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lemur

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Everything posted by lemur

  1. I understand that many people strongly feel that national sovereignty is practically a law of nature, but why should it be? Isn't it just something that starting getting institutionalized around the time of the treaty of Westminster? Is there any real basis for recognizing territorial legitimacy except power in whatever form? There is no issue of equality. You seem to assume that any sovereign has to respect the right of other sovereigns to exercise the same kinds and levels of force because sovereigns should receive equal respect. Whether I agree or disagree, what objective basis is their for claiming/assuming this? Isn't equality just as culturally relative as anything else, if you believe in cultural relativism? If I were to proclaim an ethic for intervention in any use of lethal force, it would be on the basis that the force being used was excessive beyond what was required to achieve the intended goal OR that the intended goal was not valid in my perspective. As for your interest in the US civil war, why don't you read up on the interactions that preceded the initiation of military violence. In the book I read, Lincoln was actually asked by his opponents when he would attack them and he responded that he had no reason to attack because they were not enemies and that they would have to initiate some aggression if they wanted to go to war. Supposedly this is what led to the military attacks that initiated the war, but technically these attacks were friendly-fire 'terrorism' rather than an act of war. I think the point is that no one should have fired on anyone except in self-defense. Lincoln should have been able to issue the emancipation proclamation without militant resistance, no? . . . except that for people who viewed slaves as legitimate property, it would have been a form of taxation without representation (but that could be a whole other can of worms).
  2. As I understand it, mass increases as objects approach C. So, theoretically if an object is moving very close to C its mass could increase and thus exert an amount of gravity much higher than it would in a relatively static state. So, in this sense, I don't see why a black hole with numerous satellites of very high mass couldn't be "out-gravitied" by those satellites. After all, gravity is a pattern of force vectors which seem to be able to cancel each other out, for example at lagrangian points and at the center of planets, etc. So why couldn't the gravity of a large amount of matter orbiting a black hole at very high speed not overpower the centripetal gravity of the black hole?
  3. Ok, what should I google then?
  4. How so? When secrecy is exercised by private individuals and businesses, isn't it just called "privacy" and accepted as normal and harmless?
  5. Protons and electrons are supposedly point particles surrounded by electrostatic fields. But in what sense do the particles themselves ever directly interact without intermediation by the force-fields that surround them? When atoms and molecules interact, it is the same-charge repulsion of their electrons that act as an interface for exchanged work, correct? The configuration of the electrons within the atoms is the result of their attraction to the nucleus by the positive charge of the protons, right, not any direct interaction of the particles? So within the physics that models matter as consisting of such "point-particles," I wonder what the basis is for assuming the point-centers of the fields have greater ontological primacy than the force-fields themselves? I understand that there are analytical reasons to favor point-focus over field-focus, but from an ontological standpoint, I think the model lends itself more to field-force interactions than any direct apprehension of the point-centers of the fields. Am I missing something?
  6. Then why did you raise it in this thread by claiming force-fields are unreal abstractions? But I will open another thread, because I would actually like to pursue this issue more extensively. Someone has to come up with based on some rigorous reasoning about what could explain diverse data while providing a basis for further theorizing and testing. You can seek new data or rely on existing data. You don't necessarily need new data to test a new theory. It could just be a question of interpreting old data in a new way or reasoning about it in a new way. No, I wouldn't propose to avoid empiricism. That would completely diverge from the most fundamental basis for science. But there is nothing unscientific/anti-empirical about thinking in new ways about empirical data and/or generating new ideas for how to apply empirical observation to the task of deductively testing whatever model. Science, imo, is ultimately the philosophical reasoning that brings empiricism and knowledge to bear on each other.
  7. What reason would conservatives have to retain wealth among an elite if wealth could be widely distributed without being abused? In fact, however, re-distributionism is a self-undermining ideology because if the only reason you were redistributing wealth was to conserve it, there would be no reason to redistribute it in the first place. You could just mandate that those that have it save it instead of spending it. I don't particularly identify with "the right-wing" but when I look at the way the middle and lower classes would like to consume if given the opportunity, I begin to see conservatism as a means to prevent them from doing so. Have you observed how everyday people spend money lately? Does it strike you as globally benevolent?
  8. Do you grow a vegetable garden or are you speaking purely from the perspective of received knowledge? If so, you should give some thought to how much easier it would be to collect wild plants for fresh vegetable nutrition than to cultivate a garden that requires tilling, fertilizing, weeding, etc. I've also found that when you put a lot of effort into getting edible plants from a garden, you tend to appreciate every part of the plant more. Of course, I till, mulch, and weed by hand, and use minimal fertilizer so the yields I get seem relatively precious. Finding a crop of abundant nutritious wild edible plants would be like a miracle of divinity.
