"Just waiting on the right external happiness to save me." = poison

To quote Thomas Jefferson, "Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%." Amazing that, nowadays, you don't even need 51% - a mere 33.9% will do. And that percentage continues to shrink.

Let's also not forget that America's Founding Fathers condemned democracy (emphasis added):

• Virginia's Edmund Randolph participated in the 1787 convention. Demonstrating a clear grasp of democracy's inherent dangers, he reminded his colleagues during the early weeks of the Constitutional Convention that the purpose for which they had gathered was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy...."
• John Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, championed the new Constitution in his state precisely because it would not create a democracy. "Democracy never lasts long," he noted. "It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself." He insisted, "There was never a democracy that 'did not commit suicide.'"
• New York's Alexander Hamilton, in a June 21, 1788 speech urging ratification of the Constitution in his state, thundered: "It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." Earlier, at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton stated: "We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy."
• James Madison, who is rightly known as the "Father of the Constitution," wrote in The Federalist, No. 10: "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths." The Federalist Papers, recall, were written during the time of the ratification debate to encourage the citizens of New York to support the new Constitution.

...

• Fisher Ames served in the U.S. Congress during the eight years of George Washington's presidency. A prominent member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution for that state, he termed democracy "a government by the passions of the multitude, or, no less correctly, according to the vices and ambitions of their leaders." On another occasion, he labeled democracy's majority rule one of "the intermediate stages towards ... tyranny." He later opined: "Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes." And in an essay entitled The Mire of Democracy, he wrote that the framers of the Constitution "intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism."

...

One indicator of the radical transformation that took place is the contrast between the War Department's 1928 "Training Manual No. 2000-25," which was intended for use in citizenship training, and what followed. The 1928 U.S. government document correctly defined democracy as:

A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct expression." Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic — negating property rights. Attitude of the law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

This manual also accurately stated that the framers of the Constitution "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy ... and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had formed a republic."

That just gave me the shivers. Very vivid. Too vivid.

As a father... No. A a fellow human being, this is terribly sad. The bond between a father and child is so absolutely critical. When it breaks, it's a tragedy. You can never makeup for that lost time. It changes you.

My younger sister on the other hand, believed until much later and wouldn't speak to my mom for 5 days after finding out she had been lied to.

And there you have it.

Why do we teach children that it's OK to lie? Why do we think a child can't "have fun" unless he's deceived? It's one thing to have fun with fiction, or to use your imagination, or to celebrate the season of good will (tangent: and why do have that season only once each year?). It's quite another to actively make someone believe something you know is clearly not true. Every lie we tell, no matter how white, is teaching children that lying is acceptable. Why teach them that?

My daughter has a friend who is growing up in an Atheist home. She knew long before my daughter that Santa didn't exist. She would confide in me that she'd keep it to herself so my daughter didn't find out. (I wanted to tell my daughter the truth but her mom didn't.) Yet, she would celebrate the holidays just as others did. She went to holiday parties. She dressed in seasonal outfits. She sang holiday and religious songs in a choir. (Her father even sang in a church choir.) She watched all the holiday movies and shows. She even received and gave presents. She loves the holidays and continues to be the most brilliant and happy kid I know. How is all that possible? Because her parents are teaching her the truth about everything and teaching her to use reason.

So where do we draw the line regarding the lies we tell?

I'm of the opinion that we teach children never to tell lies except in the case of real danger. If a stranger asks you to get into the car, you do whatever you can to get out of there, even if it means lying. Otherwise, you just don't do it.

A holiday doesn't make a period of time special. The people you share it with makes it special. The values you share make it special. The experiences you have make it special. It is never lies that make any time or thing or person special. If lies are required to make it special, it's time to rethink your standards. I'll bet that you could give your son the most amazing Christmas ever without once making him believe that something isn't true, just as you do on his birthday or any other special event in your family.

I have literally woken up in the night and grabbed a pen and a whole poem has come out that I could swear I did not write.

Poetry by regurgitation. Now that is an "odd" technique. BTW, you might like some of the work by Clarisse88. She's a painter.

