Julianne

• Social media platforms have been dangerous in the spread of misinformation.

• Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, current Surgeon General of the United States, has called misinformation an "urgent public health threat".

• "COVID-19-related misinformation on social media: a systematic review":

• "Although misinformation is not a new phenomenon, today it can spread rapidly on social media and potentially reach more than half the world’s population."

• "The studies in our review proposed six main ways of tackling COVID-19-related misinformation: (i) disseminating trustworthy information; (ii) addressing, containing or debunking misinformation; (iii) increasing social media users’ health literacy; (iv) officially supervising media in general; (v) introducing policies and regulations for social media; and (vi) increasing research on the topic. These suggestions have been included in published proposals for managing infodemics."

• And this is just one example of a topic about which false information can spread and cause problems: Elections, mistrust in public organizations, etc., are important others. The same rough outline of tackling misinformation could potentially be used regardless of content. It may be hard, but in some ways, it may also actually not that hard to do, considering how much information people do digest these days. Redirecting attention towards information along with a drive towards increased health/scientific/political literacy could actually work.

• Culture wars: Debates over topics like gender equality and climate change, typically pitting values traditionally considered conservative against values traditionally considered progressive or liberal.

• I could see this point of view - that people who have other things to worry about due to "not being elite" would look at the culture wars as being less important, relevant, or pertinent to their lives.

• Academics like to analyze the culture wars - does this mean that they are arguing and bringing them into being, or more so just analyzing them in post? It could be both, I think. They may even bring them into being (or just crystallize them into something more than they originally were) by analyzing them.

• A UK study found that "culture wars are fought by a tiny minority".

It might depend on how much being merciless involves being unjust.

• As a gut reaction, being brutally merciless to other people seems somewhat, I think, worse than being unjust, maybe since I associate merciless actions and behaviors with more violence than I do unjustness.

• However, I think it ultimately depends, because oftentimes being merciless involves being unjust - showing no mercy to someone who didn't "deserve" it for doing something bad, possible forms of abuse, etc. If being merciless has a measure of "justness" to it (because you're showing no mercy for someone who has done something terrible), then it might be worse to be unjust, because with unjustness you are by definition treating someone badly who didn't "deserve it" in any way, necessarily.

Abolishing copyright could allow greater access to important material, which in turn can foster greater innovation and development for our entire world; but it can also make it impossible for artists and other creatives to make a living, so it's very difficult.

With wide dissemination on the internet, copyright is already becoming a bit outdated, in a way. It can definitely be hard to maintain and enforce in the era of widespread availability and reproducibility, although this doesn't mean copyright should be totally abolished, in my opinion.

Additionally, if the following things are true:

• Ideas, by nature, do not have any exclusivity (two or more people can use the same idea at the same time.)

• Lack of copyright does not always appear to have too great of an effect on innovation.

• Abolishing copyright could potentially help with the following:

• Reducing or abolishing academic copyright could foster more collaboration on ideas and products, meaning more potential progress, since open-source articles and research can be more widely accessed;

• Reduced paywalls in general can help more people gain access to cultural sources they arguably have a right to access;

• Creativity can be stifled due to the broadness of copyright law;

• Copyright laws can be very complicated and unclear, opening up the possibility for companies to abuse them, especially if they have access to lawyers.

Then it makes some sense to consider abolishing copyright.

However, I do agree that copyright helps protect ideas and actually allows artists/other people dependent on copyright laws to make a living. So it's a tricky mix.

Maybe safety and security are good enough reasons to not have tons of control over the privacy of our faces?

• I do think it's very good to make sure we don't ever face unfair discrimination and inequalities from facial recognition, or even security breaches more generally.

• There can also be negative consequences in the sense that people might not show up at protests, for instance, if they believe their faces will be stored in a database that could identify and potentially punish them.

• However, I do wonder if the argument could be made that police being able to track down suspects more easily is worth giving up control over the privacy of our faces. Facial recognition can stop terrorists before they act, identify terrorists who are using fake identities, and aid in other parts of investigations into actions of terrorism.

• Could we have laws protecting protestors but little else, for the sake of security?

It may be worth investigating the root causes of why riders actually pass in the first place.

It's actually a source of some confusion as to why riders actually ever pass through, attached to a bill. If, just like any other amendments, riders must be voted on to pass, then why would something pass as an amendment when it couldn't pass on its own? And why couldn't another member introduce another amendment to strike the rider? It's unclear why riders ever work, unless (and this very well could be the case) each rider is a sneaky amendment that doesn't receive much if even any notice at all from voting members busy with other matters.

For this reason, it seems like it's worth further investigation into the actual process of riders and how they get attached to bills without being voted against when and if they are actually noticed. (If they're not noticed, then that's another problem---people aren't reading everything, perhaps because they are too busy; but then, is there a way to remedy that busyness by spreading out the work or changing the process?).

Some also say that if you disagree with the amendment, you call it a rider; if you agree with it, you call it an amendment. I'm not sure how I feel about this, considering in both cases there's still the argument that it should have been debated more extensively.

Love can seem limitless, which is really amazing and leads to it being a very spiritual feeling that we do see all across human religious/spiritual history and present-day practices. Physically, many attribute love to a simultaneous release of specific chemicals in the brain: Oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin.

Love is one of the only emotions that seems sometimes to have no limit, which almost makes it realer than realer, to me. (It can also be, arguably, something that elides context-specificity, which is rare for an experience, I think...Meaning, it doesn't necessarily have to be compared to anything else as a feeling - since it doesn't, perhaps, derive its properties from comparative intensities of sentiment, but instead is something around which we often feel able to say "I know it when I feel it.") Regardless, I do think that love is something we can't totally understand but that sort of does exist as a nebulous form of "ideal abstraction" that, against physicalism, doesn't hold up.

As Eleanor points out, with so many people having experienced it, it would be hard to really stand behind the sentiment that "love doesn't exist". Whatever the experience is that we call "love" does almost certainly exist as something, considering that we, well, call it something.

Interestingly, love is often described as feeling limitless, at least a really "true" kind of it; and plenty of spiritual engagements have "infinite love" as (at least one of) their end goals/points/states. To me, this is intriguing evidence for a certain kind of non-context-sensitive sort of experience. That is, if love is something that can outlast time and context, it makes sense that we are drawn to looking to it as something spiritual in quality.

Those who subscribe to hardcore physicalism/materialism would probably say that love is perhaps exclusively the chemical reactions in the brain, such as a rush of oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and even sometimes sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen. The fact that they all flood the brain at once can explain some of the transcendent, category- and context- defying nature of experiences of love. Here, though, one can still wonder whether love across larger periods of time, such as in long-term relationships, requires different chemicals or even thought patterns of the higher-order level such as narrative storytelling, which might be somewhat unique to the human brain.

Both the more spiritual love and physical love could be true at once, and many do believe that to be so.

Some psychologists believe that it's more about mirror neurons, emulation, modeling, and behavior, at least for short distance communication.

• Telepathy for short distances might be more about mirror neurons than anything else: Studies have shown that even when people are not "actively interacting" or engaged with another person, their mirror neurons can still be engaged, meaning "non-participatory action-viewing" may not be as passive as we think since non-engagement with people is thus not necessarily an actually isolated activity.

• That means that we are very good at "reading" people's minds because there are automatic mirroring processes that happen in the brain not only when we are engaged directly with someone (viewing them and their actions actively) but also, intriguingly, when we are passively taking in information about someone (viewing them without any forms of engagement or interaction---or even without knowing consciously that we are gathering information about them at all!).

• This could provide an interesting explanation for at least cases of short-distance telepathy, since the neurons mirror the processes that are happening for us without our even having the chance to realize it or make note of it in any interactive way.

True proof is hard to come by, and I still think even an unbelievably strong coincidence would probably not be enough to prove determinism.

• If there is some really strong coincidence, I think it could make us feel like
  things were determined -- but, importantly: In what way? By some conscious power/force who made those choices at the start of the line? Or could it more sort of be the theory of determinism where the complete chain of reactions follows all the way back to the Big Bang or whatever it was that perhaps most directly began this chain out of which we are the result? In both cases, we probably still might care about the answer of whether things were completely determined beforehand or not, maybe because it may have to do with free will and whether we have it, as mentioned in the thread above.

• Personally, I think that determinism could not ever be proven by even an incredibly strong coincidence. If, say, someone shares many characteristics with someone else that are perfectly spaced out in time in some pattern, we still can't fully prove that there isn't some kind of causal connection between the events, even if that connection is just the chain of reactions that is/has been happening in the universe since whatever most directly started us, like the Big Bang. (I say "most directly" because there could always be something else that happened "before", etc.). Also -- The chain of reactions could even be actually more open-ended in the way of probabilities, e.g., a sort of quantum haze of fields where all the choices happen at once but appear in different branches of the universe/multiverse. Either way, it's still possible that things happen and that sometimes there will be interesting patterns between them despite not being predetermined in any kind of "designer" sense.

• In fact, even if the coincidence leads us to think that some sort of power or force had to be behind the choices of events and how they aligned, it's hard for me to totally imagine that that would be hard proof of determinism, since maybe we still have some sort of free will against that?

• Additionally, and interestingly, we could also wonder about what caused any potential determining cause: The age old question of, if there's a force/power like a God, what "made" that? Was that determined, too? Is it freeness of will all the way back, or is it determinism at some points and free will at others, such as a God towards us but simultaneously a force against God too, either from us back at the God force or from the force creating God itself back at God or even through to us? (Or both?)

Yes, sorry, I should have not squeezed so many ideas into that last line! I think I only meant to say that free will could even potentially work in a feedback loop kind of way, where what we do affects God somehow. And then that could also be a possible pattern for any force which may have created God itself, with the feedback loop between it and God. (And it could even eventually go down to us in those instances, too, where we affect the God creator by an intermediary with our God, etc.)

All quite unprovable and more just thought experiments of course, but still maybe something that might expand concepts of free will when it comes to our ideas of higher powers and how we theoretically relate to, affect, and are affected by them.

Cruelty is an important factor in judging right and wrong.

• Cruelty is being indifferent to or even finding pleasure in someone's suffering, especially when there is an option to help (such as in a physical situation) or refrain from inflicting the pain in the first place (in a psychological one, say.)

• Because there are very available options to literally not take pleasure in seeing others suffer---or to not inflict the pain in the first place---when it comes to cruelty, I would argue that cruelty is a clear component of things we should class as "wrong".

• When cruelty is involved, there is always the choice to refrain from the action altogether, unlike morally loaded situations where one may be bound by circumstances to choose one action over another. So, at least for me, cruelty is a very important criteria for judging right and wrong.

Interesting - I wonder if it is one of the only clear cut moral wrongs today, because of that "easy choice" factor?

Anti-cruelty laws for animals seemed to arise first in the 19th century, so I wonder if that was a big turning point? Dehumanization leading to cruelty, in particular, is something that seems like it only recently became so universally not OK, just in the last few decades, even?

