Peterkin

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. Let's hope this is one. On afterthought, it all depends on how - and whether at all - you define your terms. Conservatism: everything you wish were true that the rule of capital hasn't made happen, so you want government to do it, only without interfering with capitalism, but only restricting individual freedom. Expanding the economy: Wait till the liberal parties have built up a level of harvestable prosperity, then start a war - doesn't matter if you've already got three on the simmer; the armaments and fossil-fuel industries can always use a boost, and cannon-fodder is a kind of employment that tends not to rise to the level of sending their kids to private school or getting decent medical care for their injuries, but so what? Activity: incitement to violence, death, rape, arson, disfigurement and child-murder threats against anyone who disagrees with the extreme far-right agenda, election fraud and subversion, armed insurrection,

That was also common practice when I was very young. The thinking went: They're all going to catch it anyway; we'll have to nurse them through it; let's get it over with in one big mess instead of three or four little messes with the added burden of trying to isolate a sick child in a house already not big enough for all the people who live in it, and then they'll all be immune and we'll never have to deal with this again. Nobody's mentioned vaccines. How odd!

It's always a bit more complicated than the one-dimensional thinkers are prepared to deal with, innit? And often a bit more complicated than even the most convoluted brains are aware of.

But...but... he's got a suit on! Who thinks children haven't seen the other picture?

I might, if I had a gender-specific illness that got less attention and funding than another gender-specific cancer. I might not know the reasons why. I would probably ask why, but one-track thinkers usually don't. They go directly to the most obvious single difference: M/F In fact, like that tee-shirt (of which I also want one for my birthday), says: it's more complicated. Breast cancer was more deadly in the 80's and much harder to treat than prostate cancer. (I was there.) Promising new diagnostic techniques were being developed and the equipment coming along was far more costly for mammography than the blood-test that's the most common early indicator of prostate cancer, as were the available treatment options. At the time, funds were allocated according to need, and scientific interest was directed to the novel and promising. It had nothing to do with the sex of the patients.

The tangentially related matter that momentarily held my attention https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/prost.html prostate cancer statistics https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/breast.html breast cancer statistics Obviously, prostate cancer is less dangerous than breast cancer, but both are way overfunded, compared to the more deadly lung, pancreatic and liver cancers. https://www.cancerhealth.com/article/cancers-better-funded-others This is not altogether a matter of government or medical community policies; a great deal of funding comes from well organized charities. Maybe women just organize better...? Or maybe not. The causes of a single phenomenon in a particular time-frame tells us very little about the priorities and prejudices of an entire society. In order for that one datum to be meaningful, you'd have to incorporate it into quite a large body of work. His brother was correct about the official funding: https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/budget/fact-book/data/research-funding Sometimes a broken watch tells the correct time. The poster could have supported his statement with a few keystrokes - and didn't bother, even when challenged.

Indeed. It's a self-springing trap: it admits of no reflection or testing or doubt; it can readily accommodate a premise and its direct opposite; e.g. denying government the power to regulate and demanding that it regulate in favour of their ideology; demanding the legal right to overturn laws... ) The danger in both modes of thought - and at the present scale, it's an existential threat - is that it also empowers the holder of The True Faith: it transcends law, the public weal, ethics, standards of behaviour, and all constituted authority but their own: it gives them license to trample opposition and rivals in the name of whatever is emblazoned on their banner.

I should probably mention that there is something more serious and pervasive at the foundation of such belief-systems: the overwhelming desire for simplicity, for the one-dimensional cause and single all purpose fix to all problems. The screwdriver approach to life. (Or sledgehammer, for the even more simple-minded.) It's seductive. It fits into a four-letter acronym and can be worn on tractor hat. It's popular.

Well, yeah! That's how they went extinct.

Couple of ways. One is how evolution works: by trial and error. Most of the allergic people didn't die before they could reproduce. Many others were saved from a much worse threat of infection or poisoning by a related system of immune responses. The other is how humans change their own environment and breeding practices. Some of the foods to which people are allergic didn't exist in the same form in the environment in which humans evolved. Further, some of the waste products of our industries also affect cellular function. As exchemist pointed out, we do adapt to new environmental factors, but it takes many generations, and human regeneration has a long turnover cycle. You can't "tell the body" anything, though you can modify its activity with chemical interventions. The immune system of humans is complex; when you try to shut down a reaction you consider inappropriate or inconvenient, you risk shutting down a vital function along with it. Thus the need to be exceptionally careful in the application of immunosuppressant drugs, in e.g. transplant situations. Suppression of minor, superficial manifestations can be temporarily controlled by antihistamines.

Taking the load off a dead donkey doesn't help the load or the donkey. The ones from whom you want to take away even the little power they still have to redistribute wealth through taxation and regulation. If. This guy sounds like the innumerate twenty-year-old boys of my generation who read Atlas Shrugged and had their eyes suddenly opened as to why they were not wildly successful in school, work or dating: Because they themselves were exceptionally wonderful and all the lesser people were holding them back. If they were in charge, everything would be just fiiinnnee.

Expanding to.... where? You do know the planet is.. um... are you sitting down? ... round... yes. Do you know why? Are you aware of all the factors that have contributed to the availability and cost of housing over the past 5 years? In which provinces? In which parts of which provinces? Once you have a totalitarian government, not hard at all. As long as there are several parties and a number of different interests and considerations in play, not quite so easy. Right. Just put all the kids to work in the fields, mines and sweatshops at age 7 and they don't need to read or count at all, because they owe their souls to the company store. No, you don't complain. You whine, scream, rail, rant, howl and gnash your teeth. You'd gnash someone else's, a lackey's or servant girl's, if you could subjugate one enough to borrow their teeth.