It's not literal, and poetry from me isn't going to ever be easy to analyze as I'm not really thinking when I write it... a glimmer of an idea starts to form in the back of my head... and suddenly flows out without true thought.

I used to go to a writing group every week. We'd meet at a coffee shop for a few hours and just write. For the last 30 minutes, we'd stop writing and talk about what we were working on, where we were having problems, etc. Almost consistently, the writers who considered themselves poets always said pretty much the exact same words. It's beyond my comprehension to do anything without thinking, especially writing. I don't understand how people do it. I'm not suggesting you're being disingenuous, but I can't imagine how you could write the above without thinking.

That was beautiful.

Isn't a person more than just "borrowed bits" of "shards" from friends? Isn't a person's core made up of the philosophical principles chosen? Sure, you learn and decide upon those principles from the experiences you have and share with others. But once you make those choices about who to be, those bits are no longer borrowed. Once you integrate those ideas into your core, they become yours.

It makes me wonder (even though the thought of Jerry Maguire makes me a tad squirmy): must we have others in order to be "complete?" Can we not be whole on our own?

I was just reading The Chickenshit Lobby Is Mad As Hell – but just how mad are they? where Justin Raimondo wrote this:

What’s surprising is how Netanyahu, in a speech to the Knesset, took the opportunity to answer his critics in the Obama administration: "Netanyahu angrily insisted he was ‘under attack simply for defending Israel,’ adding that he ‘cherished’ Israel’s relationship with the US."

The famously combative Israeli Prime Minister went on to say:

"When there are pressures on Israel to concede its security, the easiest thing to do is to concede. You get a round of applause, ceremonies on grassy knolls, and then come the missiles and the tunnels."

Bibi, who spent many years in the United States, is surely cognizant of what his "grassy knoll" reference connotes. You can argue it was just an infelicitous phrase, or that Bibi was referring to himself, not Obama. Maybe so. But what if, say, an Iranian official, even a low-ranking one, had said such a thing? The uproar would be deafening. And so the question must be asked: was Bibi threatening the President of the United States?

If we take seriously Goldberg’s depiction of the poisoned relationship between Bibi and Obama, the possibility can’t be completely dismissed.

I think this adds credence to the idea that Putin might be sending messages "between the lines" that astute observers understand. Reading what Netanyahu said, to me, it sounds like he was threatening Obama with the grassy knoll reference. I think Putin is doing the same thing. I think you also need to take into account not just this speech but his other actions and words. For example, from the press I've read (if you can believe anything in the press anymore), he was the one who de-escalated the situation in Ukraine (and thank goodness he did, as I think the US government is clearly looking to pick a fight). Also, Putin has said this: "We hope that our partners will realize the recklessness of attempts to blackmail Russia, will remember the risks that a spat between major nuclear powers incurs for strategic stability." Next to officially issuing a formal declaration of war, I don't see much nuance in that statement.

OK, from the first link and your comment, I take this as your definition of postsecular religion:

Postsecular Religion: a social technology and practice that provokes a strenuous mood for a group of people and that does not require  a belief in the existence of a God or gods or a set of propositions

Is that accurate? If so, how does religion differ from, say, sports' fans or people following a political ideology or a Corvette Fan Club or the Bohemian Grove or a Wall Street Secret Society or a children's camp? From this definition, I can't distinguish or differentiate postsecular religion from many other social activities that provoke excitement and energy.

One of your articles referred to a debate you had with someone about Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy. Here are a few of her points about definitions from Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology:

A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of the units subsumed under a concept.

It is often said that definitions state the meaning of words. This is true, but it is not exact. A word is merely a visual-auditory symbol used to represent a concept; a word has no meaning other than that of the concept it symbolizes, and the meaning of a concept consists of its units. It is not words, but concepts that man defines—by specifying their referents.

The purpose of a definition is to distinguish a concept from all other concepts and thus to keep its units differentiated from all other existents.

Since the definition of a concept is formulated in terms of other concepts, it enables man, not only to identify and retain a concept, but also to establish the relationships, the hierarchy, the integration of all his concepts and thus the integration of his knowledge. Definitions preserve, not the chronological order in which a given man may have learned concepts, but the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence.