Mint and chocolate go well together, and the structure of ice cream will only enhance the flavor pairing.

• Mint and chocolate were purportedly first put together during the 16th century. Europeans put mint in their chocolate drinks to make them more palatable.

• Chocolate seems to be a good compliment to the bitterness of mint, since they are both bitter in some sense. (Though whether you find them bitter may depend on whether you are a "supertaster" or not.) Putting the two forms of bitterness together augments the flavor overall, creating something that can actually taste much better than either form on its own.

• Mint chocolate ice cream also has the added benefit of milk and cream, along with lots of sugar. Those augment any flavor, but mint and chocolate chips can be especially good when in a frozen mix with cream and milk.

• Ice cream in general is actually, interestingly, widely considered one of the best tastes due to its ingredients emulsifying---or keeping separate from---each other. The fat globules are mixed into the water, sugar, ice, and air bubbles, but they come together as an emulsion, so there is still lots of space between each of the ingredients. Since structure controls the rate at which molecules are released, the wider-spread structure of ice cream means it releases flavor in our mouths across larger time, thus enabling more flavor molecules to trigger even more receptors on our tongues.

iPhones are often better for intuitive interfaces, but Androids are maybe better for those who want more customization options.

• iPhones tend to perform tasks more consistently and efficiently than Androids, so they can have a better battery life as well as better privacy features and tracking options. They also have an interface that is frequently considered more intuitive and easier on the eyes.

• Androids, meanwhile, are more customizable, with options to choose third party apps for default or to set up different variations of applications for run on the device. They also have options for transferring files from the file system directly to a computer, rather than having to go through a cloud format like iPhones. So the overall file system is more manageable/customizable as well.

Road trips are pretty amazing; though environmentally and also just for other reasons, maybe a biking trip is an equally awesome, if not better, way to go?

• Road trips are a good way to cover a lot of ground but also see many landscapes along the way. There's a fairly rich history, at least in America, of The Road Trip. The environmental costs could be heavy, though, if the culture of the road trip continues.

• Why not take a bike trip? (Or walk?) Obviously much more strenuous and time consuming, but worth it, in my opinion, to live closer to how our species lived for hundreds of thousands of years.

• Using your body, engaging in more movement than you would by sitting in a vehicle, will enable you to literally embody and understand the environment more deeply.

• It is, of course, monumentally harder when walking or biking to factor in sleeping and meal arrangements, even and maybe especially if you try it the camping way, where every night you camp in a different place.

Decency just in the general sense of "what is accepted socially" is, to me, fairly important morals-wise.

• Decency in the sense of modesty is much less convincing as a moral marker, but decency in its more general sense of "what is accepted socially" matters more to me personally, although (and maybe this is why it holds more weight for me) what is considered decent socially changes all the time.

• Being decent---in the sense of being modest and pure---seems less important nowadays for many people, since attitudes have generally shifted to be more inclusive of differing viewpoints, which arguably clips notions of "purity" at its roots.

• However, I do think it's alright to focus on what is accepted socially (i.e., what is "decent") in a general sense, without getting too far into any concepts of purity at all. Considering current norms around what we do and don't do socially when we interact doesn't have to mean accepting them even if they don't work anymore; it can be, and I think is, a more fluid process of learning to live together, even at the largest scales. So, for instance, being able to collaborate on larger scales of community - and how that probably requires norms of "decency" for us to get by. (Even as those continually shift.) Considering certain actions right and wrong in those situations can be quite helpful for peace and prosperity, I think.

Betraying your group is, in my opinion, not immediate grounds for determining that you did a "wrong".

• It's an important criteria for the group itself, certainly, but I do feel that most would like to consider cases where "betraying the group" is actually just expanding one's priorities to be more inclusive of others, especially if that group is moving along somewhat blindly to any kind of morally sketchy actions and principles.

• So if someone prizes in-group loyalty above all else, and this is the reason they do not move against an actively anti-empathetic stance taken against others who are outside the group, I would personally consider that to be an overall negative.

• Taking time to remember and have empathy towards those who are not in one's group seems to be an increasingly common moral "trend" of today: The world aspires to see its oneness, its interconnectedness, its common humanity - such as when trying to solve great problems of survival like climate change, etc. (At least, this is what a lot of people seem to be, or at least say they are, aiming for morally nowadays. Consider academic settings, trends on liberal policy, and so forth.)

Nuclear power seems fairly crucial for achieving net zero within the time frame we need to.

• Net zero is not the same as zero emissions---a point of some confusion: Net zero allows for companies to make up for their emissions by balancing them out with an equal environmental greenhouse gas reducer, e.g., a company planting enough trees to offset the carbon dioxide they may not have the technology to avoid emitting. Zero emissions would be not emitting any of the gases in the first place.

• Nevertheless, most experts agree that net zero needs to be achieved by 2050 to avert (at least some) major climate disasters. Doing so will almost certainly require the use of nuclear power.

• Using renewable energy for power seems like it would only, on average, cover about half of the energy needed for powering daily life. So the rest of it, some experts say, must come from nuclear power.

• Interesting news on nuclear technologies: https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Companies-outline-net-zero-actions-ahead-of-COP26

Pros of forming the East African Federation:

• Landlocked nations like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan would have access to the sea
• The economic union between the nations would aid in the development of trade and commerce between coastal regions and great lakes regions
• The EAF would be distanced from political strife in the west

Challenges of forming the East African Federation:

• A monetary union -- a single currency -- would be necessary to standardize trade across the Federation, which sort of implementation would require foreign investment to put the infrastructure into place
• Distrust between the different states exists a bit now due to differing COVID-19 responses, so any progress on the EAF may need to wait until the pandemic eases in sub-Saharan Africa

Overall, it seems like it could really help to create a power on the African continent. Whether creating a new world power is a good thing or a bad thing, it probably depends -- but I think most people would consider it a good thing for the standpoint of Africa itself. (At least for the nations of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda, which would comprise it.)

Further reading: https://www.streitcouncil.org/post/east-african-federation-a-new-regional-power

"Little Josh" absolutely is the ultimate Josh, although I challenge the notion of "ultimate" and wish it could be that they are literally all the ultimate together. (That would mean no one is the ultimate, of course, and perhaps it's almost even corny at this point to suggest "we are all equally special"...but still, would be nice if it were actually so.)

But I agree that Little Josh was a great choice. As his dad said, it is something he will "remember for the rest of his life." That's worth a lot.

According to Freedom House, the world is becoming less democratic overall.

• According to a 2021 press release from Freedom House, the world is becoming less democratic lately, and has reached a new low point since the negative trend began in 2006.

• Fewer than a fifth of the world's people live in "full freedom", defined as living unencumbered by any type of authoritarian or dictatorial force(s).

• "Authoritarian foes" have shifted the "international balance in favor of tyranny": "Incumbent leaders increasingly used force to crush opponents and settle scores, sometimes in the name of public health, while beleaguered activists—lacking effective international support—faced heavy jail sentences, torture, or murder in many settings."

• Democracy is in decline for many reasons, examined more in depth here, but among them:

• COVID-19 pandemic responses

• Climate change - mass displacement

• New nationalist, xenophobic, and racist policies as a result of climate and health changes

Does reinforcing negative stereotypes for one's whole group matter enough to consider it somewhat unkind/even sometimes dangerous to make negative jokes even as a member of that group?

Just to play the devil's advocate a bit: Is it possible that potentially reinforcing negative stereotypes about one's own group should be enough to give a joke teller pause? For instance, maybe most people would be totally fine with a joke told by a member of their group that makes fun of their heritage, but there could still be some people who actually end up feeling hurt by it, or even possibly worried about the potential ramifications of the reinforcement of negative stereotypes? I don't personally feel as though things have to go that far---and am very much in agreement with all of Jen's excellent points above, including her mentioning of this very point---but I do wonder if some would consider the potential for offending members of their group a good enough reason overall to refrain from making fun of X even if you are X yourself. (Perhaps crucially, the offended/worried person from the same group of the joke teller would have to think that the joke told is not totally a joke in some way and/or that it could end up reinforcing negative stereotypes about the group either or both within the group or outside of it in some way that is harmful.)

Personally, I think the vast majority of jokes are not going to be harmful enough to demand that X can't make fun of X. It does become tricky, however, to navigate the waters of "how much" inner-group joke telling could be problematic and "when/at what point for which amount of which specific groups" it is or isn't potentially harmful. So I'm very mixed, I think? Not totally sure. Curious about the stance, though.

The Margherita may not be the "best" pizza, but it was enormously influential in the development of pizza in general.

• Ingredients for a Margherita pizza: Red tomatoes, white mozzarella, and green basil. The Italian Queen Margherita purportedly sampled this type of flatbread on a visit to Naples in 1889. She decided it was her favorite, according to the legend - which may be, though, only a legend.

• Regardless, the Margherita helped create the modern-day pizza, with tomatoes and mozzarella becoming staple ingredients in its wake.

• The Margherita pizza was named one of the most influential pizzas of all time by TIME Magazine in 2014.

I think words can fail deeply when it comes to imparting epic intensities of feeling and intricate complexities of thought. Yet it's possible that, given enough time in some ideal world, enough people could entertain the same (or at least very similar) thoughts and feelings that words would then suffice to convey the meaning of them.

• I completely agree that words don't do a sufficient job when it comes to describing our deepest emotions and most "out there" of thoughts. It's often so hard for people to describe how they are feeling even when things aren't as intense or complex, much less when they are. It's also quite hard to describe things we don't often talk about, such as highly specialized areas of science or intricate physical maneuvers, say.

• However, some schools of thought would focus in on just that last idea: The fact that we don't often talk about the things we find it hard to talk about. If we had enough people have the same experiences and particularities of thoughts and feelings, it's possible the words would become well able to describe each one, intricacies and depth/intensities of feelings and all. Language would constantly be reupdating itself with each new iteration of utterances, and so it would eventually be able to describe previously ineffable concepts and states of mind. This is part of the Wittgensteinian school of thought: Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language focuses in large part on the fact that, while there are enormous limits to the crossings of our individual mental worlds, it's still likely for language to build on itself as more and more cases of specific thought are repeated and head, then, towards more commonality of utterance and increased ease of understanding.

• Theoretically, there is nothing that couldn't eventually be subsumed under language---unless we "change forms" to become forms of being that feel and think without language at all. But it's possible "we" can't change forms. It's possible, that is, that "we" emerge form and are irrevocably tied to some kind of language. This is also part of the more Wittgensteinian school of thought.

• I don't know if I fall into this position, since I tend to imagine there could very well be all kinds of different states of being in which language would not be necessary for comprehension. (Although - we would run into a problem there of what we would want to consider language.) It's an out-there example, but an instance of this could be if we ever merged minds with each other. At that point, language could shift into literally shared feeling states---i.e., a something else entirely. ("We" might then also shift into forms of newness to an extent that we might consider ourselves to be embodying a completely different form of being, of course, but nevertheless.)