There are many things we don't know about each other. Shall we agree to keep it so? (*end of derail fmp*)

My Grandpa Isaac. Can't you tell?

And in a truly Christian world, there would be even fewer. Two, to be exact. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. “This is the first and great commandment. “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37–39).

I'm not quite following how the attempt to get out of an elevator - i.e. serving one's self-interest - is related to morality. Wouldn't this come under lateral problem-solving, or team-building, rather than ethics? Even the mightiest king or pope would resort to the expert knowledge of a social inferior when they needed a horse shod or a holy relic saved from a flood. That doesn't mean they would feel obliged to do more than throw the vassal a coin as reward, or treat him like an equal thereafter. It's the same with the crippled elevator repair-woman: you consult her for specialized knowledge, then you use the strongest navvy to hoist the most agile youngster through the little escape hatch... without ever wondering who died and put you in charge. You all get out of the elevator. Your social status doesn't change. Once you/they are out of that car, the privileged go right on feeling superior; the religious go right on believing they're more virtuous. Because they live in a vertically stratified society, and that's how things work. In a horizontally organized group dynamic, chances are, the oldest person present would be expected to seek opinions and consensus, then organize the co-operative effort, because that's how things usually work in their society. But that's not about morality, either; it's about habits of thought.

I don't. It's how he's branding himself. Yeah, so? Do labels matter, or do actions? Orban's fascist party is called Federation of Young Democrats–Hungarian Civic Alliance. How did that come about? What happened to the moderates, the reasonable, the conservatives who believed they had something to conserve, rather than just somebody to hate and oppose by all means possible? The Democrats didn't make those conservatives go away - they were purged by the reconstituted (* giddit? https://www.businessinsider.com/constitutional-convention-conservatives-republicans-constitution-supreme-court-2022-7 Republican party. Don't count on it. They're gathering steam, and power, and more adherents; incorporating the extreme right fringes of bigotry and undirected rage, attracting more clueless people who can just about wrap their heads around a slogan, or are so scared, they'll follow anyone who puffs himself up pretending to be strong. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/15/far-right-extremism-global-problem-worldwide-solutions/ It is to be hoped, for the sake of Europe, and just tough beans for the helpless Hungarians. But The EU itself is far from safe.

Yes, like that. In moral systems, it would be something like: Vertically, I will give you the full pound of potatoes for your penny, because if I'm caught with my thumb on the scale, I could lose my vendor's license. Horizontally, I give you full value, because that's your due and what I expect in return. It's the same behaviour; both instances result in fair dealing - as long people are bound by, and believe in, the same rules. In daily life in modern society, we routinely use both kinds of interaction, as we deem appropriate to a situation.

Rank? I described how societies work, what models are likely in use in which kind of organization, and made some reference to why they choose one path rather than another. I don't see anybody ranking anything. Within the dynamics of a group, yes, but any moral precept works only as long as the basic world-view and value structure is generally shared by members of the group. When it's not, the society begins to disintegrate. Both the functional application of a system and its breakdown can be described, without necessarily subscribing to the particular model. Oddly enough, it does help to communicate and explain a great many concepts.

You're right. Evil may be perfectly sane. Of course, we all base our our opinions on our beliefs - at least those who still believe anything. Viktator (Not mine; it's what Hungarians call him, before they're disappeared) Orban's problem is not with NAFTA. He's a megalomaniac, on the Trump model, except Trump hasn't been able to do to the US (yet) what Orban has done to Hungary. But his good buddies are trying real hard to make America bend over. Hell has no bats in it, probably.

When it comes to conservative batshit.... ttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62431415

There are some excellent documentaries on the evolution of computing, https://newpathconsulting.com/2020/09/the-machine-that-changed-the-world-full-documentary/

Nitpicky point of clarification: though they can be considered the 'parents' of the computer, Ada Byron didn't marry Babbage; she married William King-Noel, later made Earl of Lovelace.

There has been talk for 60 years and more. There is more talk now, and there actually are some available options. Each of those other fuels produces less CO2 emission than fossil fuel, and at the moment hydrogen seems to be the odds-on favourite. However, each also has disadvantages, some more obvious than others, regarding their source, method of extraction and production, manufacture of components needed to implement, containment, conveyance and handling, commitment by interested parties in formulating and carrying out a plan, as well as economic feasibility. For example: ...based on a bunch of assumptions for which there is inadequate basis in the sate of the world as we find it right now. That optimistic prediction was cited in a wind-generated energy newsletter in 2019. Given certain assumed conditions, each of the alternative fuels has some merit. The two biggest problems are the scale - e.g. the sample size in the OP is enormous, and it's only one of 126 major ports - and "givens" - of which there aren't any. That study, only a few short years ago failed to consider a longish global pandemic, major political upheaval in the US, a more than usually insane war and reverberating missile-rattling by insecure world powers, the insecurity of world powers, the devastation of climate change-induced weather phenomena, the economic consequences of all these events... If you're looking to retool a single fleet of vehicles or factory, alternate energy sources should be considered according to your specific needs, capabilities and location, taking into account all the variables you are aware of (and mindful that it's those notorious unknown unknowns that cause most failure). But as a means of saving the world from extinction, a change of fuels at this stage is a futile gesture.

I make a distinction - with some trepidation, since they're so closely related - between morality and governance. I reduce it to the fundamental question at the center of each. Horizontal morality asks "Is this fair to my fellows?" while vertical morality asks, "Will this please the Man Upstairs?" Horizontal government asks "What works for the most citizens?" while vertical government asks "Who gives the orders?"