With certain significant exceptions, every concept can be defined and communicated in terms of other concepts. The exceptions are concepts referring to sensations, and metaphysical axioms.

...

A definition must identify the nature of the units, i.e., the essential characteristics without which the units would not be the kind of existents they are.

...

Since man is not omniscient, a definition cannot be changelessly absolute, because it cannot establish the relationship of a given group of existents to everything else in the universe, including the undiscovered and unknown. And for the very same reasons, a definition is false and worthless if it is not contextually absolute—if it does not specify the known relationships among existents (in terms of the known essential characteristics) or if it contradicts the known (by omission or evasion).

Those all seem pretty reasonable as guidance for defining terms, don't you think? (I also liked this one from The Romantic Manifesto: "Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.") If we use that guidance, the definition I wrote above is probably pretty lousy so I'll need you to improve it given these points. However, if you think the definition properly reflects your idea, what is it about that definition that you think could affect a philosophical revolution any more than a bunch of football fans egging on their favorite team?

In light of these definitions, I contend that persons who criticize me for using "religion" and "God" in unusual ways are expressing fundamentalist inclinations to special cases of "religion" and "God". They are insisting on strict adherence to the basic principles of a particular religion or God, even if they happen to reject the existence or morality of that particular religion or God, rather than allowing for discussion of religion and God in general.

Well, you're either going to use words and terms to have definitive meanings or you aren't. So if I define a plane as a powered heavier-than-air aircraft that has fixed wings from which it derives most of its lift and you say "a bicycle is a mode of transportation just like a plane, so don't be such a fundamentalist because a bicycle can also be a plane..."

...yeah, that's going to cause some communication problems, don't you think?

Apologies if I'm not properly understanding these articles, but you should either define religion as requiring a god or not requiring a god. If you define religion as not requiring a god, I think most people aren't going to consider your definition valid. Again, rebranding didn't work for ID (and, IMO, it was just another attempt to mislead people).

If I'm interpreting what you wrote correctly, you think "postsecular religion" can achieve a positive philosophical revolution. Yet (presecular?) religion has clearly been a key contributor to the messed-up philosophical state we're in now. I haven't read anything in any of these articles that suggests a new or different direction. To wit, even the Wikipedia entry for postsecularism says it's ambiguous:

There is wide disagreement over the meaning of the term. Particularly contested is the question of whether “postsecular” refers to a new sociological phenomenon or to a new awareness of an existing phenomenon—that is, whether society was secular and now is becoming post-secular or whether society was never and is not now becoming secular even though many people had thought it was or thought it was going to be.[9][10] Some suggest that the term is so conflicted as to be of little use.[11] Others suggest that the flexibility of the term is one of its strengths.[12]

I'm certainly not capable enough to support or refute a word or viewpoint to which even its adherents can't agree.

I appreciate you posting these links and I'll try to adequately address what I consider key points from each of your referenced articles.

From Dynamic Faith in Pancritical Rationalism:

When I use "faith", I don't mean blind trust. I mean only trust, with no more blindness than necessary at a given time and place. I also don't mean dogma or any unquestioning or unexamining attitude. Rather, I mean that no matter how many questions we ask, and no matter how much we examine and press the frontiers of our knowledge, there are more questions to ask, and there are more matters to examine, and that may always be the case. So, whether we like it or not, we find ourselves in a context that requires faith in practice. Life and death hang in the balance, and we cannot wait for absolute answers (even if they exist) before we act.

The (many) discussions I've had on religion with people who believe in God usually include my contention that they believe in God without proof. The retort from those who have actually given "proof" some thought (and most people I speak with have not, but let's put that aside) usually tell me that they have either had experiences that prove to them God exists or they claim that humanity is proof that God exists. Either explanation is far short on causality, especially relative to alternatives. As to the first explanation, there's a great book by Oliver Sacks called The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales (one of my favorite chapters is The President's Speech). Sacks is a neurologist and has ample examples in that book - scientifically explained - as to why people can have God-like experiences. (I'm also told that if you ingest shrooms, you can also have the experiences. I guess that could be an argument for God - "God is in the shrooms!") As to the second explanation, I'm sure I needn't direct you to Charles Darwin and biological evolution.