• Also interesting to consider: Nonverbal communication such as kinesics (bodily movements and postures), as well as artistic/visual communication like forms of painting and abstractions.

That's so true about the poetry! Poetry can very well let you experience another's perceptions. Being that it's open in its form, and allows for the piecing together of and exploration of ideas that may not make much or even any sense outside reference to something else, poetry is actually a really amazing way to share different intensities of thought.

Psychedelics are increasingly being turned to for the treatment of mental health issues.

• If we allow for "thinking" to include more general states of existence such as thinking about events and feelings (the type of activity that influences our mental health), then the following might be compelling evidence for the power of psychedelics to transform thinking:

• Psychedelic treatment with psilocybin has been shown to relieve depression.

• Psychedelics are thought to work by allowing new connections to be made in the brain while "default mode network" (the resting state of the brain) loses connectivity. Then the brain restores itself, like a computer rebooting, and patterns of thinking that were stuck before can begin to shift. Neuroplasticity, where new connections are made between neurons, also plays a role. Additionally, the drugs themselves help people enter new states in which to better, or at least differently, process memories and past traumas.

It would be extremely difficult, but it's possible it could be done voluntarily over several or perhaps many generations.

• It does seem fairly clear that it would be super difficult, and likely impossible, to get rid of guns in our current context. As mentioned above, there are just too many of them around to ever really get rid of them. And putting anti-gun laws in place probably can't ever fully circumvent that.

• However, it's possible that we could teach new generations, and over time, arrive at a place where guns are naturally disregarded and even feared by nearly everyone. Similar to the idea of refraining from instilling racism in kids - doing that may prove to stamp out racism eventually and somewhat naturally. (Of course, it's complicated, and may not work out quite like such, but it's still possible.)

• So if we literally made sure to teach our kids from the time they are very little to think about guns and hopefully see them as harmful and unnecessary, eventually perhaps nearly everyone in the country or even worldwide would come to voluntarily dispose of guns and cease making new ones. It might take several or even lots of generations to reach that point, since the most imminent generations will face many parents who teach them the opposite. But get enough people across several generations to disregard guns and the attitude could eventually shift to the point where even the hold-outs can no longer teach their children to love, desire, or at least tolerate guns.

• Now, the other problem is that there would likely always be people who still want the guns and who would still likely have access to firearms even in my most radically idealistic, utopian vision of generations-down-the-line gun ridding. So the argument above regarding criminals with their firearms would probably still stand. But I still hold some hope that there could eventually be enough people to persuade hold-outs of both the less severe and severe kind (i.e., people who want guns just for protection, and then the more sort of "criminals" who want them to actively do harm.) And in doing so, guns could be disposed of voluntarily and kept banished even in a country where it seems impossible from today's viewpoint. It would just maybe take many, many generations to reach that point, if that's what we (and the up-and-comers) want to reach.

Good points here. I do tend to think there is a difference between shaming someone and looking out for them---though I suppose gentler teasing can sometimes fall into the middle of that, making it complicated to discern. Personally, I think that shaming someone for their weight gain is definitely often harmful and unproductive, for sure, since it can make people feel really sad deep down, like a pain that becomes so internalized it even physically hurts. But it is interesting to consider cases where a gentler teasing could be looking out for someone...Overall, though, I think there are probably much better ways to tell someone you care about their health and their feelings than to even lightly shame them for their weight gain, since even those small feelings of shame can add up to a deep and profound sadness over time. And I love the point about how teasing done by those closest to you can sometimes make you feel the worst!

Of course not across the board by any means, but there does seem to be a very general trend of differing sex drives between males and females.

• Sex drive appears to work differently in males and females, as a very general kind of trend:

• The consistency of libido seems to be different between men and women. In men, there is much more consistency to the drive - whereas with women, even those women who have exceptionally high sex drives do not typically maintain that level consistently. The female drive is variable and based more upon the menstrual cycle and their desires for their partners or for alternative partners.

• Sexual desire in women seems to be much more sensitive to environment and context, whereas it's more typical (again, not across the board, but just as a sort of general trend) that men are less sensitive to context when it comes to their sexual drive and its continued potency.

• Factors of the cultural and social type appear to affect women more than men, on average. For instance, women might be more swayed by attitudes in their peer groups about sex, and women seem also to have greater shifts in attitudes towards performing different sex acts across time.

• Source: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3626005.html

Nutrition-wise, one could do better than corn.

• Corn is definitely very delicious, and I also appreciate the different states it can exist in. However, from a nutrition standpoint, corn is probably not the finest of vegetables.

• Corn is full of health benefits, including:

• Fiber, which helps with weight control

• Increased gut health

• Vitamin C, which is protective against cancer and heart disease

• Magnesium

• Potassium

• Lutein and zeaxanthin, which can prevent cataracts and boost eye health more generally

• (Blue or purple corn contain more of these benefits than yellow corn, since they carry more antioxidants.)

• However, corn is a starchy vegetable, which means it has sugar and carbohydrates which can raise blood sugar levels.

• Corn also can get contaminated by fungi that give off cancer-causing mycotoxins that can also lower the immune systems.

• As well, corn contains antinutrients that make it difficult for your body to absorb nutrients as well as it ought to.

• Other vegetables contain many more health benefits without the risks, such as broccoli, which is extremely high in beneficial compounds and nutrients and is not as starchy as corn.

Reasons to embrace working from home:

• Most studies demonstrate that working from home has the same or higher rates of productivity as working in person
• Less commute time
• People can live anywhere they want, and save money by doing so
• Widened talent pool from around the world
• Companies can save money on office space and other work functions like outings and lunches
• Less employee turnover
• Fewer sick days need to be taken
• Less interruptions from inclement weather

Reasons to not embrace working from home:

• Much more competition for jobs, if the talent pool becomes worldwide
• Cybersecurity can be iffy, putting people and their businesses or companies at risk over sensitive information and privacy concerns
• The internet could always go down, leaving people in an abrupt position that could be hard to navigate out of
• Learning that takes place in person can be stunted
• Missing physical information from seeing people in person can be a detriment
• We could end up quite lonely! :(

A hybrid model that combines both working from home and working in person might be the best solution to achieve the benefits of both.

Helping those in your community makes sense, whether you live in a commune or the world at large.

I think we will always have to help each other. Biologically, it's in us, and, to some extent, made us---we were forged from survival as a result of extended cooperation. Socially and in what I might refer to as spiritually, it's also in us: Deep down, beyond any social or biological limits, it seems like there is a drive to help others outside our immediate senses of self, perhaps for that very reason---to extend our sense of self, possibly as a defense against fear of mortality. But, interestingly, I think there is a strong contingent of people who want to help their communities for nothing other than just to help. That it's interacting with something larger than oneself for the sole sake of being part of that larger thing doesn't feel totally right to me; I think there is a drive within each of us to help our communities for reasons we can't explain that go beyond biological, social, or personal pressures. I think that there might be some sort of inexplicable feeling we share that enables us to want to create community in an outwardly harsh and uncaring cosmos.

Being active in your community is not only a nice thing to do, but it could conceivably be expected, to some extent, as the consequence of living in a system that supports and sustains your very life.

• We should remember, of course, that not everyone will necessarily be able to help due to their personal circumstances. People with disabilities and the like should not be expected to be active in the same kinds of ways as others who are able to be. But, in general, I think I do believe that being active in your community is a fairly necessary thing, not only for the community itself to continue functioning at all, but also for the sake of reciprocating within and towards a supportive system that literally sustains you.

• If there are communities which are not functioning to support their people fairly, then the circumstances might not dictate activeness in them. However, I would argue that, at some point, new communities would be formed or at least attempted to be formed against the original oppressive ones. And in those cases, activeness in the community would be important again to maintain the supportive and often even life-saving system.

Reciprocity if possible is always, always nice, though sometimes the reasons for returning favors aren't totally "pure."

• "If you can" is very important, as it won't always be possible to return a favor. In these cases, it makes sense to consider if there are other ways to return a favor than what you're imagining but don't have the means to do. For instance, can you return the favor by lending an ear to someone when they need it, rather than something that costs resources you don't have?

• It's also possible to consider that returning a favor might actually end up reinforcing a norm of reciprocity, thereby cheapening the truer heartfelt nature that some favors can have. The process of immediately returning a favor can reinforce an expected norm of reciprocity to the extent that helping someone who helped you becomes a chore---one which ultimately means there's less meaning behind it.

• So the concept of "giving without expecting in return" is important, but hopefully people will want to return the favor to you anyway, even if you truly do not expect them to. Then the reciprocity is a cycle that maintains purity; people want to help others not just to ensure they can receive favors, too, but also because they genuinely care about making others feel good.

• Research shows that, at least in charitable giving, "reciprocity decays over time". So there's some evidence that reciprocity is typically an expected norm, if it can fade so easily over time. But even if a large part of it is down to expected norms, I think for the most part returning favors is a meaningful way to care about others, often for their sake only rather than exclusively your own.

• Read more about different types of reciprocity and their connections to pro-sociality here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba0504

As a general principle, making amends for things you have done wrong is a kind thing to do that also demonstrates a certain strength of character and willingness to learn.

• Making amends for wrongdoings helps show you care. It's just as much about how the other people involved feel as it is about how you feel (whether your conscience or sense of guilt is soothed by such actions.) In my opinion, making amends for things you have done wrong will help the other party feel better, and thereby you will feel so by extension. You will also demonstrate a willingness to learn from experiences and interactions, which is an important trait of what our species has learned to do, even if, interestingly, we aren't evolved to learn too well from our mistakes.

• If you properly make amends, then chances are you do care a lot about what happened and the other people involved, as I think it's often difficult to really deeply amend a situation if you aren't being fully honest with yourself and others. If the amends are not properly made, and are instead hasty attempts to cover yourself, it usually shows. Making amends in the fullest, most meaningful way you could is not always possible, of course, nor is it necessary in most situations; but there is usually an element of realness to amends that will be present if it's heartfelt, no matter if the amends are somewhat clipped in presentation due to circumstances. (For instance, making up for something with a co-worker or a boss will probably look quite different to making up for something with your spouse. One will probably be more extensive than the other.)

• There are certain cases when it may not be as great to make amends:

• If you are doing it hastily just to get it done, such as under the belief that you should have everything sorted before you die;

• If you are making amends in a relationship that was not good for either party, where more harm would be done by continued engagement;

• If making amends would bring up old wounds that may be better left as they are for the sake of your and others' wellbeing;

• If making amends is actually part of some abusive cycle of codependence where you are being taken advantage of for your tendency to apologize/fix "mistakes"

If souls are somehow a property of/related in some way to consciousness/awareness, then it makes sense to imagine all animals that have some kind of consciousness/awareness would have one.

• If humans have a soul, then I would pretty easily accept that other animals do, too. To me, when it comes to consciousness/awareness, the form of its expression does not matter. A potential soul-like property would be possible wherever a feeling of awareness takes place.

