lemur

No offense, but do you realize how condescending it sounds to claim that Islam is a more primitive religion than Christianity and to generalize about all Muslims and/or all Christians because of the crusades, terrorism, etc.? I'm not reflexively defending anything or attacking you here. I'm just pointing out that Islam, like any religion, is just ideology and the practice of living according to convictions, not a collective social movement. Well, no religion has an easy time convincing people to give up drinking and other indulgences. That's not because the west is pluralistic but because alcohol and other indulgences are pleasurable and therefore addictive. That's why almost every religion/spirituality/life-philosophy deals in some way with how to manage worldly attachments. Yes, labeling yourself and/or others according to beliefs always creates the potential of further institutionalizing, defining, and dogmatizing ideology as territory. The best thing you can really do is to just reason directly instead of getting into naming/institutionalizing different perspectives, but then it is so convenient to have a short-hand summary term for a complex set of ideological permutations whose internal consistence you understand. Still, you can always remain mindful that each ideology you name is just a set of ideas that vary per individual and continue to get discussed and negotiated by relatively free-thinking people when they're not getting re-capitulated dogmatically. Yes, but if you believe in idealism over materialism as the ultimate cause of human actions, ideology is always at the root of everything, including conflicts that lead to violence. It's just a fact that power and resistance are two sides of the same coin. When an ideology develops in one direction strongly, a strong backlash is guaranteed to occur. If it develops covertly, a covert or even sub-conscious backlash occurs. There's really no way around this, as much as some people would like to be able to pursue a particular ideological project without opposition, I just don't think it is ever possible. The only thing you can really do is try to mitigate or reduce the violence of the conflict by keeping it as much as possible at the level of reasonable discussion. You too. Glad we didn't end up in bitter bickering:)

When you cite descartes, you're not talking about "cogito ergo sum" are you? If so, I don't see the logic of internal distinction/differentiation as being proof of existence. Unicorns are different from Pegasuses (Pegasi?) but both are fantasy creatures and therefore non-existent from a materialist standpoint. Or are you referring to some other part of descartes philosophy? Either way, I don't think you can get around the self-referential factuality of matter's existence. In materialism at least, matter exists because it's matter and what isn't matter doesn't exist. It's axiomatic/paradigmatic. If you began with a truly empirical paradigm, you would only recognize things that are directly perceivable as existing. If something was not directly observable, you would question its existence on that basis. If you choose solipsism instead of materialism or empiricism, you could recognize everything imaginable to exist as part of the same mind, in which case everything would exist - but matter wouldn't have any special status of existence over non-material, i.e. imaginary, figments. I don't think there's any proof that can establish one of these epistemological/ontological paradigms over the others. Each just has its own basis for defining what exists and how.

The irony of this whole issue is that I don't even see how anything perceivable can NOT exist insofar is things have to exist to be perceived. If you reserve the status of "existent" for physical matter, then the question is self-referential. Matter exists because it is matter and if it weren't, then it wouldn't. What about the question of what is material about matter? If you define the materiality of matter as being constituted by some aspect other than its existence, then why would it make sense to say that "matter exists?" E.g. if particles are infinitely reducible into smaller particles with less mass, since the mass of larger particles is largely due to their speed relative to each other, then ultimately the mass we think of as an inherent quality of matter's existence would be just a product of its dynamism. In that case, would matter "exist" or be simply a side-effect of some other relations?

Basically you're talking about the stubbornness of people who rely primarily on dogma for legitimization of their views. Such people are not only present in religious fundamentalism but also in atheism and other facets of secular life. Many people will continue seeking until they find a dogma that is adequately resistant to reason. This can just as easily be a fundamentalist religious position or a radically oppositional stance like atheism where they can resist reason by labeling all opponents as mindless reproducing "the dominant ideology."

Do you realize when you're saying this that moral crusades have often been pursued through government action by the US religious right? Second, why don't you think the left stands strong against people that disagree with their values? They do it all the time through informal favoritism and discrimination. How many liberals do you know that make an active effort to give equal consideration to people whose politics they consider offensive? Obviously this isn't something particular to liberals or conservatives, since there are people of every political identity who fail to control for their political preferences in economic interactions, but it is a method of "standing strong" as you say, for better or worse.

The reason Bush was attacked was for unilateralism and failing to respect national sovereignty/autonomy above all else. European politics is dominated by national cultural relativism and protectionism. Bush just became the black sheep to attack in support of a certain kind of politics being pushed by EU ideologues. This relates to the same moral conflict. As long as German aggression against national others is identified as the problem of WWII, the solution/prevention seems to lie in national containment. The idea that any force should transcend national containment out of a sense of universal morality is condemned. Moral relativism is insisted upon as absolutely the privilege of national sovereigns. If people believed that something as unethical as wrongful destruction was going on, why would they allow politeness to deter them from speaking up? That is an implausible hypothesis. By the way, this whole grammar of talking about international relations as if all Germans think with the same mind is very Euro-collectivist. Is it really a good idea to imply that Germany or any other nation is a collective social unit with synchronized politics? Doesn't that lead in the direction of the kind of Nazi Propaganda that got Germany a bad reputation during the Nazi period? I think we should be talking about "sources from German media," "spokespeople of German government," etc. instead of promoting populist language.