You might argue that I have "faith" in the scientific explanations, while you have faith in the religious explanations. Mistakes are often made in science. Science also has seen quite a bit of fraud (especially when politics are involved). But I think Carl Sagan said it well: "In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."

Religious faith is based on stories told by those who had relatively little knowledge and didn't follow scientific principles. As such, that faith relies on stories that we know are absolutely not true (e.g., the Earth is not 6,000 years old, the Earth was not created in six days). And I won't even get into the arguments that demonstrate religion is historically anti-science (such as the Catholic Church persecuting Galileo). In fact, amazingly, the Catholic Church invests a great deal of money funding science. For example, this is a great video of George Coyne, the former director of the Vatican Observatory (amazing that the Church has an observatory, huh?). But even though we know these stories are not true, they are still taught. Why? Faith in religious explanations - blind, dogmatic, unquestioned, unexamined, or otherwise.

Even when we have the luxury of time, we cannot make progress without at least tentatively agreeing on basic premises. Science typically posits causality and uniformity as basic premises. Some will argue that these are proven by science, but that's not true, as the empiricist philosophers, Hume and Berkeley, taught us. No matter how many times we think we've experienced something, no matter how many places we think we've experienced it, it could change at another time or place.

I'll concede that I can't prove with certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow if you'll concede that, if it does rise, it's not because Helios is pulling it via his chariot. It's important to admit that we understand the Greek story is a myth. It's important to understand that we don't have any proof of the story. It's important to understand that the logic of the story isn't sound or based on anything we know to be true in reality. Everyone I know who is religious will concede the Greek story is a myth; yet they will not apply the same rigor to their religious beliefs. Why?

From Post-Secularism and the Resurrecting God:

God always has been and is at least a posthuman projection, an extension and negation of human desire, imagined and expressed within the constraints of human thought, language and action.

Agreed, which is to say that God is a human creation - not the other way around.

Likewise, if religion is merely genuflection to the supernatural, it very well may be dying, but again that overlooks function.

Bakunin thought religion was a "safety-valve." I agree that is one of its functions. I think another is control/power over others. I think another is money, which makes me think of this meme.

Of course, none of this means science or ethics are or should be displaced by religion. To the contrary, science should continue to work out reconciliation between our contending accounts of experience, as ethics should our contending moral claims. Each should expand its reach to the uttermost, informing our esthetic sensibilities.

Agreed. But does religion do this? No. If religion wants to use its historical books as artifacts that describe what people believed, that's an appropriate use and application of knowledge. Learning about history is very useful, if only to help us not repeat mistakes. But when we can demonstrate that the Earth is more like 4.54 billion years old in a universe 13.7 billions years old, religious leaders need to stop teaching nonsense and reconcile with science. But they can't - and won't - do that because, if they did, it might cause people to question what else isn't true. That is the slippery slope religion must avoid; otherwise, the jig is up.

From What Is the Value of Religion?:

If, on the other hand, religion is any practice that provokes a communal strenuous mood, as I define it consequent to observing and considering others' observations of its actual function, there's a lot more to be said about the value of religion. While we can engage in practices that provoke us to a communal strenuous mood toward escapism and nihilism, we can also engage in practices that provoke us to a communal strenuous mood toward life in all its presence, embodiment, relations, and ecology. As religion can provoke us to terrible atrocities, so it can provoke us to wonderful charities. Religion, from this perspective, is a tool, a social tool, and the most powerful of social tools. And like all tools, it can be used for good or evil, and surely has been.

Once upon a time, there was debate about teaching evolution. Religious people wanted to teach divine creation alongside science. A movement started to effectively rebrand religion with a scientific-sounding veneer: intelligent design. The rebranding effort didn't work. This paragraph above seems like a similar attempt to rebrand religion. Sure, if words haven't any meaning and we can define them however we want, then religion can be as you say. The Merriam-Webster dictionary uses a different definition than yours: "the belief in a god or in a group of gods" and "an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods." As an aside, war can also be considered a "practice that provokes a communal strenuous mood" that can sometimes "provoke us to wonderful charities," but that doesn't mean it has value.

