lemur

I only got to the part where it says that bodies displace the pushing-force due to their size, but then how would smaller-denser bodies be able to exert more gravity than larger, less dense ones?

No, of course not, but they use a certain degree of rationality in calculating how to deal with threats and potential rewards. Many perceive either consciously or subconsciously potential profit in aligning themselves with bullies, or at least avoiding drawing the bully's teeth. Likewise, people figure out ways to talk and act that win them friends and reduce the chance they will be shunned. The part that interested me enough to post was the idea that bullying and shunning are practically the same in their effects, even though you would probably think of them as being very different, even opposite, social actions in practice.

One might think of bullying and shunning as opposing forces. Stereotypically, you might picture boys as bullying and girls as shunning, with the girls shunning boys who bully causing them to control their aggression. But maybe shunning and bullying have the same ultimate purpose and effect as social control. When a bully makes a show of force, the result will be that others will fall in line to avoid becoming the next target of bullying. Now consider shunning: when people are afraid of losing friendship and being ignored socially, don't they also fall in line and cater to those who are socially popular? So when popular people shun, others will follow suit to avoid being associated with unpopular people. Just like bullying, the goal and effect is to make examples of a few unlucky victims to impel others to fall in line within a domination-hierarchy. Finally, is there anything authorities can do to interrupt such social processes from taking place? Or are humans simply perpetually doomed to an existence of relative domination and subjugation with the safest position being below the top to avoid leadership-conflicts yet as far as possible away from the vulnerability of being bullied and/or shunned? I.e. in the survival of the socially fittest, are the kiss-ups the strongest species?

I don't think mindless dogmatism is the only obstacle to legalizing/validating the practices you mention. Utopians too often assume that if a certain cultural obstacle to their goals was removed, nothing else would take its place. It may be that many people are clinging to "God's existence" because they haven't yet found a better basis for pursuing the policies and culture they favor. Reasonable discussion doesn't work so well directly in matters that are naturally resistant to value-freedom such as those involving sex, death, etc.

Considering the sensitivities I seem to have triggered with this thread, I should be explicit with what I mean exactly with "feminine" as a cultural identity separate from just referring to all females and/or their behavior. By "feminine," I am really referring to cultures of subordination that are passed down primarily to women to socialize them to be subordinate to men. I believe if you read various sociological/feminist literature, you will find discussions of things like "feminization of economic labor" or "femininity of upper class culture" (both referring to men as well as women). So the cultural development I'm raising for discussion here relates generally to the idea that women should be (made) dependent on men (creating a culture of feminine weakness), but then this culture develops into one where people dream of controlling their own beneficiary status as dependents of a productive system they are excluded from participating in. An economic example could be the development of absentee ownership (Veblen?) through stock-markets and other bureaucratic-economic institutions that came about around the beginning of the 20th century. So, I'm not saying that women who fall into the dreams of feminity are inferior anymore than I would say that people who make their living on stock trading are. I was just questioning whether the ultimate dream for both would be to have a totally self-organizing system to their benefit. I'm sure insane alien is right that just as many women as men get pleasure from exerting effort - but that doesn't mean the dream of total gratification without so much as having to ask for anything doesn't continue as a cultural tradition in some form. Or am I describing something that could better be described without reference to feminity at all?

Was "drop quickly" a subconscious pun? Actually, with the new solar-powered plane that has been in the news I could imagine personal air-travel becoming more popular. If you can put a light-weight solar motor on a hang-glider or one of those go-karts on a parachute, why shouldn't people use such things for transportation? Generally, I think the biggest obstacle to adopting a wide-range of alternative vehicles besides cars is that people's time is so limited by traditional institutionalized work-scheduling. If the 40-hour week would be replaced with more flexible work-scheduling, people would have time to fly places at 20mph and/or walk, bicycle, or take a solar-powered car for that matter. Gyroscopic stabilization and a skirt that keeps gusts from getting underneath the vehicle? Of course, if you're putting power into running a gyroscope, that sort of defeats the energy-efficiency of having a lighter vehicle, doesn't it?

To what extent can the labor-intensivity of cold-climate economies be attributed to the need to keep warm in winter? Is it possible that modern indoor temperature expectations have evolved with industrialization, i.e. that as factory work became more popular and gradually replaced more and more human labor with machines that generate waste-heat, the workers became gradually accustomed to being able to relax indoors in the winter? Could you say that this ushered in a post-industrial culture of comfortable indoor leisure during winter? Now that industrialism has evolved into more or less consistent series of energy-crises, will culture further evolve in the direction of engendering more indoor labor or other physical activities to reduce heating-levels or will some other approach(es) be developed to deal with increasing fuel-scarcity?

Flying cars would be neat but dangerous when the sky gets filled with clunkers the way the roads are now. As for the issue of superlight cars traveling at super-high speed, can't lift be used to create downward force that would prevent cars from flipping at high-speed? That way, you could have very good fuel- efficiency at low-speed and high-stability at high speed, no?

The only reason I disagree with your approach is because I think you are looking for reasons to justify dimensions and location on the basis of the physical nature of the systems. What I am doing is looking for examples that make it possible to think about how location is relative. Obviously once you start thinking in terms of a planet like Earth with distinguishable surface-points, it becomes possible to plot any location at any altitude on a line extended from some axis of the planet. This works especially well using a planet like Earth that is viewed as dominantly solid/fixed, but what if you wanted to define locations relative to systems that aren't solid/fixed? You would have to either identify stable aspects of the system and define location relative to those, but what if those weren't available or they were moving?

