be too late for their awakening to save them.

Now you are thinking like an Abrahamic a Jew.
Why would you want or care to "save them"? Save them from what, themselves, their nature? This presumes something is worth saving....

But they have proven that they were not the sheeple the propagandists were hoping for.

No, they are...the "problem" is that the propaganda is anti-nature, antiu-life, and sheeple, if nothing else, are primal...
See, nihilism only has semiotics - language is the extent of its power. It is impotent beyond minds that can be affected by symbols and words.
You can't manipulate an animal using magical words, nor inani9mate existence with magical spells...but you can do so with sheeple seeped in superstitions rooted in existential anxieties and fears and ignorance ...
Who is the daddy of modern day American marketing, i.e., propaganda?
Bernays....look into him. start my watching a BBC documentary titled "Century of Self".

[phoneutria]

Timocracy is no longer feasible. Not unless new frontiers become accessible.

i made a case somewhere here a while ago
for voting rights to be limited
to people who have declared income tax
for all of the 4 years preceding the election
all they'd have to do is to provide the tax payer
with 64-bit encoded tokens
upon receiving their income tax forms
which must be provided when it's time to vote

[Lorikeet]

Timocracy is no longer feasible. Not unless new frontiers become accessible.

i made a case somewhere here a while ago
for voting rights to be limited
to people who have declared income tax
for all of the 4 years preceding the election
all they'd have to do is to provide the tax payer
with 64-bit encoded tokens
upon receiving their income tax forms
which must be provided when it's time to vote

That's a start...

Those that contribute are the ones that enjoy the privileges of citizenry and are those that must defend the state they are invested in.
In ancient times only those that produced tangible goods, and not those that produced intangible goods, were included.
So artists and philosophers were out, if they did not also produce tangible things all could appreciate and enjoy and benefit from.

The system was so successful that it created the circumstances of its own demise.
Is this not also the case with Europeans? Have they not created the ideological conditions of their own destruction?

[iambiguous]

What would be interesting to me then is a discussion between you and someone like Satyr with respect to a set of behaviors in which you hold conflicting moral and political value judgments.

There you go again.

"Everyone focus on HIM and THEM on the issue of conflicting goods!"

You really are as dense as posts like this confirm, aren't you?

Focusing on one of us [the good guys] vs. one of them [the bad guys] is what the objectivists are obsessed with.

I'm simply focusing in on the 2nd Amendment above, in order to determine if that reflects your own thinking.

My point is that those on both sides can make reasonable arguments to support their own assumptions. And thus "the best of all possible worlds" in regard to gun ownership would seem to revolve around "moderation, negotiation and compromise." Which is how it works here in America. No one gets everything that they want. This rather than "might makes right" or "right ought to make might"

But: Given the nature of crony capitalism in America, moral and political issues often revolve more around dollars and cents. The gun industry has a stake on promoting the 2nd Amendment because there are really, really Big Bucks involved in it for them. Fuck the morality of it, "show me the money!"

Right?

[promethean75]

"No teleological ends...only consequences to every judgment and choice"

the first part yes; no present state of the universe was 'intended' by a former state, and the sequence of the states is toward no end. so there is no 'purpose' in any of the universe's activity in the sense that it is working to establish some desired state.

the second part I'd agree with I think. in the simplest terms (and following hume), a 'consequence' is some event, the occurence of which we attribute to the happening of some other event prior to it. we infer a causal connection. when c follows b consistently, we assume that whenever c, there was b causing it. we call c a 'consequence' of b. and while causality certainly does exist, we can never have adequate knowledge of all causes involved in producing c. only because b always appears before c, do we attribute a causal connection.

"No absolutes, remember. No wholes, no perfectinos...no ones, except inside the human brain"

the issue is not philosophical if you realize that these concepts only become problems if they are thought of as representational uses of language, see. whether or not we 'truly' represent the world with those concepts is irrelevent. we could be wrong about what 'wholes' and 'perfections' and 'ones' are theoretically and philosophically, and argue about the various ways we use the concepts and the meanings those uses produce... and we'd be no less sure what those words meant in ordinary discourse. I want the whole thing. that triple back flip was perfect. yes I'd like one, please.

only on a philosophy board would this have to be explained. ya'll sposta know this shit. oh the irony.

[Lorikeet]

But for life there are ends...life wants to survive, and replication is a form of extending its life. Life has intent and motive..ergo only life has a will.

"No absolutes, remember. No wholes, no perfectinos...no ones, except inside the human brain"

the issue is not philosophical if you realize that these concepts only become problems if they are thought of as representational uses of language, see. whether or not we 'truly' represent the world with those concepts is irrelevent. we could be wrong about what 'wholes' and 'perfections' and 'ones' are theoretically and philosophically, and argue about the various ways we use the concepts and the meanings those uses produce... and we'd be no less sure what those words meant in ordinary discourse. I want the whole thing. that triple back flip was perfect. yes I'd like one, please.

only on a philosophy board would this have to be explained. ya'll sposta know this shit. oh the irony.