From Transhumanism Is Not Atheism and Is Often Misrecognized Religion:

Religion certainly has been and is used for evil, perhaps even the greatest evils in human history. Focusing on those, however, in an account of religion is like focusing on nuclear weapons in an account of technology. Simply because really terrible things have been and are done with technology doesn't mean that technology is inherently and exhaustively evil. To the contrary, much good has also been done with technology, and an account of technology is not complete without acknowledging that.

Agreed, which is one of the key points of my open letter to Bryan Johnson. We must do a significantly better job improving the philosophical fundamentals to create and use technology. There may be a few things we can even pull from religion to help in that regard (e.g., the Golden Rule).

My opinion on religion is the same: there are limits, but there's nonetheless value in carefully immersing children in religion so they can understand how to use its power effectively as they mature. Of course there are risks, as there are risks in choosing not to train our children in religion. If we're not careful with religion, we can turn our children into superstitious zombies. If we avoid religion altogether, we relinquish its organizing and inspiring power to those who will use it for evil.

IMO, the Golden Rule is one example of a powerful idea in religion. And if you want to teach that, I'll support you. But to teach it properly, you must teach it with consistency. An idea that isn't internally consistent isn't valid. So when you teach children that it should be one criteria to judge the actions of others, it should be applied consistently to ALL OTHERS, including (and especially) the policies of governments. But that clearly isn't going to work because, if you teach kids not to take something from someone else that doesn't belong to them (as the Golden Rule suggests), you can't also teach them it's acceptable for the government to take their hard-earned money and give it to someone else. So much for teaching do unto others...

Having said that, I will not support you if, on the one hand, you teach the Golden Rule and, on the other, you teach creationism. Then you'd be teaching a child how to think both rationally and irrationally. You'll fill them with contradictions and they'll become confused. That's one of Hazlitt's lessons - be consistent. But religious leaders would never just teach the non-mystical lessons because that would be the end of religion.

What are the risks of "choosing not to train our children in religion?" Well, there certainly would be an increase in unemployment. Hallmark Cards would also report steep financial losses from lost sales. Though, on the bright side, there'd be an immense amount of land available from knocking down old buildings. I'm sure we could find good use for the space. And think of all the time that would become available for people to start learning philosophy!

And here's my second observation, more controversial but nonetheless true: for many Transhumanists, Transhumanism is functioning as a religion. No. I'm not saying that Transhumanism is inherently a religion. In itself, the advocacy of ethical use of technology to extend human abilities need not be religious. However, it nonetheless ends up functioning as religion for many persons that adopt and identify with the ideology. There are the sacraments of nutrition supplements, the rituals of cryonics, the prophecies of indefinite healthy life extension, the spirits of substrate independent minds, the apocalyptic and messianic postures toward artificial intelligence, the millennial paradisiacal hope of life and abundance beyond present notions of suffering and poverty, and ultimately the pantheon of posthumanity.

Religion, by definition, requires a supernatural god. If you equate eating healthy, going to hospitals when you're sick, and going to school to become smarter as religious experiences, then I can understand why you also see nutrition supplements, procedures to extend life, and AI as comparable to religious functions. If, someday, someone erects a Church of the Latter-day Transhumanists and those of us who want to be cryoconserved must first sacrifice a lamb to the God of Freon, I'll agree with you that transhumanism is functioning as a religion. Until that day comes, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

_{Edit: fix video formatting}

I have an admission to make: I had to look up postsecular because I didn't understand what could possibly be meant by a time after the rejection of religion. First there was religion. Then it was rejected. Then it was pursued again? Why would anyone take such a direction?

Religion is a primitive form of philosophy but shouldn't play any part in the move toward the singularity and transhumanism. IMO, religion does not positively shape philosophy - it transfigures it into the unreal, the unknowable, and the contradictory. Contrary to popular belief, it encourages people to do wrong. "Don't worry or think about it - God has a plan; you just don't understand it." "God doesn't like [x] behavior. Therefore, we should go to war against those who behave against God's direction." "Don't worry about protecting yourself. God will protect and care for you." More atrocities have been committed in the name of religion than anything else. We move toward the singularity and transhumanism through knowledge. Religion is the opposite of knowledge. It is blindly believing in entities and events with the only support coming from an ancient era that believed in storytelling over facts.

