Cuffy_Meigs

UK General Elections generally involve endorsing one candidate whose views are indistinguishable from the other runners and which I despise. A case of "choose your rapist". However if there can ever be an exception then it is surely the EU referendum. This will probably be the only occasion in my life that I will have the opportunity to vote for LESS government (regardless of whether this actually comes to pass). Even if people disagree with you, I don't see why they would laugh.

'A' and only 'A' has the power to determine whether a murder is committed or not. C's only choice is whether the murder is committed on C or on B.

Without trunks "the forest as a whole would be more efficient". What on earth does that mean? Not a view that any bird, insect, monkey or squirrel is likely to share. Nor the trees themselves once they were trampled or eaten.

We can probably all agree being threatened with death removes moral culpability. But I think the grey area when receiving lesser threats is a little less grey than has been suggested. Suppose A delivers a 'minor' threat to C, who duly murders B. It seems to me that one of two situations applies: 1) For this particular individual ©, this was absolutely NOT a minor threat. It may have meant nothing much to you or I but surely it must have been truly terrifying for person C. Furthermore we may assume that person A knew it or they wouldn't have used it as a threat. 2) Person C did not perceive it to be much of a threat either but grasped the opportunity to kill B anyway. In which case person C holds considerable responsibility.

First may I wish you well with the cycle ride. 200 miles is a long way! Like you, I was sceptical about how much money went anywhere near good causes so I did a little research into the main UK charities, after which I was even more sceptical. Suffice it to say that the whopping percentages they claim go to their "good cause" include an awful lot of things one wouldn't expect, such as their own salaries, pensions and "consultancy fees". Add to that some crazy salary and benefits packages being paid to people whose CVs and responsibilities scarcely seemed to justify them and it was all a bit depressing. To generalise, I concluded the best of the bunch in this respect seemed to be the religious and environmental charities which might attract donors but may not attract you(?). For what it is worth, the best I could come up with was the Salvation Army. They looked to be mostly unpaid, had no outrageous salaries, target deserving recipients a million times more efficiently than government welfare and didn't obviously take advantage of the situation by ramming religion down people's throats. I am no expert having just spent a few hours looking into this so I may be completely wrong. I'd be interested to know other people's thoughts.

I'm not sure whether this says more about me or them but the immediate response tattoos and piercings induce in me is to interpret them as mildly aggressive. It's as though they are saying "look at me, I'm prepared to self-harm so just imagine what I might do to YOU !". BTW some really thoughtful and interesting replies above. I doubt that would happen on any other forum on the entire Internet!

Attempting to unravel what the author was trying to say in his first point: #1 One large region of the world - America - had free movement of people, a relatively free market economy and it prospered enormously. Another region - the rest of the world - had a much less free market and did much less well. The two regions were kept separate by a trade barrier. The author concludes that the reason for America's success was the barrier. No other possibilities are examined. #2 As a beneficiary of the tender mercies of the NHS, don't get me started on this subject!

Although I've read the bible I am not a Christian so how does/should one interpret "love thy neighbour"? Forgive anybody for anything, no matter how evil regardless of any lack of remorse or restitution? Or be open to forgiveness if it is deserved? Or somewhere in between? It seems too ambiguous to call it a value.

It seems to me that the word now has so many different meanings, depending on who is using it and in which context, that its descriptive power is almost zero without further exposition. There may be a base on which we could all agree - something like 'lacking the physical resources to sustain life' - but beyond that, take your pick.

Hi csekavec, David Deutsch has only published two books but I thoroughly recommend them both: http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/books/ I doubt you'll agree with everything he says - I didn't - and some basic level of scientific background would be helpful but for anybody attracted to this forum, I'd expect them to be thinking deeply about almost every page. Popper was the first philosopher I read which made me realise that the whole subject wasn't complete BS. As he put it himself, he tries to answer questions which are important in the real world rather than ones which are important in philosophy. "The logic of scientific discovery" may be a good place to start.

Forgive me picking up on one sentence but I think the above statement demands a convincing supporting argument. Although to be fair you do title the paragraph "An opinion". Personally I am inclined to Popper's view (more recently and perhaps more accessibly reiterated by David Deutsch) that scientific knowledge advances not by an inductive process but by all competing theories being rigorously tested against each other and then selecting the "best" one, i.e. it must be better at describing and explaining physical reality, be universal, contain no wild assertions etc. Furthermore it should have stability in the sense that any change to the theory should be disastrous. So a tiny change to one of the constants involved in, say, General Relativity utterly destroys it; whereas the theory that "god did it" can just as easily be restated as "a magic octopus did it" with no loss of predictive power.

I've not read a whole lot about this yet but a cursory glance at many of the headlines here in the UK might lead you to believe that the only person in the frame was Vladimir Putin. In contrast, Associated Press reports that no major TV channel in Russia has mentioned Panama, let alone Putin. Not sure I believe this as RT.com is certainly covering it. Although it is all a lot of fun for journalists and will no doubt run and run, I find it unlikely that anybody could be surprised that rich people with the opportunity to avoid paying tax are taking advantage of the possibility!

I'm surprised there aren't more responses as I thought it was a great video. So I thought I'd just say thanks for posting it.