  9. I pictured some kind of open fusion reaction that resulted in a "local sun" situated within the atmosphere. I don't know why I pictured it like that, though, since it is more logical to do fusion inside a reactor. Maybe I just like the idea of creating miniature artificial suns. I wonder if this could be possible by somehow removing the electrons from the molecules using electromagnetic current, laser energy, or something like that.
  10. I don't know of any cultivated edible plants that don't require fertilizer even though nature seems to be full of wild plants that don't require any artificial fertilizer. Could this relate to their nutritional content?
  11. But if they are making surface-suns of hydrogen fusion, maybe the dust-cloud would absorb a lot of the radiation that would otherwise escape and act like a warm black-body blanket for the planet.
  12. It would help if we had a specific bit of empirical data to analyze. Just from self-reflection, I believe that sub-conscious orientations evolve almost as a shadow for conscious processes. If I notice that my boss always gets grumpy when I smile while talking to him and he acts more civil when I keep a straight face, I will gradually make a sub-conscious association between smiling and irritation by others. I could still make the conscious choice to smile because I believe it is the best face to put on to others, but the uneasiness I would feel doing it would come from a sub-conscious association. Does that make sense? Yes, but you also don't try or ask. I'm sure you understand what culture is, but from your other post it sounds like you operate much more on a discursive level than one where you concretely interpret language in terms of empirical reflection, which is what I do. If I'm stereotyping, I apologize. It comes from talking with too many academic social scientists who spend most of their time reading texts and learning to mimick the style of the language without critically dissecting it and doing comparative analysis with empirical data. It's hard for them to do this because they are trained to ignore all but the most formally validated data as even constituting data at all. This is in stark contrast to people I know who were taught to informally self-reflect and talk about everyday knowledge of social interaction and behavior. Unless you can do that, I'm not sure how fruitful our discussion could be.
  13. I can't tell if by "dissonances between cultures," you mean ideological conflicts or social conflicts. First, it would help if you would distinguish between culture and people/individuals. Individuals have/practice culture but they are not culture itself. Culture is learned and practiced. In order for "cultural dissonance" to be interpreted as such, there has to be a cultural basis for 1) distinguishing them as being different in the first place and 2) recognizing difference as conflicting/dissonant. This, of course, presumes that everything it culturally-situated, including the perception of culture itself. One culture may recognize cultural difference between, say, Catholicism and Protestantism while another culture may see them as part of the same culture of Christianity. Dissonance from one cultural perspective, thus, might appear as consonance from another. Which culture do you then validate? Or are they equally valid in their relativity? I am sure there are people of every national citizenship who have more or less knowledge of "other countries." The interesting thing is not to compare which country has more or less awareness of other countries but rather to study how awareness of national difference influences human behavior. Imo, people who learn a lot about multiple countries also learn to differentiate themselves more strongly according to the differences they attribute to national difference. Someone who doesn't even understand that global nationalism divides the world according to national lines is more likely to simply be confused why someone they meet wouldn't speak in a way they understand, yet they would have no basis for attributing national difference because as far as they are concerned the whole universe has only people like them. Now, the ironic thing about this is that while global cosmopolitans would call that view naive, it is actually the material reality. All humans are actually the same species and it is entirely possible to look at all linguistic and cultural differences as cultural distinctions within the same population. In other words, you can as easily look at the world as a single multicultural society as you can look at it as multiple national societies. Ultimately, I think it is confounding to view it as multiple nations/societies, because this requires multi-level analyses. I.e. you can look at, say, Germany and France as interacting as national units - but you can also analyze Fritz and Jacques working together to fix up a flat in Barcelona, for example. Imo, it makes far more sense to part with the national-unit level analysis and just view global interactions as having nationalism influencing them in some ways. But you can't ignore that the national-units are structuring metaphors at the cognitive and institutional levels.
  14. And "particles" are more real and less mathematic abstractions than fields then? What basis is there for that claim? An empirical one? Induction moves from empirical observations to theory. Deductive theory begins with a theory and then deduces methods of testing the theory. If you observe that electrons appear and disappear or "tunnel" or whatever you call it within areas of varying probability, inductive modeling would seek to generate a theory to explain this behavior as it is observed. Deductive theory could move toward considering some alternative explanation for the reason electron behavior appears as it does and, as a result, could formulate a model that could be tested according to existing or new data. E.g. the Bohr model began with a model based on planetary motion and eventually deduced tests that proved itself wrong. It is possible to construct new models and deduce tests for them.
  15. PhDwannabee, your post sort of validates its own assumptions just by making fleeting references to studies that you don't give any basis for rejecting or accepting. When you say you don't like the word, "programmed," because it carries certain connotations, I agree with you. But I think you also should recognize that there's a difference between conscious choice behavior and sub-conscious cognitive behavior that frames the context in which choices are made. So, while a person is completely capable of consciously choosing to say practically anything they want, that choice gets framed within numerous sub-conscious assumptions about consequences they presume will occur as a result of their actions/speech. My point/question was in regard to looking at how cognitive learning takes place that primes people to be cooperative and avoid the will to resist or make completely independent choices. I'd like to go beyond simply naturalizing such behavior to approaching it from the perspective of it being a unique culture of personality, perhaps with a unique worldview of social interactions, etc.