I can't say I know whether or not religion is dying, but I do know that too many continue to believe in the false and contradictory because they either refuse to question what they are told or they willingly ignore the truth. I also know that too many rely on government to protect them. Religion teaches people to act like that. Either provides a drag on all the progress to and benefits that come with the singularity and transhumanism.

Religion cannot evolve, except as a fictional story evolves - imagination without reality. Even if, by postsecularism, you're exclusively referring to the cultural and historical aspects of people's beliefs carrying on but distinct from abandoned beliefs in the unknowable, I (generally) still don't see the value. Much of religious traditions and culture are based on nonsensical and mystical stories accepted without proof. I don't think it morally proper to follow a tradition or culture based on primitive, unsupported, blind myths. A moral philosophy has to be based on reality; otherwise, humanity cannot survive. Religion isn't.

This isn't to say I don't agree with any religious teachings. For example, and for the most part, I follow the "golden rule" (though I don't follow it with anyone who uses force against me). I think Gandi was onto something when he said (or, again, whomever said it): I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. I'm with Thomas Jefferson on his application of the Bible - remove the myths and nonsense and focus on the lessons which you can deduce by reason (e.g., "blessed are the peacemakers").

Revising Voltaire's statement that "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him," Mikhail Bakunin once wrote that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." I agree with Bakunin's statement but not based on his reasoning. Religion is based on pure faith. If science one day proved God existed, religion would end. Religion cannot exist in the same realm where proof exists.

A philosophical perspective on alcohol use and abuse from Dr. Hurd:

Let’s say that one can enjoy a mediocre or bad movie only after a drink or two. Why is this? If one considers the movie as mediocre or bad while sober, then what happens after a drink or two? Standards relax. Inhibitions are loosened. Suddenly the movie is OK.

Obviously, if it takes alcohol to help you tolerate movies you otherwise wouldn’t watch, then this raises an important question: Why not just watch better movies and save the wear and tear on your liver?  Or, why not find something better to do with your time than tolerating movies you hate? Of course the same thing applies to spending time with people who don’t interest you. If you don’t like doing something, why use alcohol to make you like it? What are you accomplishing?

Obviously there is a contradiction here. Though you’re not abusing alcohol by any conventional or objective standard, in a way you are using it to help you make less wise use of your time than you otherwise would. Again – nothing to end up in a drunk tank over, but if you must have a drink, isn’t there a better reason? For example, to temporarily relax inhibitions and put your mind at ease so you can better refuel? In that context, responsible use of alcohol can perhaps serve as an added value to the life experience. But if one uses it to stop thinking, or to distort reality in order to act in counterproductive ways, then I consider that abuse, even if it involves only a single drink.

I think my kind emailers are asking the wrong question. Maybe they should ask if the things they enjoy after a sip of wine shouldn’t also be enjoyed when they are sober. If the honest answer is no, then they’re lying to themselves, and this suggests the real question: “If I must get partially intoxicated in order to tolerate or enjoy certain things, then why am I engaged in those activities in the first place?”

That was an amazing video! (The article was blah.) How exciting! Transhumanism, here we come! I know someone who's studying to be a nurse and I'm going to forward to her.

I have all my notes and a few ideas about what I want to cover, but I'm just not feeling motivated enough to write it. Sometimes I get writer's block and can't think of ideas. With this, I have the idea, but not the motivation. It goes without saying he's brilliant and has an amazing talent to envision what's possible. Yet this isn't going to be a positive view because he is so obviously short-sighted about philosophy and the dangerous people his philosophy is enabling. That makes him as dangerous as he is gifted. I like writing stories I'll feel good about. I'm not there yet with this one and I'm not yet sure what it will take for me to get there.

Thanks Arosophos for the words of encouragement.