Perhaps the idea is that those with authoritarian tendencies will interpret "well-behaved" as meaning "doing exactly what I tell them to"!

Although it may be inferred from points 1-6, perhaps a seventh in big upper case reminding that they do not imply causality would also be useful as this tends to be conveniently 'forgotten' on occasions.

The clips from the TV show remind me of something similar we have in the UK: a show called Question Time where, just occasionally, there is someone intelligent and thoughtful on the panel. Without fail they are shouted down by the baying mob and abused and interrupted by the presenter and other panel members. This qualifies as "good TV" and boosts the ratings. Rand's tactic of giving intelligent answers to idiotic questions didn't seem to work too well, indeed it seems almost impossible to communicate complex ideas to a mass audience amid the deluge of personal abuse. Fifty years of people screaming "selfish!" at you for even possessing one of her books has had its effect.

Thanks for posting the video. I fear most people don't want to understand what she is saying but I think you did a good job of explaining it. If the criticism about her work being "50 years old and depicting a world that never existed" is valid then we'd all better start burning any Shakespeare we may have - that's even older!

In the specific case of dependent children I think there can be a moral dimension. Knowingly abusing your own health, if carried to extremes, could involve unnecessary distress to your children. I think it is also fair to say that parents who choose extremely unhealthy lifestyles for themselves invariably inflict the same regime on dependants who, by definition, are bound into the relationship.

It may take some courage - and of course the choice is yours - but I suggest in this case honesty is best. If the only way to make them like you is to deceive them then it doesn't sound like they will bring you much happiness.

I don't think most voters think about pros and cons, in fact I don't believe they think at all. By that I mean hardly anybody will change their mind between now and referendum day. I think the issue is simply whether or not you like big government. I include myself in this - I want less government, ideally none at all, so debating whether we will be a few pounds better off by staying in or whether one particular business leader approves does not interest me. The 'pro' argument you constantly hear is that the EU has kept Europe at peace for 50+ years. Vacuous as this argument is, it does seem to be persuasive. Notwithstanding what I said above, the result looks like it may be close and we should not underestimate the influence of the BBC to tip the balance. It has a huge influence over people and is extremely pro-EU. Not surprising as it receives some of its funding from it!

Everybody knows smoking is dangerous and expensive. So the smoker must REALLY like it. I think you need to get an honest answer about what she likes about smoking so much that overcomes these negatives. Some think it is cool but the most common answer seems to be that it relieves stress. If so then maybe get her to consider whether rather than cause = stress, effect = smoking, that it could be the other way round: you only 'need' to smoke because you smoke. That's kind of how addiction works after all. She may accept this but counter that she just cannot quit. Try Stef's 'Million dollar' strategy ('could you quit for a week if I gave you $1 million? A month for 10 million'...etc). Or that non-smoking-related stress is the dominant cause. Was that same stress present when she started smoking 30 years ago? If not then how does she know?

My previous example of the square circle maybe wasn't the best although I think it could be portrayed, at least mathematically. Let me try another. Presumably we agree that the statement "2+2=5" does not require empirical verification as it has already failed the first test, that of logic. However we can easily portray a universe (in a video or cartoon) where you take 2 somethings, add them to two more somethings and a fifth spontaneously pops into existence. Therefore in the absence of any knowledge of physical reality, have we not also lost any ability to apply logic?

I think logic does require knowledge of the real world or else we end up with something akin to religion where we just speculate the existence of impossible things in some convenient other reality. Take the square circle for example. We rightly reject it as illogical but we may imagine its existence. In the same way that we can draw a triangle on the surface of a sphere where the angles add up to 270 degrees, we could postulate a universe with such a warped non-Euclidean "surface" that a square circle could indeed exist. But that is not what we mean by logic unless we are trying to justify nihilism.

It tends to be those with the most hatred who have the most trouble expressing what it is they are hating. It seems so lodged into their subconcious that they cannot give voice to it. For example in Northern Ireland both sides, when pressed as to why they hate each other so much are likely to fall back on some absurd historical event from hundreds of years ago; surely not the real reason for their grievances. Genuine racists seem to have no idea what they don't like about the other race. If they did then they'd probably have thought their way through it. Likewise for muslims a 'we hate America' slogan is just the easiest thing for them to process. Sure there are those with direct and understandable reasons for hating 'America'. But for most I suspect it is just what their parents taught them... and all their friends parents did the same. I doubt that would change even if the US closed all its foreign bases, withdrew all ties with Israel and became isolationist.

I recall Stef did some podcasts way back about getting a job so it may be worth doing a search. At what stage are you finding the problem occurs? Not much out there, no replies to your applications, interviews that go badly, or everything seems good but still no offer? What has worked for me is to use personal networks rather than the traditional route of responding to ads, applying to recruitment consultants etc. Discreetly mention to any ex colleagues, customers or suppliers and let them know you are available. Also put your CV/resume in front of people you know who hire and get them to give you honest feedback. Avoid reading 'How to write the perfect CV' books written by (generally clueless) academics. That just means your CV looks identical to everybody else's and goes straight in the bin. Whenever I worry about getting a job I find it helps to remember some of the utter imbeciles I have worked with in the past and keep in mind that even they must have got through the interview process eventually.