• If there is something it is like to be an animal, the soul argument for even nonhuman animals gets more intuitive. See Thomas Nagel's famous essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", for further discussion of nonhuman animals and consciousness.

• Indigenous culture has classically regarded animals as sacred and possessed of such qualities as spirit and an interconnectedness with all of life. Presumably, to think other animals don't have souls wouldn't make too much sense in Indigenous contexts.

Cultures that have practice familial piety focus a great deal on maintaining loyalty to relatives no matter what.

• Familial piety is at the core of Confucian ethics. Familial piety originally began as ancestor worship to protect dynasties and thus society at large. But traditional Chinese and Japanese cultures dictate a loyalty between children and parents, which includes duty into old age and unconditional support.

• Some research has found that familial piety "supports warmth, love, harmony, and close family ties, and thus has a beneficial effect on personal growth and interpersonal relationships."

• Other research has "identified filial attitudes that correlated with traditional parental attitudes such as control, protection, harshness, and neglect, as well as inhibition of self-expression, independence, and creativity."

In general, academic "philosophical position creation" tends to be about testing your ideas' consistency against the "greats" and their bodies of work. If it stands quite well against those, then you are sometimes considered to have a very "valid" position.

• If your position has a consistency to it that stands the test against other philosophers---if it's "made of" the right amount and configuration of ideas so as to interact well with and/or compare nicely against previous famous work---then it's often considered a "go" in academic philosophy settings. It often takes a lot of work and intense self-examination of the entirety of your own views to arrive at a place like this: You need to know as much as you can about why you think what you do and how you can change the way you think and whether you need to at any points.

• The consistency of your beliefs is thus likely more important than arriving at a "true" proposition, at least in the academic respect, since the nature of truth is so elusive as to be considered impossible by most philosophers at its root. The idea is more to test the consistency of your ideas against theirs to see what work can happen there. "Truth" itself is perhaps always in question by the very nature of the philosophical examination and enterprise. Sometimes all you can do is test the consistency of your ideas against others'.

Whistleblowers expose important information about potential corruption and illegal, immoral, and unsafe practices within organizations.

• Whistleblowing has historically brought important changes to the world by calling out corruption and failures of accountability. Whistleblowers can become well known for their moral actions against corruption.

• There is a strong case for protecting whistleblowers. They can be retaliated against---fired from the organization they expose, jailed, sent death threats. The extent of protection whistleblowers have varies country to country, and is also dependent on the political and cultural environments and how much they value the information (and the way it was) exposed. In the U.S., whistleblower protection laws have been in place since 1978. In the U.K., whistleblowers have been protected since 1999; Australia, since 1993, and South Africa since 2000. EU member states will have to implement whistleblower protection laws by the end of 2021.

• According to this research, restricting the term "whistleblower" to internal reports within organizations instead of reporting that happens outside the organization has different implications. It may be not as feasible to provide protections for whistleblowers who report within the organization rather than going outside of it. Organizations can make the employee's life difficult without actually firing them, and so the thought is to prevent whistleblowing of this sort rather than incentivize it.

• Recent news- Frances Haugen's written testimony to Congress as
  a whistleblower on Facebook: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/FC8A558E-824E-4914-BEDB-3A7B1190BD49

Beach holidays may not be for everyone, but one could certainly do worse than waves and sun and wind.

• My own personal love is cold-weather holidays; to me there's nothing better than the deep cold and snow and skating under icy black starry skies. However, beach holidays are not the worst for me, and they have their own perks that I love.

• Waves, even if you don't surf*, can be epic to swim in. Waves provide, at least for me, an incredible adrenaline rush and a full-body immersion into the broadness of reality---windy days and wavy waters can make you feel so alive! Though they can be dangerous, and rip currents are a hazard to be wary of, the waves of the ocean are quite a beautiful marvel.

• It's great that there's the potential for relaxation on the beach, too, so that you can have the adrenaline of the ocean and the calmness of the beach all at once. As well, some waters will be calm and soothing themselves, so there's plenty of variability in the "beach holiday".

*Research shows surfers achieve higher levels of "ocean literacy", which is important for environmental awareness and sustainability.

Anarcho-primitivism is the return to a "primitive", "uncivilized" way of life where hunting and gathering was prime and nonegalitarian social and organizational structures did not exist.

• Anarcho-primitivism would be egalitarian by nature. It would be an attempt to eradicate all forms of domination. No one group or person could dominate over others, which would, indeed, suggest an unparalleled, natural "justness." However, "civilized" forms of life which arose over the past 10,000 years can hold within them the capacity for equality on a large scale alongside an ability to justly help more humans maintain a secure lifestyle. So it depends what one means by and desires from "justness" in this argument. Perhaps it's more "just" to help more people achieve security and live safer, longer lives than to have purely egalitarian interactions above all else. Conversely, settling into complex civilizations had the negative effects of spreading diseases and increasing sensitivity to environmental changes, among other things. So maybe the justness of expanding survival is overshadowed by a net negative in that regard.

• Supporters of anarchism have, in general, a lot of faith in humans---faith that they will cooperate outside any societal structures that promote order. Supporters of anarcho-primitivism hold faith in humans, too, but require perhaps slightly less of it with their personal strain of hunter-gathering, where bands of humans would be a somewhat social structure that would enable natural, egalitarian cooperation at least within itself.

• Further reading: https://greenpolitics.fandom.com/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism

Economic markets are generally considered to be fair, as within them natural supply and demand is what determines investment, production, and distribution. However, factors such as the inequitable distribution of wealth and environmental degradation can arise from them as well.

• Economic markets are generally considered to provide freedom of choice and a fair rewarding of people. Limited government interference, competition, private ownership, and motivation based on self-interest are parts of the market economy model.

• However, a heightened focus on continual competition can lead to inequality and unemployment. Those without "marketable skills" can be left behind, and large firms can dominate the market unfairly.

• Environmental degradation can also be a result of the economic market model, when companies prioritize profit over environmental protection every time. In the long run, this harms some groups more than others.

Some argue that capping CEO pay may actually end up hurting workers.

• Alex Edmans argues in Harvard Business Review that attempting to mitigate the pay ratio between CEOs and workers can have unintended consequences that may end up hurting workers: CEOs "wishing to improve the ratio may outsource low-paid jobs, hire more part-time than full-time workers, or invest in automation rather than labor." They may also "raise workers’ salaries but slash other benefits," which are also quite important, since "research shows that, after salary reaches a (relatively low) level, workers value nonpecuniary factors more highly, such as on-the-job training, flexible working conditions, and opportunities for advancement. Indeed, a high pay ratio can indicate promotion opportunities, which motivates rather than demotivates workers."

• However, I agree with the excellent point above that capping CEO pay could also more importantly lead to a move away from the exploitation of workers and the environment. If there is a way to both protect workers and the environment and keep the incentives from within the company strong, then that's the best of both worlds. So long as that remains a dream, however, it seems we have to choose between the two.

Further commentary on panpsychism:

• It's possible conscious awareness is something absolutely fundamental to the universe. (It may not be the fundamental basis or force, as it's conceivable there is no one fundamental anything, especially if the concept of "infinity" is meaningful to reality in some way. But so long as it's a fundamental of the universe, the theory and its implications can be a go.) This could be referred to, indeed, as panpsychism, described beautifully well by "mkta" above.

• Interestingly, panpsychism can solve a lot of potentially tricky problems about awareness and the multiplicity of "selves" and "experiences" in time and space we perceive: Why is this experience of "me" happening right here, in this lifetime, and not "over there," in what I from right here perceive to be "your" lifetime? Why, further, am I in this place of my lifetime, and not that place in time? It's certainly possible that these are only questions that arise out of a false tension between the sense of self that springs from physicalism and the self that thinks and feels about itself and about its own thinking and feeling. In which case, there is actually no problem here at all---we just are who and where we are, separate in awareness and experience, no explanation necessary other than that some physical form of the universe is moving and existing how it is, and we are that, no less. So we are this time here, and when it moves on, we, as it, necessarily do, too; and same with being this person versus another---it's just how it quite physically is. (Even if the physical form of the universe is not quite so, and so there still is a problem of accounting for awareness in terms of its separateness---because, for example, us "fully being" the universe might also involve a separate and fundamental strand of awareness itself---we could always imagine that we think we need an explanation for how things are when in reality they can just be without invoking anything extra, possibly ever.)

• However, if awareness is fundamental to the universe in at least some kind of "larger" way than we usually from within each moment in time perceive, then it's possible the answer to these questions of "why is this experience of me happening here and not there, etc." is actually: "You", which is in truth the same fundamental "me feeling", are everywhere at once. In each and every co-existing place in time, "you" simply do not know it, but that super fundamental "me feeling" is quite actually the exact same everywhere. Every moment, in fact, is actually somehow eternal---moments don't fundamentally pass by, because there are no separate "yous" to whom things are happening. In the same way the one fundamental "me" feeling/awareness of the universe is "tricking itself" into believing it is living separate, bounded lives, time itself, in each life, is apparently moving on for each supposedly separate observer, but not in actuality. Perhaps, the theory goes, each "spot" (a life, a moment in a life---even probably both) comes fully loaded with memories intact, in such a way that the "illusion" never shatters: The same awareness is everywhere at once, but continuity in apparently very separate lives is felt because "each location" stores memories appropriately as to make it seem the awareness has only ever been there just now.

• This type of theory, where awareness is absolutely fundamental to the universe, collapses many problems that arise from and about the multiplicity of space and time that we experience. (See above, where it can attempt to answer questions like, why am I feeling this experience now rather than another at a different time?, etc..) Is this an explanation, however, that simply displaces these problems to a new, over-location type of place? That is, does it simply move the problem from one area to what we conceive to be a larger "other" one? Just like we can wonder why the "me feeling" is here rather than where another person is, we could ask still why everything is happening to the fundamental over-consciousness all at once rather than, say, something else (something we haven't thought of yet, and possibly could not possess the capacity to understand). It could be a new area of questioning where the problem nonetheless ever remains: How is the "me feeling" contained in these locations and not others, especially if this "me feeling" is meaningfully separate and in no way ever unified, like we tend to feel it is? It's potentially the same question that will arise at the thought of awareness being the same everywhere: only then we wonder why it's in "all places" instead of actually "insert some larger concept we don't know yet". We could always just stick to the problem of bounded awareness instead, or stay with fundamental separation of awareness as an entirely meaningful concept, so it's hard to perhaps ever fully rationalize a move to a single conscious awareness. (Indeed, it's always possible that awareness can be meaningfully separate and unified at the same time. If there is ever, in all actuality, a point where awareness knows it is both one and separate, or even is just absolutely unified in the same sense we feel unity in our lives, then the problem becomes a bit, if not much, different. Though, perhaps, only at that particular point when it is relative to others, if that doesn't itself invoke just what we may be trying to avoid.)