I'm not sure I'm grandiose enough a thinker to know how best to ignite a "philosophical revolution." (It sounds great though.) I would love to see venture capitalists investing the kinds of money that Johnson, et al. are investing in technology to help move in that direction. (One of these years I'm going to write an article on Ray Kurzweil's amazing book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology because I have huge concerns about his lack of philosophical considerations for technical advancements.) I sure wish I had that kind of money to invest in philosophy, because I would. As such, all I can do is follow Gandhi's advice (or whomever said it): be the change I wish to see in the world. How does that manifest itself? A few examples:

• I rarely do small-talk (and only for a very limited amount of time if "necessary" - as to when it's necessary, uhm...) and don't waste my time reading or watching nonsense. I think people spend far too much time talking about, writing about, and watching the unimportant, trite, and inconsequential. I refuse to contribute.
• I invest my time and money in efforts I think will make a difference based on my philosophical principles, however small.
• I engage others to consider the philosophical implications of ideas, but to take those implications all the way through if applied to everyone. I think Henry Hazlitt was dead-on in his book Economics in One Lesson [.pdf], but I think his economic principle applies to philosophy as a whole:

  From this aspect, therefore, the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

• Most all the articles I write include philosophy, such as my advice to my graduating daughter, how I choose friends, which investments I don't consider valuable, what's important to me in romantic relationships, which scientific disciplines I find inspiring, why I question the enormous investments in gaming, etc. I do this because I want to have these conversations with others and because I think others need to be having more of these discussions. I would really like to see authors/writers/bloggers writing about philosophy as a component of their articles and books.
• I've read (and continue to read) many philosophy books. I take the ideas I think valid and integrate them into my core. I share them with others. (Sometimes, I even buy others philosophy books.)
• I openly attack ideas I think are destructive.

I think that, before we will see a philosophical revolution, people have to value philosophy. Before they can value philosophy, they have to understand the concept of valuing. What does it mean to value? Why are values important? What are my values? Why are they my values? Should they be my values? What do others value? Why do they value those? If people will start asking those kinds of questions, philosophy will become more integrated into everything they do (e.g., what they choose to work at, what they teach their children, what they buy and invest in, who they foster relationships with, what brings them happiness). You can teach in school what various philosophers thought, but that doesn't really teach philosophy per se. Answering questions for yourself and understanding the drivers and fundamentals of your answers help you learn philosophy. In other words, helping people learn how to think critically would likely help start the revolution. But we need to start asking the questions.

What would you suggest we do?

Done. Keep those UI suggestions coming!

Glad it worked for you. It drove me crazy trying to figure this out.

That is damn cool.

Not sure why. I see the image above and at the link. (The actual image pulls from here - can you see that?) Is there something in your browser blocking it?

He published the second part today. It's not as good as the first, but it's still good:

A Murderous 'Modernity' - Progressivism and the rise of the welfare-warfare state

Very interesting additional insight into this topic - How epigenetic memory is passed through generations: Sperm and eggs transmit memory of gene repression to embryos. FTA:

A growing body of evidence suggests that environmental stresses can cause changes in gene expression that are transmitted from parents to their offspring, making 'epigenetics' a hot topic. Epigenetic modifications do not affect the DNA sequence of genes, but change how the DNA is packaged and how genes are expressed. Now, scientists have shown how epigenetic memory can be passed across generations and from cell to cell during development.

I can think of plenty of maladjusted people who could greatly benefit from personality changes. But your point is well-taken. After all, who makes the decision that someone's personality should be changed? The government could easily establish laws that force a personality change (or could even do it wirelessly without our knowledge). Presto - we have Aldous Huxley's imaginary drug soma from Brave New World.

That's a good article. Thanks for sharing.

Fascinating article. This adds credence to the transhumanism idea of significantly increasing intelligence and skills through biological/genetic manipulations. What an amazing time it will be when such capabilities exist.

Relevant - The Truth We Won’t Admit: Drinking Is Healthy.

tl/dr: Significant research "incorporating a million subjects" suggests "...the more you drink - up to two drinks a day for woman, and four for men - the less likely you are to die." The US National Institutes of Health is preventing researchers (including those from Harvard) from publishing these findings because (according to an NIH memo): "The encouragement of undertaking drinking with the implication of prevention of coronary heart disease would be scientifically misleading and socially undesirable in view of the major health problem of alcoholism that already exists in the country."

...and we're live. All known bugs fixed.