This discussion is beginning to evoke echoes of some philosophy of science I haven't heard addressed explicitly in some time; namely the issue of transcendent subject positions. Just looking at your avatar reminded me that so much art/culture is designed in a way that reproduces the perspective of looking "from the outside in." I think this causes the other perspective to seem foreign, that all subject positions are immanently part of (or rather connected to) the things they are observing, even though this is more empirically accurate/objective than the perspective that there are infinite transcendent points from which all things can be observed "from the outside in." I don't mind art or consciousness constructing (the concept of) transcendent subject positions, though. In fact, I think "the God's eye view" is a top achievement in human epistemological culture. Still, I also think part of further developing the "God's eye view" involves constructing perspectives that are faithful to the knowledge that all empirically inhabitable points of view are situated within the physical systems they interact with, so I continue to pursue a model of existence that dispenses with the (abstract) notion of space and time as containers, if only for contemplation of the ultimate reality of existence.

Good point. I think it is possible, though, to eliminate the idea of the surrounding container-grid if you conceptualize matter from the inside outward. You can have force-fields interacting without a larger container as long as photons or any other possible particle cannot extend beyond the gravitation within which they are emitted. You just have to think of a gravitational-field as at the same time a very large particle AND a container for other particles/fields.

It was just an example of how the concept of location is relative to the points in question. The point is that no fixed coordinate systems exist; only actual points moving relative to each other. what are 'spatial dimension' relative to? It is like the concept of aether. It sounds like you're trying to imply some form of absolute perception. My point is that particles are only ultimately relative to each other insofar as they interact directly. Beyond direct interactions, you're only dealing with abstract spatial relations, which can't be more than a composite of overlaid orientations derived from various observations.

Is the magnetic field generated by the current relevant?

You could examine how it is that human cognition is able to conceive of the ideal of absolute nothingness without recognizing itself as an artifact that is in itself "something."

How can any conscious subject perceive absolute nothingness as long as their consciousness is present?

Could the holy grail of feminine gratification be total satisfaction as a result of someone else pursuing the means of satisfaction as a goal? In other words, is the ultimate feminine fantasy to be pleased without having to pursue gratification actively in any way; i.e. to simply be so attractive that everything will fall into place as it pleases you? if this sounds misogynist, apologies. I am simply exploring the meaning of femininity as a cultural construct and wondering if anyone else has insights.

This is the way I begin thinking about location and energy without imagining a fixed coordinate system that defines things relative to something external to them: imagine you have two points that can't rotate. These two points can move in any way relative to each other but the one can only interpret its location relative to the other in terms of distance increasing or decreasing. It can experience changes in force and momentum as it changes directions of motion relative to other imaginary points, but its location can only be measured in relation to the only other existing point in its universe, which it only becomes more or less distant from. Does that make any sense? edit: a more concrete example might be if you were orbiting the sun along in a spacesuit, and you would have no idea what your position was relative to anything except the sun, then you would not know if your location was changing within your orbital path except in theory. You would only observe yourself to be stationary relative to the sun. If you accelerated or changed direction, you could experience force but without any other points of reference, you would have no basis for perceiving that your location changed except insofar as your distance to the sun changed.

How is 'location' in any sense absolute, or maybe I should say less than relative? To me, objects always move relative to the objects they exchange energy with.

You're right. I guess it was a pseudodiphthong.

Does English have a limit to the number of diphthongs allowed per word?

Direct plagiarism could never occur as an unconscious result of reading something in the past and having it re-emerge as one's own idea. One would have to express the remembered idea in one's own words. But even a plagiarized idea could be published in the interest of personal gain and have nothing to do with wanting to stimulate discourse on the topic. Some people are just in a race for fame and the privileges that come with publication.

I think people are also sometimes viewed as "too stiff" and considered less suitable for this reason as well. It's just that more expression makes people more vulnerable to criticism, and insecure people distance themselves from vulnerability in themselves and others.

Rigney, nice poem. Thread: Plagiarism is an ego trip, imo. If someone honestly had a similar idea to someone else, and they manage to discover each other's work, why shouldn't they just collaborate to take it further instead of bickering over who came up with the idea first? There's always progress to made with anything by developing it further.

You could also look at the "elite ruling class" desire as just another commodity used to exploit people for the gain of others. E.g. investors can be sold on the idea that they are captains of industry when in fact they may just be used as a source of investment capital for those really running the business. Similarly, workers use managers to take responsibility for their work so they they don't have to worry too much about doing so themselves. The profits, bonuses, high-salaries, etc. afforded to higher-ranking personnel may just be used as bait to lure people into positions where they can be used to take on the least desirable responsibilities while others in mid-level positions enjoy the relative irresponsibility that comes with anonymity as well as freedom from the most undesirable tasks. People manage to get everything they want with middle-level positions and when they've reached that point, they would often rather avoid the added responsibilities of being the ultimate authority held accountable to the public for everything that may occur at the hands of anyone else in the lower ranks. This is a bit of a diversion from the thread, though, isn't it? Why is it so easy to go from discussing the specifics of economics to philosophizing about capitalism and economic systems overall? Is this something we are programmed to do by higher education? Could this be a topic for yet another thread?

I think the answer to your question lies in the attitude of life-positive living. Christians want people to accept and embrace life-potential as innately good power in human hands. So they basically want people to always support life and "turn the other cheek" when life is harmed or destroyed. They don't like to see people express the attitude that life is something negative to be eliminated or controlled lest it get out of hand (except to the extent they want to see individuals resist temptation and sinning, which could be viewed as "life getting out of control." As for the OP issue that if miscarrying fetuses don't have souls yet, then it isn't sinning against them to abort their life; I can imagine a religious philosopher answering that it would be similar to destroying a house built for someone before they moved into it. It wouldn't harm them as much as if they had already settled in and you destroyed their house, but they would still be disappointed to have to give up the dream of the house they planned to live in and go through the trouble of beginning another search for a new house to move into.