• Additionally, this type of theory that invokes a sense of eternal oneness and "all at once-ness" does make a lot of sense, but it does require that conceptual framework of unity that, personally, I think we tend to love even when it may be to our detriment: We seem to like when theories are cohesive and "go back to" one fundamental thing, since it can feel very neat and powerfully explanatory all at once. But that may not be how reality is in its totality, if there even is such a thing as "totality," anyhow. It may be a meaningful part of it, but it doesn't have to be the final say, to the extent that what explanatory power it gives us could always, always be rewritten. (I will say it is quite intriguing that this oneness of awareness is actually an attempt at explanation that tries to remind us that we don't need an explanation for anything, since it all just kind of happens and is always "already" happening forever and all we can do is surrender. Could be so. That's a nice path to enlightenment and calmness for many, which is worth a lot, certainly.)

• It is worth noting that Erwin Schrödinger espoused this kind of theory. He believed the "total number of minds in the universe is one." This feels quite intuitively right, in my opinion, although I do wonder if we need to account for the fact that awareness might necessarily have a hard time accounting for itself, so we may not need to invoke the singularity of consciousness to describe and understand the multiplicity of experience that could otherwise just be (even if as also meaningfully part of something larger.)

• In some moments, this way of thinking feels so intuitively right to me it's hard to imagine there could be any other way to explain the "me feeling" of awareness----why it is felt in each person as different and yet the same, unless it really is the same. However, I do wonder if it's still "too neat" of an explanation, in some sense. For instance, we could be meaningfully (meaning truly, truly, not in appearance only) the exact same awareness everywhere, and yet we could also possess the capacity to make decisions for ourselves in a way that cuts off the fundamental nature of sameness of consciousness at its roots.

• Interesting reading (worth looking at the comments of dissent too):
  https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-crazy-but-its-also-most-probably-true?comments=true

Sleeping on your side or your back are considered to be healthier for spinal alignment and overall body relaxation, but stomach sleeping can be okay if it's the position that gets you the best night's sleep.

• Sleeping on your side has benefits for spinal alignment, sleep apnea, overall muscle relaxation, and is always recommended for pregnant women, particularly on the left side, since sleeping on the left prevents pressure on the liver and "facilitates healthy blood flow to the fetus, uterus, kidneys, and heart." It is estimated that more than 60% of people sleep on their sides, with the figure increasing as we advance through adulthood due possibly to decreased flexibility of the spine.

• Sleeping on your back has similar benefits for spinal alignment, and is even better for neck pain than side sleeping. It is not good for sleep apnea, however, as it can allow the airway to collapse more easily. People who suffer from acid reflux or similar issues may wish to avoid sleeping on their back as well, as it can exacerbate these conditions.

• Stomach sleeping has the worst reputation, as it causes spinal misalignment and puts pressure on the back and spine. However, it can aid in snoring/sleep apnea problems (and is probably the best position for those who suffer these). Since the body has to work more against gravity to breathe in this position, it may theoretically cause a less "restful sleep", which is why it makes some sense that it is estimated that overall we only spend 10% of our time asleep on our stomachs.

• Personally, I'm a longtime stomach sleeper. I'm not able to fall asleep in any other position; I can't get comfortable without the feeling of fully sinking into the bed. I've never seen myself at night, so I don't know how long I stay on my stomach for, but I do know I almost always wake up on my back--- which makes sense with the hypothesis that the stomach is not the most restful position, if my body moves to "correct" it at some point during the night.

• If stomach sleeping is the only way you can sleep, then it's what's best for you. Putting a pillow under your body (your pelvis, specifically) and refraining from using one for your head can promote proper spinal alignment for this position, anyway.

Enlightenment ideals such as freedom and the pursuit of rigorous truth and happiness were major players in the French Revolution.

• The Enlightenment took place starting in western Europe in the mid-1600s through to the late 18th century. The scientific method at large draws some of its most substantial roots from this period of time, when new ideas and freer ways of life were exploding alongside a more rigorous approach to "truth". The nature of humanity and human society in general were also being explored more fully through secular avenues, which led to a desire for a set-up that honored equal human rights rather than, for instance, God-appointed leaders.

• Some think that drastic weather and poor harvests in the years leading up to the French Revolution were a major cause of the Revolution. This seems true, for sure, but I personally might still think the largest factors in spurring the Revolution were ideas that came along with The Enlightenment: Total freedom and the chance for societal a societal shift to humanistic pursuits of happiness, truth, and freely established methods for meaning-making. These ideals would have, in my opinion, been able to spur more of a desire for long-lasting action towards societal change.

If the South seceded from the Union, there would be so much animosity on both sides that there could be serious problems.

• Dividing the US into two countries based on what would for the most part be an attempt to protect and propagate a singular idea of "Southern values" would, in my opinion, not be the greatest thing to do.

• Some people in the South have in recent years wanted to secede so that they are able to have more freedom with their governance. Texas has been considered for the past few years the most likely to secede. Part of the reason some Texans desire secession is in order to uphold core beliefs they believe are no longer being upheld---such as completely free speech, the right to bear arms, and even abortion bans.

• This, however, might be a bit too strong of a focus on the idea of a singular Southern identity, which in reality doesn't truly, or at least certainly doesn't have to, exist.

• Additionally, there would likely be a border issue: People wanting to move to the other country when others in that country may have tons of animosity towards them.

• That could spell disaster.

• Further reading:
  https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/21/secession-donald-trump-449348

Ultimately, there may be no such thing as objectively "inalienable rights", but subjectively, there's probably very good reason to have a few.

• Inalienable rights in the strongest possible sense of the term don't necessarily exist, but for all intents and purposes, I think there are some rights that should very well come with the nature of being in existence, including those mentioned above like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

• There is one inalienable right in particular that I could personally envision standing the test of basically all time and context:

• The right to life (to not be harmed or killed purposefully)

• That, to me, seems like one right that might come the closest to being something most people would desire to be an objectively, absolutely inalienable right.

Moral properties may be looked at from a multitude of lenses, some of which could be considered more "naturally occurring" than others.

• Robert M. Sapolsky's book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst examines each of our actions from a different standpoint in time. In this light, moral properties are wrapped up in the ways we act: Kindness, honesty, lying, compassion, killing, refraining, etc. The "best" and "worst" of these moral actions acquire their feeling of, to us, being "best" or "worst" (i.e., their moral properties) in both ways natural or unnatural, depending.

• When a behavior occurs, it can be analyzed first within the most recent minutes and seconds leading up to it: How we respond to immediate stimuli. This can include neurobiological, hormonal, and chemical causes.

• The behavior can also be analyzed from more zoomed out perspectives: A chain of causes going all the way back to our evolutionary roots. The causes here can relate to environmental and historical factors, as well as genetic factors.

• Historical and cultural factors lend a less "naturally occurring" air to moral property selection. Genetic and environmental factors that influence our behaviors from across a long line of causes extending back to our distant past, along with neurobiological, hormonal, and chemical causes in the moment of and moments leading up to the occurrence of an action, can be more "naturally occurring"---though even in these "natural" cases of moral property selection, the hormonal, neurobiological, chemical, etc. causes of the proximate moment of an action are causes that could be considered less "natural" cases of moral property selection: If we allow for free will of choice to exist, then the moments in which we deliberate on an action will have some component of unnaturally-selected moral creation to them, even if our genetics and hormones, etc. are narrowing the pool of choices from which that freeness of will can select.

• (That is, our moral properties will in the case of enough free will be chosen less naturally and with less constraint from the host of "natural" genetic, hormonal, chemical, etc. causes. These natural causes will still narrow down the range of choices we have to choose from in a moment of moral action, but we may have some control over our choice among those naturally selected options, making moral properties still somewhat unnatural, if we have more of a say over their creation and initiation into the world).

Some believe having privatized railways in the UK is best for efficiency, morale, and safety in running the lines.

• "The issue is not profit but structure. Individual lines of route must be separately managed and in complete control of their fixed and running assets. That is the key to efficiency and corporate morale," writes Simon Jenkins for The Guardian.

• British journalist Christian Wolmar said he thinks that the break-up is worse than the privatization: "Every railway man I've ever talked to will privately admit that it's no way to run a railway." Part of the reason is that government involvement can be a slippery slope to government ownership.

• Overall, some believe that the privatization of railways in the UK has functioned quite well: passenger numbers, fares, public subsidy, and overall safety of the railways have been considered some of the greatest benefits of maintaining the privatization.

I tend to lean heavily towards agnosticism, but sometimes I wonder if we aren't the higher power, ourselves.

• I think it's unlikely we could literally ever be certain when it comes to anything like this, so I have to start by saying that. The opinion I'm writing here is nothing I ever inhabit as a belief for longer than a certain period of time :D But it's just one possible option:

• Some people subscribe to the notion that consciousness is absolutely fundamental to the universe, with the separate locales in which it appears to occur separately being experienced one at a time (even though, looked at from a certain perspective, it is all happening "at once".)

• The notion makes available the possibility that consciousness is some kind of higher power itself - one that is fundamental, and one that has created itself with the activity of being "split up" in order to experience many bounded lives.

• There are countless other strains of ideas where our consciousness itself is the higher power. (See any ideas involving the Oneness of the universe, any type of God being each of us individually, etc.)

• Nonetheless, this particular notion is a popular Eastern notion. Alan Watts was a famous proponent of it in the West.

• Further reading: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/what-would-happen-if-everyone-truly-believed-everything-is-one/

Canada, to me, is at least an ideal country based on certain social, economic, and environmental factors.

• Canada consistently ranks in the top most peaceful countries in the world, according to the Global Peace Index.

• Health care is considered a fundamental right in Canada. Canada's universal health-care system ensures everyone has access to health care, but private health care also exists, which makes it the best of both worlds.

• Canada keeps to itself in world affairs, but is also willing to lend a hand---a perfect combination, in my opinion. Peace is held above all in Canada, and the draw to war seems chiefly for the maintenance of alliances rather than any ideological factors. Maintaining alliances for the purpose of being helpful but not forcing yourself on others seems admirable to me, even on a personal level; so, then, at the global level, it's equally (if not even more) important. It seems like Canada, on average, achieves both:

• The Canadian "attitude" is precious and, to me, very admirable. Of course it's not across the board, but research does suggest that as a whole Canadians are more pro-social than people in many other places due to emphasis on groups and community rather than total individualism. (Canada could be considered individualistic on a personal level, but more collectivist on the whole; come to think of it, maybe this is one of the best ways of social organization?) The Canadian tendency to be nice and peaceable, insofar as it holds up, is such a beautiful thing, which I think the world could benefit from more of!

• Immigration attitudes and economic opportunity fare fairly well in Canada. Canada has a Multiculturalism Policy.

• Canada is a world leader in sustainability. Canada's oil and natural gas industry does produce approximately 0.3% of overall global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making its environmental footprint potentially contentious. Hopefully, though, policies and actions can correct the matter in order to benefit the globe.