  16. If enough energy was redshifted this much and it tended to re-circulate around existing gravitational fields, could that account for the expansion of the universe? After all, wouldn't there be a great deal of low-frequency energy-waves big enough to slightly shift entire galaxies?
  17. People unquestionably deserve exactly what they give out, and some people are religious enough to believe that they are perpetually in line to experience the effects of their own actions as their own victims, but that depends on your personal point of view. I don't know why you would use the status of being a soldier to absolve people of their actions. The Roman soldiers that persecuted Jesus seem to have reveled in the sadism of degrading a spiritual leader. They had no basis for torturing and killing him except his holiness, which they spat on out of irritation at the very thought that someone would raise their high high enough to truly believe in God and truth. All they knew was domination and submission through violence, which is all any pirate knows, no? Someone bullies them into joining their gang and then they learn to bully and steal from others without regard for morality or ethics - or probably their morality/ethics is one of taking care of yourself and your own in a dog-eat-dog world where someone has to be victimized for someone else to prosper. I wouldn't be so sure many of these pirates don't have the exact same mentality as many soldiers of the developed world; only in the developed world the exploitation and violence have been better institutionalized and sterilized to promote a sense of superiority over the 'primitives' of the developing world. In reality, the world consists mostly of savages, both 'modern' and 'primitive.' Decency emerges sporadically amid the depravity.
  18. Not really. Theism and secularism are just different ways of framing the same ideas in many cases. In a theist frame, stealing is a sin because humans are replicants of God (created in His image) and should therefore respect each other and each other's property. Secularism has removed the idea of God from morality by framing it in terms of secularized rationality, but that rationality is still rooted in a religious premise that goodness is better than evil. E.g. why shouldn't secular rationality completely part with religious ideas and proclaim theft a natural right to anyone who can get away with it? Isn't this what communism does by abolishing private property?
  19. "Troubles between countries" are mostly caused by collective identity (ego-identification) that is propagated in discourses of national vs. international relations. E.g. if you look at most news websites, they divide the news into national and international or world news. The implication is that there is a national sphere that is separate from the global sphere. Then, nationalism is narrated using the pronoun/adjective "we/our" consistently in discourse. This promotes a form of collective egoism by stimulating people to constantly identify themselves as being part of (or excluded from) a national "we." Promoting this sense of collective identity/unity allows for discourse about "our culture," which promotes the idea that culture is collectively homogenized and that individuals identifying with the collective/national identity have no choice but to be defined by the culture that supposedly naturally defines them as subsidiaries of the collective. This is of course all arbitrary cultural ideology, but people experience it as naturally factual because of the way it is propagated. Thus, when people are sub-consciously ideologically convinced that they are part of a cultural body that makes their nation distinct and separate from others, it is not a far stretch to characterize different nations as collective entities that interact in ways similar to how individuals interact with each other (e.g. conflict, cooperation, etc.). This discourse of global social life as the interactions of national giants, i.e. collective entities as individuals, has similar mythological function as religions where multiple gods interact with each other in a sort of complex yet comprehensible narrative. These mythological narratives have the function of 1) promoting social solidarity among people ascribed the same national identity 2) structuring interactions between people ascribed different national identities. In other words, it makes people feel comfortable to have national relations to structure their interactions with strangers. That way, they don't have to take the risk of thinking independently and assessing people they meet on the basis of interactional information. Instead, they can rely on stereotypes about the global discourse of international relations they are familiar with. E.g. "you are part of an imperialist nation and my nation is victimized by yours therefore I must distrust, dislike, and otherwise hold you personally accountable for the things I attribute to your nation." This logic is central to many global minoritarians, imo. Without it, many would be completely lost in dealing with global social complexities.
  20. Protons create a positively charged electrostatic field around the nucleus. Electrons have negative charge and move around the nucleus, attracted by it while repelling each other. The interaction between these particle fields account for the force-resistance observed in physical objects, as far as I can model it based on what I've learned. Then how does its magnetic force emerge from its electric charge? I thought magnetic fields emerge from moving electric charges (current) and this occurred at the atomic level because the atomic electrons are moving. This is where it seems like QM starts confounding empirical observation and modeling. I understand that due to the uncertainty principle, it is impossible to observe the speed and location of an electron simultaneously, which impairs the possibility of inductive modeling. So if inductive modeling is obstructed by constraints on empirical observation, why wouldn't you just focus on deductive modeling?