I've explained to you how I use the term.

Absolute = immutable, indivisible, whole, i.e., singularity, oneness.
it does exist as an idea, a concept, in the b rain....but not outside the brain, like satyrs, or cold-fire, or leprechauns....or one...or nil...
As idea.
Because the mind is not restricted by reality like the body is. In the mind all kinds of absurdities exist.
Like universe, imagined as a singularity.
Know how multiplicities become a singularity of universal proportions?

When you say "I want the whole thing" Brian you are segmenting space-time or you are separating a part of existence from the rest...usually a part as a unity with a purpose, a telos in mind, like satisfying your hunger.
I see a "whole boulder" on a "whole mountain" on a "whole planet" in a "whole galaxy"... because I've spatially and temporally separated it from the dynamic process it participates in...
A "bottle is full" only in my limited sensual perspective and only within a specific space/time, bounded by, for example, the glass the bottle is made of. But neither the bottle nor the substance in it is static...

The whole is in the mind, as concept. Like the #1 - an idea/ideal....a thought.
One pebble, on one mound of gravel, on one street, in one town, in one continent, on one planet, in one solar system, in one galaxy ...etc.

So when you want to buy one ton of gravel you've segmented reality with vague boundaries...usually using some static standard of human invention...or its mass, or its perceived similarities...
When you say "one man" and a hour later you see the same man and you say "the same one man" you are not referring to the same one, as it was an hour ago...but to a continuance that has changed in imperceptible ways, yet from your limited sensual acuity you see no difference that would warrant a change in your identification, recognizing in the grand similarities - his appearance - the continuity, the dynamic process which is a man...
The word, representing the noumenon, the idea, is static...yet tis reference, the phenomenon, is not static...and never complete, or final, or whole...always in the process, always losing energies, cells, etc., and trying to replace them....
The symbol, the word, refers to the concept in the brain....which is a interpretation of a presence in an interactive dynamic cosmos, with no end and no beginning and so no completion...no telos.
Just process.

[promethean75]

"Absolute = immutable, indivisible, whole, singularity"

okay, in that way, the word 'absolute' has a particular kind of meaning that yields apparent paradoxes or contradictions. the nature of substances, materials, things, as divisible objects, in a universe that can't not exist. things 'change' as a result of their compositional properties 'changing', and so on, so we say the forms of things are not absolute, and this makes sense. so far so good.

But what if I said 'the universe absolutely exists'. This fact certainly can't change, unlike the physical things in the universe that have properties.

This kind of statement makes sense, but its use of the concept 'absolute' is different. It doesn't refer to the nature of a thing, but rather to a logical necessity.

So I dont disagree with your definition, per se, but only the implications elsewhere that you think this definition creates.

[Lorikeet]

"Absolute = immutable, indivisible, whole, singularity"

okay, in that way, the word 'absolute' has a particular kind of meaning that yields apparent paradoxes or contradictions. the nature of substances, materials, things, as divisible objects, in a universe that can't not exist. things 'change' as a result of their compositional properties 'changing', and so on, so we say the forms of things are not absolute, and this makes sense. so far so good.

Yes.

But what if I said 'the universe absolutely exists'. This fact certainly can't change, unlike the physical things in the universe that have properties.

In this case you are referring to a degree of certainty, and not to a immutable, indivisible, complete whole....
You linguistically express your extreme conviction, your certainty, with the term "absolutely"...which confuses the subject because then you may mistake this use for an immutable, indivisible whole....

Existence = dynamic interactivity. What is said to 'exist' is interactive and dynamic...not static....so by universe you mean a dynamic amalgamation of interactive processes which you conceptualized as a one-whole....how?
You project your thoughts, your consciousness, into an imagined "outside" existence to then conceptualize it as a one whole thing, and then you believe in your own projection "metaphor" literally, creating paradoxes such as a multiplicity of incompleteness conceptualized as a singular complete oneness.

One absurdity necessitates its opposite...so from this absurdity of absolute oneness you get absolute nill....nihilism. Either/O binary thinking, i.e., if the world is not perfect, absolute, then it must not be at all. If not ONE then NIL....If morality is not universal then there is no morality, - amorality. If not God then Satan the trickster...

This kind of statement makes sense, but its use of the concept 'absolute' is different. It doesn't refer to the nature of a thing, but rather to a logical necessity.

There is no "thing" universe...universe is misleading...no uni-
Cosmos...
Cosmos is not a 'thing', but a multiplicity of dynamic processes the mind conceptualizes as "things"..including the concept of cosmos.

The brain needs to reduce the present into a manageable form...so it abstract it into singularities....


This universe - lets use your absolutist term - is not the end either...it is also part of a process....perhaps multiverses...which must also be conceptualized as a singular whole, and then given a symbol/word to represent it...