Does gravitation determine the distance to the horizon from a given altitude? In other words, if the Earth was 20 times as massive as it is now, would the horizon from an altitude of, say, 20km appear at a different distance because of the gravity difference? Put another way, could light reflecting off a point in Africa make it to an observer somewhere above America that would otherwise be beyond the horizon, just because the Earth's gravity bent the path of the light more? So, in general could you say that higher gravity decreases the altitude of a given vantage point, in that the trajectory of the light to that vantage point would get bent more toward the source of gravity?

And what's really interesting is that if affirmative action would target low-enrollment demographics without any reference to racial, gender, or other identities, they would not give students the opportunity to view themselves as superior to other students in terms of race or gender. In other words, white/male students get the idea that they are genetically superior by thinking that affirmative action indicates genetic deficiencies among students who take advantage of the discounts. That allows relatively less qualified white/male students to identify with whiteness as being inherently intelligent, which insulates them against feeling insecure about their personal mediocrity. Think of how many students would be lost due to drop out if white/male privilege was eliminated at the cultural level. Just think of the effect Rosa Parks and school integration-bussing have had on the racialization of bus-use in white culture. If organizations were fully integrated, would whites not abandon them and seek some other means of relative re-segregation?

It depends on what your view of authority is. If you view a president as a top-down command-controller of a managerial government, a lying president is dysfunctional. If you view the job of the president to produce speech acts that stimulate the people to question authority and think critically, a lying president can be a stimulus of anti-authoritian self-governance. Bush's greatest success as a president was in stimulating public opinion from being largely supportive of the government as an economically determinant entity (a la Clinton 90s economic boom government) to being critical of government and institutional command-control ideology. People who like authoritarianism are disappointed in Bush's performance. Those of us who like to see people question government and regard the presidency as a relatively powerless figure-head appreciate Bush's symbolic leadership. I have problems with how government has functioned during Bush's presidency as well as Obama's, but both presidents have had very clever ideas and made impressive and thought-provoking speech acts. Both are good figure-heads with critical representative value, as will Palin, I expect.

You should realize that education is full of people who are not really interesting in intellectualism, knowledge, etc. but are just there because they think if they stick with it long enough, they'll get a prestigious, well-paying job that they like and compliments their lifestyle desires. Such people work in every aspect of education from professors to administrators to support personnel to students. They do focus on creating knowledge that weeds people out instead of stimulating and enlightening them because they basically want people to drop out of the race to compete for their job. The funding of higher education involves, among other things, catering to well-paying parents of students who resist everything except socializing and whatever work they think is absolutely necessary for them to avoid getting rejected from the system. So there has to be a way of challenging these students at a level that weeds out competition, because students are paying to distinguish themselves in some way, which requires weeding people out. At the same time, though, if it was really interesting and enlightening, no one would get weeded out and there would be no elite positions of distinction to claim when you became one of the chosen few who "make the cut." Higher education should really be about knowledge and enlightenment but there are too many people using it primarily as a social machine to sort people into social classes and income levels. If you spread word of this, though, the most socially competitive people will just develop the most convincing act that they're not just in it to attain status and wealth. 'Sincere' interest is for them nothing more than a means to social rewards.

Are there any approaches to authority other than oppressive rule by fear or free self-governance through reason and open democratic discourse?

I'm not comparing the US government to that of Congo. I'm saying that the European/social-democratic critiques of the US generally and GWBush in particular came from citizens whose governments somehow provide a level of welfare and prosperity that relies on a great deal of global trade. Thus, the economic interest of most EU citizens is to have the global economy organized in a way that provides them with goods and labor supplied by people who are not allowed to migrate to their societies and take advantage of social benefits and opportunities reserved for them. So at the same time they are criticizing US global militarism and politics, they are some of the main beneficiaries of it. If those governments really wanted to end imperialism, they would reduce migration controls and integrate economically. As long as EU governance is designed to protect the privileges of social democracy at the national level, how can those governments claim to be anti-empire?

Could you please compare the "international reputation" of the US with other national governments and analyze why those other governments have a better international social standing and image. Could you then do an interest-analysis of what those governments achieve and how. Social democracies seem to have the best international image as they tout high levels of prosperity and social welfare for all citizens, but can you show me where that material prosperity comes from and prove that it is not the result of global economic exploitation? I have the sense that these governments criticize the US government for being a bully while at the same time being the largest organized lobbies for global economic order to provide for their prosperity.

It's ironic that the language "false and constructed" would be used to construct "Iraq" as being unconnected with al Qaida and terrorism. The fact is that global political discourse always constructs institutional entities and the relations among them in an effort to regulate public consciousness and political attitudes. EU politics tends to promote the view that national autonomy should be the highest priority in global power-politics. This is why Bush was criticized for unilateral decision-making and failing to elevate national sovereignty to primary importance. Of course he is also chastised for making reference to "God" because doing so represents the idea that there are higher values than total subordination to social sovereignty. Put simply, this is an age-old battle between cultural relativism and moral universalism. Some people want to divide the world into absolutely sovereign factions with total cultural autonomy about how to regulate the "subjects" of each "regime." Others want to deny absolute sovereignty to anyone on the premise that human authority is always fallible by nature, and it just happens to be convenient to reference the idea of a perfect supernatural being to indicate that it is possible for humans to strive to transcend human authority. I just wish this ideological conflict could be approached reasonably instead of resorting to manipulative ideological tactics that insistently push cultural absolutism instead of recognizing the causes and consequences of this philosophical/ideological divide in the first place.

