Will of the People

Importance of and goals in participating in online forii (really rather partisian and a bit philosophic):( Read more... )

As extensions of feminism:( Read more... )

Note that in general, when I issue statements of this kind (often using "We"), I am asserting norms, practices, or philosophy that are part of a particular identity that I have been working to define, as part of a general project of writing norms that are a synthesis of the (potentially separable) norms of liberalism, secularism, socialism, and academism.

What is instinct, and what is done about romantic/sexual relations:( Read more... )

I have been moderately obsessed with the traditional Russian song, Катюша. At home, because my apartment has numerous flaws in terms of keeping the cold air from outside from entering, I have also been dependent on the warmth of cats to keep my legs warm. (blah blah band name 「Dependent on the Warmth of Cats」 blah blah - it is interesting how the -ent version describes the state and the -ant version describes one in that state, while they are pronounced practically the same in all but the most careful levels of enunciation).

Finally: For those of us who (sigh) follow PZ Meyers, I think he's almost completely wrong on his opinionating over the Sunsara Taylor/Ethical Humanist Society mess.( Read more... )

As someone whose style in philosophical thought has wandered from logician to value-driven, ( Read more... )

Tonight I finally had some pumpkin pie (from allegro). Still tired from last night's migraine like I ran a 10k.

Challenge to random people who like challenges: name 8 songs you like that you don't think most people on your friends list have heard (you may be excused slightly if you're the kind sort who shares your mp3/ogg collection with your friends)

Also pondering: blog seems a near-total substitute for socialisation, and an unsatisfactory one at that - mostly one-sided conversations, interpersonal needs unmet. What to do given mental resources?

The problem with absolute rights of free contract is not only that it leaves people free to diminish themself into servitude, it makes it possible (in fact likely) that the powerful will use the ability of people to do that to their advantage. ( Read more... )

I finally got around to reading the various communist newspapers I picked up at the G20 protests. Saneometer ratings:( Read more... )

Currently: Feeling pretty shaky, so I went to Tazza d'Oreo, where I am now. Maybe I'll swing by 「Fuck Yeah Icecream」 in a few hours. I seem to be torturing myself with dreams recently. On the upside, that Pecan Pie, as usual, was excellent.

A morality play:( Read more... )

I had a philosophy dream.( Read more... )

Feeling surprisingly not-depressed right now. Hoping it will last for awhile.

The choice between epistemologically active Weltanschauungen, which prejudice us towards certain ideas of the world (even thouse that are sufficiently empirical in nature) is not doable through means limited to philosophy. The choice of metaphilosophies we would use to choose and then judge between these systems is in our case data-driven, preventing any sort of "clean-start" to an epistemological base. Such clean starts as philosophical ideals are the sun to the wings of icarus philsophers enchanted with them strap on - no epistemology comes into being except as evolved from our simple biological empiricism

We in fact expect one's ideas to take form as metaphilosophy, and that plus the previous form of one's epistemological perspective to generally transition to the next view.

This does not mean that the possibilities our Weltanschauungen is inherently blind to are dismissable from a perfectly careful stance. Our dismissal of some possibilities is pragmatic, in that in order for our reasoning to function, we must dismiss huge swathes of raw possibility.

Unrelated, the year-aged gouda WholeFoods has in stock right now is, lightly headed in a microwave, surprisingly similar in taste to a good fondue. It is also a simple but creepy thing to think of that for us males out there (no please let's not have *that* conversation again now), our Y chromosome is, barring mutations, the same as our father's.

Whether the particulars are right or wrong, the masses are just as suceptible to flattery and enflamed by criticism as a monarch. ( Read more... )

It is a problem whem secular movements characterises religion itself as the greatest harm to humanity. ( Read more... )

A dream, a memory, and yesterday:( Read more... )

Yesterday: kindasorta hung out with chrisamaphone in Bloomfield, then wjl and someone else showed up to take her to other things, so I walked to India Garden for dinner. On the way, there were many interesting scents. Tacky gals whose perfumes made them smell like ground-up tic-tacs, others with a faint mix of alcohol and tobacco that is mildly pleasant (unlike either smell alone). These smells and others stirred memories. Random encounter with AGrishman, AlexR, then standard dinner, walked home in a bit of a daze. ( Read more... )

Dutch people called Cheese-shoes by Germans...

Reading the biography of Trostky I picked up recently - interesting, and not surprisingly I find more areas of philosophy where I disagree with T. At the time, the use of the word Communist, within the movement, has a lot of nuance and manipulation - those who aligned themselves with Moscow and the Third International considered themselves the only real Communists, while others had mixed opinions on the term. This is a general "design pattern" of humanity - becoming hung up over terms and using their differential definitions as weapons. I suspect that my notion of Marxist Communism is much broader than that used by the Third or Fourth International, and am reasonably certain that I should not consider myself within the bounds of the Fourth or the broader Trotskyite faction. The idea of "scientific socialism" is too hard for me to swallow, and dialectical materialism is not central enough to the way I think. I sometimes wonder how much any of these movements were ever cohesive because of arguments, or whether social factors in fact account for most of the banding into tight coalitions. Given the basic need for some variety of socialism, we can easily imagine as many flavours as there are people except that people talk, that there are natural leaders, and that infrastructure starts to form like dust seeding raindrops around particular ideas. Supersaturation can't last forever..