This is absolutely wonderful. I'm going to forward this to a friend who's a teacher. I also want to post the video here that's in the Reason article you linked to because it's a good, quick summary of how beneficial this is to teachers.

As we've just upgraded to Bootstrap 3.2, which now includes responsive embed for videos, you should now only need to use the following code to make videos responsive:

<!-- 16:9 aspect ratio -->
<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9">
  <iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="..."></iframe>
</div>

<!-- 4:3 aspect ratio -->
<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-4by3">
  <iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="..."></iframe>
</div>

Every time I see articles like this about engineering marvels, I always hum to myself "what a wonderful world." And then I read "mandated by the EPA..." and sigh heavily in disgust.

I've taken the liberty of updating all posts that had videos but didn't use this technique. They should now all be visible properly on mobile devices.

You are 100% correct. Consider it done. All future posts in /c/food will now include a karma type of yum.

And I just messed with the database so that they now show on this post. I know, I know. Shame on me. (slaps wrist)

Let's hope I didn't screw anything up.

Love this video, and love the new community. But it needs better karma choices than the standard ones. Get on that, would you please? 

Chemistry. Improving Halloween for kids everywhere.

It does appear the whole site is currently hosed, not just this article. Hopefully the owner will soon correct the problem.

Very cool

This is an excellent presentation. Even if you already blog, it's worth the time to review. But emacs for blogging? To each their own. Perhaps I shouldn't knock it until I've tried it.

Then again, if it helps your kids better understand the periodic table and makes science more interesting, it's worth it's weight in Au (which is atomic #79 I might add). 

Between all the coffee and water I drink a day (and COUGH... beer, scotch, bourbon... COUGH), I doubt I could get one more ounce of fluid in me. Interesting nonetheless.

Good suggestion. Implemented. (And it even helped me find a bug.)

Saw this today on reddit's front page: TIL: Cesar Millan's wife (The Dog Whisperer) filed for divorce in March 2010. She ended up receiving a single payment of $400,000, monthly spousal payment of $23,000 (that's $276,000 a year), AND $120,000 a year in monthly child support. Cesar Millan then attempted suicide.

In my Jeep, on the passenger's side above the glove box, there is a grab bar for when things get bumpy. We call it the 'oh shit' bar. Could use one of those right about now.

For the last year, I've been buying more and more organic. Now, I do most all my grocery shopping at Costco, which likely means I'm getting what you called Big Organic. But I just don't have the time to shop at smaller produce marts that get the local stuff. I'm a guy - I don't like shopping. I want to be in and out.

I've certainly noticed that my organic foods don't last near as long as non-organic (not to mention that they are significantly more expensive). But I hate the idea of putting all those chemicals/pesticides into my body, especially when I'm so diligent trying to workout/stay in shape. I don't remember who gave the list to me, but I carry in my phone a list of the foods I should always try to buy organically because, from what I remember, they are extra-bad when it comes to spraying:

Fruits

• Apples
• Cherries
• Grapes
• Nectarines
• Peaches
• Pears
• Raspberries
• Strawberries

Vegetables

• Bell peppers
• Celery
• Potatoes
• Spinach

Something I learned that I found interesting: just because eggs are labeled organic doesn't necessarily mean much. I recently read Organic, Cage-Free, Free-Range or Pastured... Sorting Through the Confusion on Egg Labels, which basically indicated that eggs are much healthier if the chickens are raised properly. (For example, just because eggs say they are from cage-free chickens doesn't mean they were in a healthy environment.)

Some friends of mine actually own a share in a local farm. Every so often, they get a bunch of stuff grown at the farm and then spend the next few months eating it all. If you have a large family, maybe that makes sense. But, for a single guy, well... there are just so many brussels sprouts I'm willing to eat every few months. 

It appears the karma types we have in /music suck. Need to fix that.

Parts of this tune are OK, but this is more my style.

OK, where's the "I snorted when read that" karma?

Quick. Someone find me the facepalm upvote button.

And how 'bout those green flip flops? I ran in flip flops once. ONCE.

Consider me on the hunt. And, you see? I just found (and corrected) one. 

A selfie? That is so not gonna happen.