The war on terror certainly changed my understanding of terrorism, what it is, and how it works. I see this as the main benefit that came out of the war on terror. I really think GWBush was right to characterize the conflict between democracy/freedom and terror as an epic struggle between good and evil. The official definition of authority is that it is "legitimate domination." Ironically, however, people often do not comply with authority out of a sense of legitimacy but because they fear the consequences of failing to do so. This leads to two distinct worldviews with regard to governance:1) that people should be managed from the top-down to ensure their security and economic well-being, by threat/fear of violence if necessary or 2) that people should manage their own lives according to their own process of reasoning, which they engage in freely. When people support governments out of fear for economic and security disruptions and they fear disrupting top-down governance because they have come to believe that doing so will cost them privileges and social welfare, this is a problem imo. Then the question becomes how to get such people to the point where they feel free to reason about their own cultural and economic goals without engaging in repression of self or others. Why wouldn't this be a legitimate political project?

It gets on my nerves that my internet provider will offer low introductory rates to new customers but refuses to give me the same rates as an existing customer. Is this discrimination, affirmative action for non-customers, or just a business gimmick to lure more customers into a consumption pattern that is ultimately profitable for the business? I think you can look at affirmative action as the same kind of low-cost introductory offer for people who might otherwise not consume expensive higher education. The idea is that once you get people into the universities, they will develop a level of culture that they value to such an extent that they will invest in their kids having the same opportunities. Affirmative action, therefore, is not so much about preferential treatment of minorities as it is about disrupting the working class culture of rejecting education in favor of seeking paid employment as young as possible. It's just a coincidence that when you use demographic classifications to target potential lost customers, minority categories show up on the radar as niche markets. If non-minority demographic classifications started seeking paid employment directly out of secondary ed instead of going post-secondary right away, they would become target markets for special offers (affirmative action) to promote their socialization into the post-secondary education culture. In business, the simple strategy for expanding revenue is to keep loyal customers and get them to spend as much as possible without alienating them and attract new customers by offering them bargains. The real question is whether the costs of higher education are exploitative for those who pay for it and whether it promotes economic exploitation generally by socializing people into a division of labor that distributes economic privileges unequally or otherwise unfairly.

I find it plausible that protons/neutrons could somehow fuse into larger particles under high gravity conditions. It also seems plausible that such particles could resist absorption and re-emission of radiation because of their large inertia. Light might simply bend around them, no? My question would be how such particles form and under what conditions they would break down into smaller particles and/or energy. Is it possible that they might only be sustainable within certain high gravity/pressure situations and fission into smaller particles as gravity/pressure decreases, and that would explain why they're not observed locally? Would this mean that they could be produced and disseminated by very massive stars, and then circulate within very dense regions of spacetime/gravitation?

Ironically, questioning of science is radically scientific. It gets less scientific when the goal is to reinforce pre-ordained beliefs.

Interesting. Where does all the energy eventually end up?

Aha. I see. How then?

How would the dyson spheres contain all the radiation from the stars they contain without expelling it detectably?

This is such a controlling-spouse thing to say! (j/k). I don't care if you split the thread. I just felt like taking a controversial position on something that came up. Maybe this judge has a point about allowing people to discipline their spouses. People do it anyway until their spouses/children get the nerve up to report them and criminalize them. At least if such violence was institutionally recognized and legitimated, you could defend everyone's right to use violence against anyone else instead of reserving the right for the father/husband. Ultimately, isn't there an expectation for family members to control their children/spouses anyway? When your hands are tied from using violence, how are you supposed to live up to public expectations of social control?

I disagree. You don't have to believe in matter to regard it as instrumentally real. It does not undermine knowledge to treat matter as a cause of consequences and nothing more. It just requires a somewhat uncomfortable shift in ontological orientation. The net results remain unaffected. I.e. living in/with "the matrix" is as easy as ignoring superstition. Don't underestimate the power of ignoring reasonable doubt to achieve certainty (without even calling it "faith").

If husbands are allowed to physically discipline their wives as a question of cultural/religious rights, shouldn't this be extended to same-sex unions? Likewise, shouldn't wives be allowed to physically discipline their husbands when they are acting in opposition to their mutually agreed cultural/religious basis for their marriage? Isn't preventing disciplinary violence within marriages/families similar to forbidding police to use violence to apprehend rogue suspects? If no disciplinary violence in any form is allowed within families, how are family members supposed to regulate unreasonable spouses and children?

Huh?!? First you demonstrate with a quote how the tea party nativism is contrary to GW Bush's globalism and then say that Palin is going to reinvent him? Is this supposed to make sense on some level?