• Canada's landscape is quite varied and full of national parks and land that is wide open for vast wilderness and diverse wildlife.

• Treatment of First Nations people seems perhaps somewhat better in Canada than in the United States, at least historically, though it's still not necessarily the best, especially when it comes to modern politics:

• "While at first glance the relationship between the Canadian government and First Nations people may appear progressive, conciliatory, and apologetic, these symbolic gestures actually belie a federal reluctance to extend political sovereignty to all First Nations. And while Native Americans are indeed much less visible in the U.S. political landscape, the U.S. government’s recognition of indigenous statehood has laid the foundation for greater political empowerment, socioeconomic growth, and cultural revitalization. In each of these areas, the Canadian government’s denial of universal political sovereignty hinders the well-being of First Nations peoples," writes Selena Zhao for the Harvard Political Review.

• So there is, of course, always improvement to be had. But overall, I can get behind an argument for Canada being if not the, then at least an ideal country.

Good points- This is exactly why I say it is an ideal country, not the, since anything actually ideal likely can't (at least easily) exist.

A "high body count" does not have to mean low self-worth, absolutely, and quite often does not; it can, though, occasionally be an indication that a person has low self-worth in areas other than sex, causing them to derive what they lack in good feeling in other domains from their active sex lives.

• Of course, just because someone has a very active sex life with many people does not mean that they lack self-worth feelings in other areas of life. In fact, as shown above, it can be the opposite. So we almost certainly shouldn't be attached to the idea of "usually" in this opinion.

• But, interestingly, I think that there are definitely cases where people derive their self-worth from sleeping with lots of different people. The quest to find new people to have sex with (and/or connect with in varying degrees, depending on the person and what they want at that time) is a quest that can quell feelings of unworthiness in other aspects of life. It can provide a framework by which to illuminate oneself, a means to building oneself up when other avenues feel like they are failing. When or if ever the continual sex with different people comes to a slow or a standstill, there will often be another area that takes over to fill the void, showcasing how this might be a real process that some people who struggle to mete out their self-worth can get stuck in.

• This may just be for people who tend to be obsessive types, by which I mean (and this is no fault, of course, just a particular way of being) that they tend to have one avenue at a time from which to derive their self-worth. Otherwise, they may not have been spurred to make up for any lack of self-worth in some way, since there would have been multiple avenues at once from which they might derive their self-worth in a way that is, truly, more spread across time and type (work, athletic or artistic feats, actions in the world, etc.).

• None of this is meant to be a negative thing; it's only "bad" insofar as it negatively affects the person who may or may not feel stuck in a search for self-worth - a search which sometimes takes the form of sex with many different people.

Sometimes thinking on this is divided into two camps: Biological causes of crime and societal causes of crime.

• Strain theory, first developed by sociologist Émile Durkheim, posits that the social structures and cultural values of society put pressure on people to commit crime. Increasing disparities between the rich and the poor, contemporary capitalism that emphasizes material success, and the demolition of the welfare state are a few examples. Any kind of strain theory acknowledges that only a small portion of all possible strained individuals are likely to engage in crime.

• Biological causes of antisocial/criminal behavior are posited to occur in neurobiological mechanisms that spur the actions of crime. These include:

• Blunted autonomic functioning, where the body isn't aroused as easily in such things as heart rate and sweating

• "Failure to cognitively associate physiology responses with emotional states," which can lead to psychopathy as it can impair emotional intelligence

• Structural impairments in the prefrontal cortex, which controls higher-level thinking activities such as impulse control, moral reasoning, and decision making

• Amygdala maldevelopment, which can lead to an inability to recognize distress cues from others

• Higher striatum volumes, which can cause a rewarding mechanism for antisocial behavior

• Gene and environment interactions, which are mentioned here.

• Where these two camps of crime causation merge is interesting and makes cases messier to explain. If someone is predisposed to criminal activity due to the particular structural functioning of their brain and neurobiological responses, but they are introduced to a society in which there is never any strain upon them to live up to some pressure of cultural values, will they still commit crimes? Perhaps sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Yes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but perhaps this is only due to our local standards of "extraordinary".

• The more extraordinary the claim, the greater the burden of proof. However, some argue that because Sagan never defined what "extraordinary" means, people have used the decree to discount immediately any idea that doesn't fit with current orthodoxy. In fact, there are plenty of novel ideas which would still require tons of proof but which, under Sagan's inadvertent orthodoxy, might unfortunately be seen as something that no evidence could ever suffice to fully prove. See examples below.

• Being that I personally think the burden of proof is always pretty much impossible to ever truly satisfy, I think that novel ideas about the world can be accepted with slightly less evidence than perhaps a misconstrued conception of this quote would call for. This is perhaps only for those ideas at the extreme ends of the spectrum, however, and at that point (think, e.g., theories of the multiverse) we may already be in unfalsifiable territory anyhow. The larger point, then, is that these ideas may read to us as being encased in impenetrable, unfalsifiable territory for now, but we may simply be unable to imagine ways in which our own imagination might evolve into something else and thereby understand or even interact with phenomenon differently. At some point, these ideas might be falsifiable (or something else we don't yet understand!), and we may miss possible ways forward now by eschewing them altogether.

• An example of an idea that seems unfalsifiable for now but which, should we start to disregard our perhaps somewhat arbitrarily drawn determination of its in fact being unfalsifiable, may have vaguely testable ways forward instead:

  • "Multiverse immortality means that death – from the observer’s point of view – is impossible. In other words, for any state of any observer with time-stamp t0, there is a possible next state t0+1, and, as everything possible exists, such an observer exists. Thus, a last moment of experience is impossible, and death – as the cessation of the process of experiencing – is impossible," writes Alexey Turchin in the Journal of Evolution and Technology on the practical implications of quantum immortality.

• Of course, there are all sorts of things going on here; for example, we are banking on the notion of "all things being possible" and "all those possible things" being in existence in some manner.

• However, an extraordinary claim like this would be something that might be written off arbitrarily by following the clipped interpretation of Sagan's quote, since doing that leaves us imagining that the concepts of "everything" and "total possibilities" we use within our theories are ultimately unbroachable for measurement or total understanding. They may be; they may not be. We might dash our chances of finding out if we put the burden of proof too high. We may, that is, never reach that larger point of expanded understanding that could come from different forms of, say, quantum technology that enable us to test some of these multiverse concepts. If our descendants do discover scientific avenues like this, it's quite possible they would forget to return to ideas of the multiverse that we have formulated in this most recent era, instead creating newer ideas about such things as the multiplicity of reality that seem to them still quite hopelessly unbroachable when, in truth, they could then be in a position to actually understand some of our ideas from now against their evidence rather than only those newer sets of ideas they formed in its face. Perhaps they will not forget about our ideas if we keep our ideas strong and open and aim to not pass them down with the mark of being completely and irrevocably falsifiable.

• As a peripheral note, a way of testing quantum immortality that does not involve uncertainty from the perspective of the observer who wants to know the answer to the question has not yet been devised in any mainstream way, but it's interesting to be on the lookout for anything, since I believe personally that there must be some way in which it is not impossible, even if that involves newer forms of experience that, say, technological innovation could bring.

• A few other examples of relatively novel ideas that don't have to be considered extraordinary cases in need of extremely extraordinary evidence:

• There may be no such thing as the concept of "one"/singular points

• There may be no such thing as a discrete location in time or space

• Consciousness may be nonlocal/entangled

• Further reading (in which, funnily, people use evidence itself to try to figure out whether evidence is something we need a lot of in extraordinary cases):
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114207/

• Probing the limits of the quantum world:
  https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-big-can-the-quantum-world-be-physicists-probe-the-limits-20210818/

Have added a few :-)

It's a strong claim, but it does seem unfair for some people to benefit so much from something they had nothing to do with, especially at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

• In what I sometimes think of as a completely ideal world of post-scarcity, it would be immoral for anyone to have more than anyone else. I would love if it were possible for everyone to have as fair a shot as possible at meeting and then exceeding their needs and desires, relative to their circumstances.

• I don't think it's radically, morally wrong for inheritance to be unequal unless we go to the extremes - where people who need it desperately don't inherit anything and people who don't need it at all inherit an extremely excessive amount. At these extreme ends, I think I could get behind the argument that it's morally wrong.

• When it comes down to it, I'm really torn on this opinion, because while I do think it is unfair for some people to benefit so greatly from their inheritance, I think it's just a byproduct of our way of life that isn't the worst thing in the world if it isn't playing out at the extreme ends of the spectrum. This may not be the most valid method of reasoning, of course, so I'm certainly open to changing my mind, even completely - and, in fact, remain wavering on the fence for now.

Maybe mostly just the (utopian but sometimes not even utopian) vision of a post-scarcity world?

That's such a good question---I'm not sure; maybe the fair shot would be first and foremost at meeting needs (so a level playing field there), and then secondly a fair shot at exceeding those needs to each person's satisfaction (their desires beyond the things they need to survive)?

• Space missions have determined that conditions on Mars were hospitable for life for at least some periods during its history, but there has never been direct proof of life existing there.

• Any kind of life on Mars would be microbial in nature. It's possible that microbial life exists there today under the planet's ice caps or in subsurface lakes.

• NASA's Perseverance rover and its helicopter companion, Ingenuity, are currently looking for signs of ancient life on Mars - scouting out life immortalized in microscopic fossils, for instance.

• Interestingly, humans could have contaminated Mars with our own microbes that hitched a ride from Earth. It's likely any microbes that travelled like this would be vastly different to the forms in which they left our home planet, however. The pressures of the travel would have caused them to evolve.

Further reading:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/im-convinced-we-found-evidence-of-life-on-mars-in-the-1970s/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210510-could-the-perseverance-rover-have-carried-life-to-mars

In terms of nuclear warfare, it makes some sense to be prepared for war in order to actually prevent it. Otherwise, I personally think if you want peace, prepare for peace.

• If we take the given that nuclear weapons, once introduced, are (at least for the time being) unable to be fully taken back from our world, there is the argument of nuclear deterrence that I do sort of agree with: Maintaining an arsenal of nukes to keep live the threat of retaliation against any potential attack is a method for maintaining peace on a global scale.

• Otherwise, I feel much more deeply that in the long run, aiming for peace through a quiet strength of compassion is much better than being a strong, forceful presence that pre-emptively defends itself against war by preparing for it or eventually undertaking it without a second thought. It may be necessary right now to defend against war pre-emptively and like this, but eventually, in the long run, I think it's quite possible we won't need to assume the worst of actors on the global stage. In which case, we can find that peace is the greatest preparer of itself.

It would be nice to eventually stop breeding pugs altogether, knowing how unhealthy their features can be.

• Pugs are bred for their "squashed faces", among other things. But their squashed faces can cause health problems such as difficulty breathing and inability to cool down.

