Poll:- life better now or in 1959?
- Thread starter JLM
- Start date
Indeed, that is what the laws are for, the laws are to prohibit people from behaving in a manner detrimental to the society. That is why murder, robbery etc. are illegal. There is a saying, you right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
An individual is free to behave in such a way to have a negative impact upon himself (eat to excess, drink alcohol to excess etc.), but he is not permitted to harm others, harm the society. And it is always a thorny, tricky question, what are the acceptable limits on freedom?
I think we already have such a society, countryboy, most people do behave with common sense. It is the odd instance where somebody does not behave with common sense that one tends to remember.
Let me give an example. Suppose a mother with two kids gets on a bus, her hands full. You see somebody get up and offer her the seat. Would you remember that for long? Probably not. But let us say nobody offers her the seat, she has to stand for the whole duration of the trip, juggling two small kids and the packages. You probably would remember that incidence for a long time.
But I think most people do behave in a responsible, common sense manner.
It is not ‘do whatever feels good’, that is the philosophy, countryboy. The philosophy of freedom is, ‘do what you feel is right (provided it is legal), whether you feel good or bad as a result, that is your problem’.
Minority rights never trump the majority rights countryboy, that is usually an argument cooked up by the majority when they don’t want to give equal rights to the minority. Thus in USA, opponents of gay marriage argue that granting gays the right to marry infringes upon the rights of the heterosexuals. That is a nonsense argument.
But such argument has been made for a long time now, since way back when slavery was abolished. When women were trying to get the vote, opponents of vote to women made precisely the same argument. They concluded that a woman getting the vote will lead to women wearing the trouser in the marriage (how they arrived at that conclusion is beyond me, but that was the argument at that time). That will infringe upon Man’s God given right to be the boss in the family.
So there is nothing new in that argument, that argument was bogus then, it is bogus now.
Not deteriorating language, but evolving language, that is where our perspectives differ. Indeed, today English language probably has more words that say 100 years ago (due to exposure to other languages words get opted in from other languages into English, also new words are coined). So English language is hardly deteriorating.
Also, the concept of bad/offensive/vulgar words evolves with times. The word that may be considered bad or vulgar in one time may not be considered so in another time.
One thought does come to mind, I'll leave it to the reader to make the connection. If you are walking along and all of a sudden you notice a hundred people screaming the same thing at you, how do you dismiss it all as just a bunch of nonsense?
Ah, but then one leaves oneself open to the wrath of the smoke Nazis, the health Nazis, etc. who would claim (and already have) that the person doing the harm to himself is in fact causing a burden to society by putting extra strain on our cherished health care system.
Agreed. Human nature being what it is, we do tend to remember the negatives more clearly. But, I maintain (staying on topic here) that responsible common sense behaviour was more common - perhaps even natural - in '59 than it is in '09.
We might have a problem with confusing what is "right" with what is "legal." Or not. I guess the theory is that we can define right by making more laws to make it right. The problem with that - as I think I've pointed out - is that you end up with a whole bag of laws that can tend to overlap and conflict. And they do that because each one of them was crafted with a specific problem in mind, and there are many specific problems out there that overlap and conflict.
So, my bottom line is that this extreme lean toward more and more "freedom" (as we see it) actually results in less freedom because we have to have more and more laws in place to control people who no longer have to rely on good old-fashioned common sense and solid values. Thus making society one that is filled with conflicts that are, in many cases, needless in the first place.
If you ran a business like that (yes, I know a business is different than a government but it shares a common demoninator - people) you would end up with a policy manual (laws) that would choke an elephant. "Progressive" businesses tend to rely more on empowerment of the employee to make decisions on their own, but they make sure they're qualified to do so first.
The flip side of that philosophy is to treat people like sheep and herd them along with a policy and procedure(s) for every little thing..."first you place your right foot here, slight ahead of the left foot. Then, you place your left foot here, slight ahead of the right foot. Then, repeat that procedure until you reach your destination."
Which would be kinda' like having a law on the books for every little eventuality that comes along in society.
That is how things work in science, JLM. Only one side has the burden of proof, the side that is making a positive, substantial statement. Let me give you an example.
Suppose I say that on the dark side of the moon (the side that nobody can see) there is a two storey house made of Swiss cheese with a pool in the backyard filled with maple syrup (all enclosed in a bubble).
Now, can you disprove this statement? Of course you cannot. Does that mean that my statement (that such a house with a pool filled with maple syrup exists) and your statement (that it doesn’t exist) have the same validity? Is my claim as valid as your denial of it?
Of course it is not. That is because the burden of proof is upon me to prove it, it is not upon you to disprove it. The default position here is that such a house does not exist, and if I am claiming otherwise, it is up to me to prove it.