  21. I don't see any difference between people rallying for economic justice regardless of location, religion, citizenship, etc. To me it comes down to having a concrete discussion about what is legitimate economically and politically and what isn't. People should be free, but their freedom shouldn't be abused to exploit others or unnecessarily exploit resources. The problem with the global economy presently seems to be that consumption has progressed to the point of scarcifying access to economic welfare for many. So anytime people are clamoring for equality with the global middle-class, my question is whether the global middle-class levels of consumption are sustainable to extend rather than curtail. I think that if the global middle-class would consume less materially, more people could attain their lifestyle. In fact, I'm sure there's some level of consumption that would allow everyone to enjoy the same basic welfare and even leave people free to progress beyond the most basic. What's more, I don't think economic totalitarianism is necessary for this to happen. People just have to figure out what standard of living is sustainable and widely achievable and start choosing to live that way. Until they do, what is the point of people asking for equality with a standard of living that will always necessarily exclude some globally in order to favor certain 'equal' others?
  22. Ok, usually when I read your claims to simplicity and ignorance I just take it as posturing, but all I can say is that I was trying to respond on a deep level to your other post. As for the question of why innocent people are dead, read the story of Jesus. These people are Christian so I'm sure they would want their deaths to inspire people to study Jesus. You can also watch the movie, Passion of Christ. The point is to focus not on Jesus but on why people persecuted him. That will give you some pretty good insight into how evil does its work. Murderous pirates are just soldiers like the ones that whipped, taunted, and ultimately killed Jesus. Jesus prayed, "forgive them they know not what they do," but for centuries self-proclaimed 'Christians' persecuted anyone identified as Jewish out of the belief that Jews shouldn't be forgiven for Jesus' death (and thus that they were responsible on the basis of ethnic identity). Anyway, I'm not trying to derail the thread to talk about Jesus, the Roman soldiers, and the Jews. I just mention it since I think these people who were killed would have appreciated it, if they were indeed Christians as I've heard.
  23. It was related to the idea that religion-based government is a problem. Some people view Islamic governance as a problem because they think Christian/secular governments are less religion-based. I gave the example of theft as a secular law that is actually a religious law. Either way, you're getting punished for violating one of the ten commandments. This is a false assumption. There is nothing stopping the German government from declaring the Texas government unethical for allowing private shootings in defense of property. If it wanted, the German government could make it illegal to criticize or otherwise comment on the laws, policies, or actions of foreign governments, but that doesn't mean that other governments would have to follow suit. Ultimately it is the prerogative of each individual to choose to recognize cultural relativism, universalism, and in what way. Whether you want to or not, it's simply not possible to make two or more people totally conform to the same cultural values, morals, norms, etc. See, you have the freedom to hold this view and express solidarity with the violence you're condoning. I wouldn't condone more than minimum use of violence possible to establish civil democratic discourse instead of violent domination by force to express political will. Because there is supposedly armed violence taking place. The issue is whether all the criticism expressed about US unilateralism and disrespect of national sovereignty will be sufficient to prevent anyone from intervening "across national borders." People always seem to forget that respecting the sovereignty of a national authority the same thing as deference and acceptance of whatever is going on in that jurisdiction. When whatever happens as a result of non-intervention could have been prevented by someone with the power to intervene, the question arises why that power to intervene wasn't exercised? If the only reason is deference to national autonomy/sovereignty, I don't see the ethical legitimacy. Why is it more important to respect your neighbors right to privacy while beating up her husband than it is to respect his right not to be beaten up? The problem is that people sometimes figure out that they can commit some violence or otherwise solicit intervention as a means to get economic help. If you thought that attracting global attention to you by enacting a social disaster could make you money, facilitate an exodus by means of political asylum for refugees, etc. you might instigate such a social disaster for this purpose. This is like when a person sets their house on fire to collect on the insurance. I don't know if there's any way to prove conclusively whether a social disaster was instigated intentionally for such a purpose or occurred spontaneously, though. Still, whatever humanitarian response comes as a result will provide that much more impetus for for the next social engineer who wants to instigate such a disaster.
  24. I'm familiar with those, but they don't examine sub-conscious cooperation. I'm talking about processes through which people are programmed to fear even civil social disagreement; like when someone says that they like a certain food and you're afraid to disagree with them so you say something that doesn't directly contradict their opinion like, "yeah, I sort of like that food but I like this other food better." I.e. what makes people afraid to just say, "oh you like that food, huh? Well I don't." Some people might say it that bluntly, but then they will laugh as if they're doing something terrible by being blunt. Somehow people get programmed to think this way about even the most harmless conflicts of opinion and it would be interesting to know how it happens.
  25. Maybe he means by red-shifting as the photon travels increasingly farther through expanding spacetime. In that case, I would not think the photon would ever terminate unless there is some lower-limit to radio-wave frequency. I would just expect the wavelength to continue growing infinitely.
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