• Ultimately, I think it makes a lot of sense to discontinue the selection for specific but potentially harmful features which we do just because they're aesthetically more pleasing/cuter to our eyes. It seems like it would be easy enough to make a commitment to the cessation of purposefully selecting for these harmful features.

Value investing has been shown to be better than growth investing over the long term, though it very much always depends on the conditions of the market and the goals of the investor.

• Growth stocks are stocks that are "expected to grow sales and earnings at a faster rate than the market average." Investors can typically expect larger pay-offs in the future.

• Value stocks are stocks that look to be trading for less than their book value. Investors who seek these out are hoping to benefit from underappreciated investment avenues.

• Studies have indicated that value stocks seem to outperform growth stocks over a long timeframe (multi-year periods.)

• Overall, however, there seems to be agreement that it all depends on the context of the investment:

• "For example, value stocks tend to outperform during bear markets and economic recessions, while growth stocks tend to excel during bull markets or periods of economic expansion. This factor should, therefore, be taken into account by shorter-term investors or those seeking to time the markets," writes Mark P. Cussen for Investopedia.

All children should probably learn to have respect for authority within reason.

• Having respect for authority is important for the continued functioning of our current social structures.

• Too much respect for authority can be dangerous if authority turns out to be less than desirable.

• Especially for marginalized people who have had problems with authority, it makes sense to be wary and cautious. (Or even outright enraged, as the case has been in recent history.)

• Strictly focusing on the broader lens of this question, I think that authority should be respected within reason. I think it's important to instill in children the ability to think critically for themselves while respecting authoritative structures as long as they are reputable and warranted.

• Of course it's super hard to find that fine line, which is the difficult part. But ultimately teaching children to respect authority within reason seems like it ensures the safety and continued existence of any forms of peaceable cohabitation we have going without having to give way to dangerous over-policing and things like that in the long-run.

I think there will be a relatively large number of people who fall in love with robots in the future, but there are phenomenological obstacles to robot-human love that it's not totally clear we can ever fully overcome.

• Forming a relationship with a robot is easier than one might imagine: Humans can empathize with robots, studies have shown. Certain parts of the empathetic processes are weaker with humans to robots than with humans to other humans, but if there's any empathy there at all, I think there's then potential for the feelings to bleed out into full-blown love more swiftly and smoothly than we may think.

• This is especially the case if, in the future, people are lonely, and truly do only have their robots to keep them company. A little bit of empathy might cede to love, fulfilling that need for the person. Whether other vital elements will necessarily be there for love to bloom is of course contentious, but I think that love can arise in even the "barest" of situations---perhaps even especially so! As well, it's certainly possible that relationships with robots could feel even deeper precisely due to whatever it is they may lack in comparison to other human beings. So "bare" may actually prove to be the wrong word.

• However, I do think the other side to this is important: Phenomenologically, experiences of love are expected to rise from a source of subjectivity that can willingly choose to commit to the other. Robots that lack an inner sentient life (or have one we don't understand to be the same as ours, such as any more "transcendent" artificial intelligences) are not therefore anticipated to inspire the same type of love as between humans. I still think a fairly strong love could arise despite this, but nonetheless it does raise some limits over how attached we can get to something we don't feel that sense of "free otherness" within.

• In terms of sex robots, I'd maybe bet that those may turn even more popular, especially as rates of coupling go down.

Especially if people don't enjoy the work they're doing, working your whole life doesn't seem fair.

• There are plenty of people who believe this life is all we get. Spending it working without time for anything else doesn't seem to me like the fairest thing ever, considering how little time there is for each of us even if we're lucky and how much, in my opinion, every conscious being truly, truly deserves to be as happy as they can be.

• The economic structures of the world support retirement in some places, but many people need to work their entire lives to survive. And even if they can eventually retire, their best and most healthful years, sadly, are gone. Added to that is great sorrow if they didn't even feel meaning (or whatever it was they were aiming for in their lives) while in that job or career.

• A change in living structures would probably be the only way I can think of right now to increase the possibilities for less work. The problem is trying to come up with a system that still meets our needs while achieving this. It may be possible, but it's hard to imagine anything could ever be foolproof.

• If robots and/or artificial intelligences do take over more and more jobs, perhaps there will be people who are able to work different jobs for a shorter amount of time, thereby enabling them to increase their leisure/retirement time.

• Breakdancing will be an Olympic sport starting in 2024.

• Breakdancing originated in Black and Latinx communities in the Bronx, New York in the 1970s.

• Breakdancing is incredibly complex in its movements and takes major skill to execute. Acrobatics are part of the sport, which is already intense and expressive to boot.

• Some people are glad for the inclusion in the Olympics; others are afraid that the culture of breakdancing will be made into something more high-brow than its natural state/where it came from.

• If the traditional breakdancing forms are co-opted by inclusion in Olympic competition, I could see arguing to refrain from making it a part of the games. Especially if judges focus only on the difficulty of the moves for scoring, instead of accounting for originality and creativity and expression in the movements.

• Gymnastics scoring incorporates its own elements of presentation and style, which might serve as a template for the breakdancing competition. Whether this mindful scoring is enough for the maintenance of the spirit of the sport---and whether, if it isn't, it's still okay to include in the Olympics as, then, just one version of a richer sport that can remain independent in other ways beyond the Olympics---is something time will have to tell.

Married couples who remain faithful probably consider their chastity virtuous and important.

• Chastity looks different depending on one's conditions of life when committing to it. It could mean abstaining from pre-marital sex, or it could mean a vow of total celibacy. But it can also mean staying faithful inside of a marriage - no extramarital affairs.

• I think it's totally possible for open relationships and/or marriages to work. Indeed, in some cases, it may be necessary - perhaps for strengthening a bond between people who are otherwise struggling to fit into the conventional structures of marriage.

• But I do imagine that for people who feel maintaining a faithful connection to a singular person to be their particular way of keeping a feeling of specialness, the concept and practice of chastity (faith inside the marriage) would take on a status of virtue and importance.

Ignorance seems to definitely promote bliss where extended knowledge would otherwise inhibit it. Buddhism might seem to suggest the opposite in its call for lifting ignorance to achieve bliss, but I think a slight problem with this argument is that 1) it's not really bliss in its normal sense that Buddhism aims for, and 2) living in only the current moment is a main goal of that lifting of ignorance, which resulting mindset is actually a state of ignorance itself that, ideally, promotes bliss greatly.

• I do really think ignorance is bliss in general, especially given the research Turi demonstrated above. I can think of all sorts of scenarios where having more knowledge of something can increase quite non-blissful states: awareness of death, awareness, really, of larger states of the universe that could harm oneself, awareness of any kind of knowledge of anything other than the moment. Having these types of awareness can increase anxiety and depression and a whole host of negative mental states.

• On the surface, Buddhist philosophy may seem to suggest that achieving bliss is all about ridding oneself of their ignorance---seeing the true way of things in order to establish an existence beyond suffering. Escaping the cycle of suffering is vital to achieving bliss, but bliss in Buddhism is more about (and more derived from) suspending connection to any thoughts or feelings, bliss included.

• Additionally, escaping the cycle of suffering in a Buddhist manner is, as just mentioned, all about denying a connection to any and every fleeting emotion and thought. This, typically, is something that, on one level, allows people to live moment to moment more than anything (and, on an extreme level, actually takes people out of what Buddhism considers the illusory self and into a suspended state of true "nothingness".) I'd argue that this moment-to-moment living, to whatever level and extent it happens, is something that is ultimately a return to a state of blissful ignorance.

• Ideally, one will escape the cycle of suffering once their ignorance of the truth of the temporariness of everything is accounted and then corrected for, but I think that escape into a new state could very well be considered a return to the blissful ignorance of being unaware of (or at least functionally unconcerned with) anything other than immediate experience or, at the farther levels of detachment, experience at all. So I think ignorance could still be considered bliss, even in a Buddhism that seeks initially and/or at its endpoint to rid one of it.

Although the process is different for everyone, it's possible the majority of people still go through most or all of the stages of grief at some point after a loss, even if it seems they have skipped one or more altogether, and even if, of course, the timeframes for which they go through these stages are infinitely variable case to case.

• Famously, there are 5 stages of grief, first described by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Some schools of thought add 2 more in there, to make it: Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression, and acceptance.

• Regardless as to whether there are 5 or 7, I think the interesting debate here is whether, as a generality, the majority of people indeed do go through these stages of grief.

• There may be cases where some people never go through one or some of the stages. The question might then be whether they aren't, in fact, still going through them, just in some kind of undetectable way.

• Of course, the stages can and do happen in any order, and I'll admit it appears as though not everyone will go through every single one of them.

• However, there is the argument that, even if people have radically different timeframes for and experiences with grief, they still go through the stages at some point and in some way after a loss, even if it's many years later or even if it's so diluted or transfigured as to seem like something else entirely.

• For example, a loss I personally experienced followed most of the stages, though a few of them were prolonged and I jumped back and forth between many of them: First shock/denial that seemed more like sadness/depression, but then truer depression and acceptance followed by anger, guilt, and bargaining later. Then I cycled back through them.

• Only in retrospect did I realize that what I had conceived of as acceptance was actually more just an ignoring of the fact. When I was cycling back through all the stages again, it seemed then like the acceptance had magically disappeared from my narrative, leaving me stranded yet again outside of that important result of the process.

• However, I think, with further introspection, the acceptance had still been there, it had just morphed into other things. (In my case it was a type of acceptance that drew on and looked towards abstract states of mind as, at least in part, a viable coping method. Eventually a fuller acceptance pulled through after having hidden away inside of that.)

• I think the same morphing can happen with all the other stages, too, but to an extent that it's still possible to identify them as those stages even when they're constantly being displaced and coming up in random places like a game of sliding in and out of wormholes through time.

• There is also the question of potentially "abnormal" psychological states such as psychopathy. Do people who display psychopathic tendencies experience grief in all the messy but in my opinion still categorically nameable ways as discussed above? For some people with psychopathic traits, a deep trauma might have the effect of bringing out emotions that were otherwise very repressed. For yet others, they may never be affected by a loss in such a way as to go through any or most of the stages of grief, due to their particular ways of feeling.

We cannot know anything with absolute certainty; maybe even the famous "I think, therefore I am" could be uncertain in some ways, too.

• René Descartes famously said "I think, therefore I am," by which he meant to expound the notion that absolutely everything in the world could be uncertain, yet one can still be certain of one thing: That they are thinking/experiencing the something of this moment. I.e.: Whatever experience one is having in the current moment, to whatever extent, is the sole point of pure certainty; the thinker's existence in each particular moment they feel is the only thing of which one can truly be certain. Anything beyond that---the validity of the external world, the content of the external world, the existence of others---has to be based on some kind of faith.