It works the same way with afterlife (or with God etc.). We cannot see any afterlife, we don’t see any evidence of it. So the default position has to be that there is no afterlife, and if somebody claims that there is one, it is up to them to prove it.
And so far, nobody has proved that there is an afterlife, so I don’t worry about afterlife. As far as I am concerned, there is no afterlife unless somebody proves to the contrary, and so far nobody has. If somebody claims that there is an afterlife, burden of proof is upon them to prove it.
Unless your nose is intruding in my space or my affairs.
But, people eating nothing but fats, smoking cigarettes, etc. ARE harming society and putting a heavier burden on healthcare. You are soooooo short-sighted it's hilarious.
Peoiple should be free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't affect anyone else to their detriment.
Common sense told people the world was flat, too.
Just because you would remember the negative, doesn't mean everyone else would. I am impressed by courtesy. So I spread it around a little. Someone butted into a lineup I was in the other day. I'm fairly patient so I could wait, but there were others behind me. And they were pretty amused when I did the Anish trickster thing of copying and exaggerating every move the discourteous person did. Eventually the dolt turned and saw me mimicking him and making him look foolish. People loved it. So I bet people will remember 5that they got a chuckle about the incident, but they will likely pass off the dolt as just another inconsiderate dork.
Freedom has a philosophy? Funny, I thought people had philosophies.
Being free is simply having the ability to exercise one's free will without interruption from outside sources. There isn't much philosophy needed about what it is.
People's courtesy is disintegrating, however.
You're definitely not sick, phat, or rad. lol
" Minority rights never trump the majority rights countryboy"- That is utter nonsense and I'll give you an example we see happening every week. Convicted sexual predator gets released from prison after serving 2/3 of his sentence to be released back on the street. That is a "right" of the minority and it obviously trumps the rigth of the majority who should have an expectation of being able to walk the streets safely.
My mind is open too, countryboy, but as I said, the burden of proof is upon those who claim that there is afterlife. I am open to conviction. But so far nobody has proved it conclusively.
"Suppose I say that on the dark side of the moon (the side that nobody can see) there is a two storey house made of Swiss cheese with a pool in the backyard filled with maple syrup (all enclosed in a bubble)."
Poor analogy, we know there are people who have in fact been brought back from the dead, after having no pulse, no breathing and no other obvvious signs of life. So it is plausible that what they've experienced is real. I doubt that short of being there personally and experiencing it that it is something we'll ever prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, but as we make many life altering decisions based on suppositions with much less proof, it may be less arrogant to say "that's one possibility" rather than to just dismiss it as B.S. When you do that you are only setting a trap for yourself.
Poor analogy, we know there are people who have in fact been brought back from the dead, after having no pulse, no breathing and no other obvvious signs of life. So it is plausible that what they've experienced is real. I doubt that short of being there personally and experiencing it that it is something we'll ever prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, but as we make many life altering decisions based on suppositions with much less proof, it may be less arrogant to say "that's one possibility" rather than to just dismiss it as B.S. When you do that you are only setting a trap for yourself.
I can't "see" electricity either, but I'm pretty sure it's there! :lol:
Seriously though, have you ever heard of the 3 bastions of good health contained in ancient Chinese and Indian medicines...that would be known as "ayurvedic" on the Indian side. Which means "the science of life."
(This is on topic as I know it was around in 1959...well, actually prior to that by a few centuries, but it still counts, right?)
It's pretty interesting - in a nutshell, it states that there are 3 parts to maintaining oneself in a healthy and worthwhile condition:
1. The body
2. The personal energy (one example being Reiki but there are more)
3. The spiritual part of oneself
I know we've been basically discussing no. 1 as the brain is usually located within the body. Which - in "total life terms" is not much more than a piece of meat.
The next 2 haven't really entered into the conversation but perhaps they're worth considering in a discussion of the overall health of society, which of course, is a bunch of people. We're still on topic here, as I think there are more people in Canada becoming aware of these things in 2009 than there were in 1959.
Skipping past no. 2 for a moment, am I reading you right when I sense that you completely discard no. 3 in your opinions of an afterlife?
I am not being sarcastic here...I'm just clarifying our respective positions here in this ongoing discussion about which is better, '59 or '09?
Oh, are we setting some more rules as we go along? Prisoners ARE a minority. It IS their RIGHT to be released after serving 2/3 of their sentence. WHY would you want to argue about THAT?
Yup, as long as you agree with what's being said. If anything contradicts you, you're as hard as wurtzite boron nitride and as closed as a grain of sand in a pearl.
I agree.
In what particular form would you want to see the proof, just out of curiosity.