I have not left the house yet today, although I probably should. Perhaps a jog, perhaps a lonely evening in a coffeeshop.

The fear of error combined with the necessity for commitments (both practical and with more difficulty theoretical) act as a restraint forcing people to use good judgement and care. In any circumstance where these are lacking, intellectual decay is likely. While this is most understandable on matters of fact, it extends by analogy into other areas such as philosophy, where error is replaced by ungainly commitments. It is this precious tension that separates honest intellectual endeavour from baseless struggle.

I think the world would be better off, generally, if people took a commitment to the public good more seriously than a commitment to their word. People should not enter into contracts that could lead them to act against the public good, and should feel free, without any guilt, to ignore any contract (or part thereof) that is against the public interest. This applies most visibly to contracts on confidentiality - I have no doubt that most of the material on Wikileaks is collected from disclosures forbidden by contract (and in some case forbidden by criminal law). Nontheless, we should laud the site for the public good that disclosure has given us in the vast majority of their content. Personally, we should hold that to directly stab at the public good is a form of treason, a form more serious than to betray the nation.

Should we always avoid these contracts? In the more unconscionable contracts, no, because that would just hide this knowledge from those that would shout them to the world. In many cases, we have an obligation to sign contracts and agree to things that we have no intent of fulfilling. When that is not necessary, particularly when something would not easily happen without us, we should abstain from involvement.

The public good is a fuzzy thing, but at least as individuals in such an ill-formed society, we are better off seeking something that's not quite defined than accepting something much lesser that's formal - the difference is akin to the difference between seeking someone to love and seeking a prostitute.

Any notion of personal honour that would make us more concerned with our word being inviolate than what is good is a notion we should dispose if we are to be judged good. Yet, in a broader sense, we should try to be forthright about who we are when there are no immediate consequences, and we should also try to reshape society towards a situation when there would be little need for things like this.

I sometimes am amazed at how full of shit the founding fathers of the United States were. I think this was just part of the political language used at the time - ( Read more... )

Developed On Rule of Law and Legalism (essay) to the point where it might say some interesting things. I sometimes think it would be nice to just carry around a tape recorder and publish it at the end of every day, but the refactoring it for public consumption probably does me good for a few reasons - it helps me more aware of which concepts and frameworks I've already presented (and can thus rely on), it helps me consistently use standard English, it makes me explicitly recognise how important or sure something is and where it should be categorised, and it's something that's actually searchable. All the little scraps of paper I jot to myself are generally in not so externally understandable a state. On the other hand, there's hardly anything up while there is a lot more written or sketched.

I recently finished Neil MacFarquhar's 「The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday」. It was an excellent book that deserves a strong recommendation for anyone interested in Middle Eastern politics (and the relationship between people and government in general). Haaretz review, Google authors series with the author.

I again wish that Youtube did not give authors the ability ot disable ratings or comments on videos. The ability to annotate and rate is important in society, and providing easy tools to do that, if not done in the browser (where it really should be done) it makes sense not to make it difficult for people to do it on site if they offer it on other media.

This is the first example of the HTML canvas element that I have seen. It's not a perfect example (the text popups for some elements are invisible when they show up over another icon) but it's pretty neat (and less of a gross hack as Lemmings in DHTML).

The concept of Mujtahid, from Islam, is a useful one to help us understand the role that value-philosophers (particularly but not exclusively trailblazers) should take on themselves to play in society. Similar scholarly and behavioural/character traits should be present, mixed as well with aspects of being a prophet/lawgiver. Appropriately secularised and with a greater emphasis on creativity and the risks of opposing existing social order (whether entering into the field of law (practically or theoretically) or focusing on matters of compatible value or not), it is appropriate to say that this type of philosopher should hold themself to that level of standard.

I am not certain if the Shi'a term of Marjah applies as well by analogy, but it is also informative.

Finished: 「Heirs of Mohammad」. Thoughts on piety, values, what it means to be a good person:( Read more... )

PZ Meyers, while a good professor (I have learned quite a bit of assorted biology from reading his blog), is a troll on the topic of atheism. It is not that I think a hardline position on atheism is unwarranted, but a kneejerk one is. There exist people who believe there to be no god( Read more... )

Musings on love in the abstract:( Read more... )

I finished whipping another philosophical essay into being kind of presentable:Epistemology.

I'm not sure why I find it so emotionally involving to see people either really interested in something or really sad. ( Read more... )

The choice of heroes in any philosophy and weighing of what they do by outsiders builds barriers in ways that are probably harder to heal than issues of doctrine. ( Read more... )

Last night I was having a reasonably good hair day, and while heading back from Crazy Goat, the recent hockey game had just ended in Pittsburgh's team's favour so a lot of people were driving around celebrating with their horns and beer. Some party-jumped-up gals from their car called me a hottie and asked where I was going .. I felt like an alien - all I could really think is that they really wouldn't like me at all if they got to know me, and so their complements felt a bit like one of those famous bridge disasters. Meh. I don't really like compliments even at the best of times.

I often wish there were a part of the country that would be perfect( Read more... )

Té Café's nicer teas are really fine. I also picked up some Paneer from Whole Foods that I am looking forward to using in cooking experiments.

I shall probably have a nice long evening walk once I get home from here.