• I sometimes wonder if even this could be doubted just a slight bit. If "I think, therefore I am" means my existence is at the very least whatever the thinking is, it covers everything imaginable; there's no need to know what I am, only that I am. But this knowing that I am---being (somehow, but ultimately literally just being) the flicker of experience at each moment whose defining characteristic is the only certainty for each current time---requires something to understand itself, itself, because of just that: It has a defining characteristic. What I mean:

• There is some kind of existence for us in the fact that we feel something; that feeling might be "all" "we" "are" but we know it's a state of something nonetheless. To me, that could be a small leap beyond: That second part of us knowing that there's a state of somethingness to the idea of us feeling something. This second part seems to require a secondary, super- proposition we, conceivably, almost shouldn't have: Knowing that the "all that we are" is a state of something. I could imagine a "purer" world in which we just were, without having that element of feeling that, or sometimes what, we are.

• Of course, this is precisely what Descartes meant to cover: Any of this "imagining a purer world where, etc." is irrelevant to the singular moment of feeling and thinking that one is somehow existing as or deriving their existence from; one literally just has/is whatever that is, in whatever that way might possibly be, no matter what. I'm only wondering here whether there isn't already an "extra" type of being implicit in this being each time we "are" it. Us knowing and feeling this one certain experience of thinking might already have or require all kinds of extra feelings and thoughts about it to enable it to, for instance, know that it is just a thought or feeling, when it feels that it is that state of "being a state of a thought or feeling in that moment" in that moment. Perhaps your feeling of the moment cannot be an isolated occurrence precisely because you feeling it automatically gives you context to layered assumptions, even about the very premise itself. (Many apologies for the obscurity here---it can get quite difficult for me to narrow in on things that sometimes elude language.)

• This, then, might mean we can have certain premises we just know---that we come built in knowing, in a sense. Because we are entangled with all this in a way that enables us to even have the thoughts of "I think, therefore I am," there might necessarily have to be something else we know beyond it for it to have ever gotten "it, its own self" out there in such conceptions as "our being that follows from just what we feel in the moment is a something instead of not being a thing at all," if that makes sense.

• Or this may ultimately be subsumed within and for each person's singular experience. Ultimately, I do think the famous phrase stands its ground no matter what, so I have to remain mixed here. I can't go all the way to doubt the one certainty of existence as put forth by Descartes, because ultimately it is so excellent and watertight, but I do wonder if it itself can't be questioned in some small way at its foundation.

Super great points. I feel similarly. I've always sort of had the feeling that even if somehow what we are perceiving is some kind of illusion, it's still some kind of reality. We don't have to necessarily put too much stock in any sort of "ultimate reality"; for all we know, that doesn't exist. As well, for all we know, each subjective, relative form/experience of reality could be as real as or realer than any of the others (equal to each other or perhaps somehow more defined than any potential ultimate reality). So it seems quite acceptable that we embrace and live fully within our senses. And I love your super fascinating point about how we could theoretically discover something different about our spatiotemporal fundamentals by following extra forms of doubt, and I also agree very much that it's fine if that happens but it's also fine if it doesn't too, given that our perceptions are a very real and valid world unto themselves no matter how they fit into any potential larger structures of reality.

It's not known if the Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia, but many people believe it rests in a chapel in the northern part of the country.

• The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in northern Ethiopia is reputed to hold the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred relic of the Israelites that the Book of Exodus describes as containing two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them.

• "The ark is believed by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians to have been brought to Aksum by Menelik, the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon of Israel, after Jerusalem was sacked in 586/587BC and Solomon’s temple destroyed. It has since been guarded by a succession of monks who are forbidden until death to leave the church grounds," Harriet Sherwood writes.

• Another theory is that the "Ark was hidden in a warren of passages beneath the First Temple in Jerusalem before the Babylonians destroyed it in 586 B.C.".

• Archaeologists are skeptical the ark can ever be found.

It's possible that war is not humanity's natural state.

• R. Brian Ferguson from Rutgers University argues that collective killing as an output of cultural circumstances may only have emerged recently in human history---within the last 12,000 years.

• People may kill on a personal level because of innate, violent tendencies, but the action on a collective scale, the argument goes, is likely related to cultural conditions rather than any inborn traits of our species.

• "The preconditions that make war more likely include a shift to a more sedentary existence, a growing regional population, a concentration of valuable resources such as livestock, increasing social complexity and hierarchy, trade in high-value goods, and the establishment of group boundaries and collective identities," Ferguson writes.

• As Laura well points out, if we want to include societal and cultural conditions within the realm of anything natural about our species, then war may still be our natural state. Some may wish to do this, arguing that culture and society are also part of our natural makeup, perhaps even in the same way genes are. Including cultural conditions would just demand we call on a more extensive form of causation, a form that exists beyond our bodies in a way that is no less related to "us" than other aspects of ourselves we think about.

• Overall, I think war could be considered unnatural, though, if we think about how hard it is to consider something natural, anyway. I say this perhaps only because I'm swayed by Ferguson's argument in spite of finding it difficult to pin down factors, both internal and external, related to "naturalness" in the course of human existence.

Liberalism, insofar as it dispenses with war, probably does make the world more peaceful.

• Liberalism tends to invoke international institutions as a means for mitigating illiberalism's restrictive effects on interstate cooperation.

• More interstate cooperation means less war, generally.

• However, quintessentially liberal states may be more likely to go to war with non-liberal states, which could mean liberalism as a tenet to be followed might prove the opposite of its intentions.

• Liberalism, interestingly, sees some hope for even states of "anarchy". As long as there remains the possibility for states to seek common ground and form alliances to deal with world powers, true world peace is theoretically still quite attainable.

• Liberalism seems to be capable of encompassing as well as accommodating fairly nicely a very wide range of possible states of the world.

• It makes some sense, then, to assign greater peace to furthered senses and actions of liberalism.

I don't personally like to sacrifice literal lives for a few moments of culinary satisfaction, but it doesn't mean you don't care at all for animals if you eat them, especially given the larger systems of food and belief we are entrenched in.

• You can definitely still care about animals and eat meat or meat products, especially if that's actually all you have to survive. I agree that the opinion is a strong statement, and I love Jen's point about humans being animals, too.

• However, if I interpret this opinion a little less strongly, and not think so much about "pretending to care" about animals (which wording is kind of extreme), I do personally agree a bit with it. If, instead, we focus on the notion of eating animals generally as a habit, a few things seem to emerge:

• Eating meat is and has been a natural part of our diets for just about ever, and it's also a part of our food system. People eat meat, in large part, because it's the way things continue to work around us in our systems of food and even beliefs.

• But I do think these systems of meat consumption could change, though. If eating meat became a less popular thing to do, I think large-scale beliefs we hold about the naturalness and necessity of the act could start to shift. And we live in a world now where we don't have to eat meat at all, and we will still make it along just fine. In fact, I think it would be incredibly good to start building a world that can sustain itself without meat products anyway.

• I could also get behind the notion of a fundamental shift in human morality---one that enables us to dispense with our "naturalistic" tendencies, such as eating meat. I think this very well could happen (even more than it already is) at some point, too.

• Additionally, I care very deeply about animals and their rights to life, especially when held against our own own current capacities to not eat meat. Eating meat and realizing that I am in a lot of ways choosing my own culinary satisfaction over their literal lives is something I don't really ever want to do and try very hard to avoid. I would, though, never more than perhaps just very superficially judge anyone for eating meat, or say that non-vegans or non-vegetarians could only pretend to care about animals if they still eat them, because they very well could care about them, and quite often do. It's a lot down to the food systems, again, that we live within, or things like that, so it's not my place to judge.

• But I personally can't totally stomach the notion of literally taking an animal's life just so that I could eat meat. (Even if it were the most delicious thing in the world to me---meat happens to not be, for me, but even if it were I'd like to think I still wouldn't want to sacrifice an animal's life just for me to engage in a few moments of pleasure.)

• Again, though, this is just personal, and I don't have anything against anyone who doesn't feel this strongly about eating animals. Not only is it the system we live in, but it's also a personal choice, and it is a natural part of our makeup as animals, at least for now.

IF it's a case where hospitals have to choose between someone who is critical but vaccinated and someone who is critical but unvaccinated, I could see prioritizing the one who was vaccinated. Likewise, if there are any critical cases of, e.g., strokes or heart attacks against unvaccinated critical COVID-19 patients, and beds are full, it might make sense to prioritize the largely more unpreventable/unanticipated heart attack or stroke cases.

• Since there is a method for preventing serious COVID-19 complications, I think it could be acceptable in the above types of cases to prioritize those who took that measure.

• I do understand, however, that if people have real fear over the vaccine, especially given the social history for some groups, it can get difficult, and it makes me so sad to think of them having to be turned away in any cases I mentioned. So I really feel quite mixed on this opinion.

• Overall, though, I think that since there is something which can currently prevent complications of virus infection, it might be okay to prioritize vaccinated patients when it's necessary to choose. One could argue that strokes or heart attacks are also preventable through such methods as lifestyle changes, etc., but that's not all the time, and that's less of an immediately predictable and easily preventable thing than getting a vaccine in this current event happening right now. I think that would be my argument there.

• Additionally, I think it's quite a different story in countries that haven't had much or even any access to vaccines. Prioritization might not make as much sense there.

Further reading:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/08/23/refuse-covid-treatment-unvaccinated-triage/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/08/19/vaccination-status-may-be-considered-to-get-icu-beds-at-dallas-area-hospitals-if-covid-spread-worsens/?sh=2ceb1e631620
https://www.newsnationnow.com/health/coronavirus/as-covid-cases-rise-some-hospitals-debate-prioritizing-the-vaccinated/

Individuals should not own their DNA but should have input on and hopefully control over how it's used.

• DNA occurs naturally and cannot be subject to manipulation outside the confines of a laboratory. It makes sense to me to consider this reason enough to not invoke property rights on DNA unless it's been altered in a lab setting. A 2013 Supreme Court ruling decided in this way by invalidating a claim for patents over naturally occurring qualities of DNA.

• Having control over how one's DNA is used would be nice, in my opinion. DNA banks can share DNA profiles with law enforcement, which can be worrisome, especially for some historically target populations. But DNA databases can also allow you to share your DNA for research on diseases or other medical issues, which would be great by me.

• For some, the opposite may be true. So allowing people to choose which aspects of DNA use they're open to, if any, makes sense to me.

This is really fascinating. The Data Trust route makes a lot of sense to me---it would be practical/solve the messy issue of potentially literally billions of people with different choices on the use of their DNA.

It would be nice in theory for museum admission to be free for locals, but in practice, it could mean museums have less money available for other important purposes.

• While free museum admissions for locals would support the use and enjoyment of important cultural prospects (imagine--one could for instance go every day to the same museum during a break from work to see a different painting, or to sit in a different room and enjoy the atmosphere), in practice, it might mean there's less money for other things.

• Some museums can be fully supported by increased donations and better management of costs. But, doing so would take away revenue that could be used for other important things:

• Increased research capabilities

• More extensive restoration efforts

• More imaginative exhibitions

• Furthered connections to other community projects at large, like media companies offering collaboration with other types of programming

• Targeted free admission for certain groups to make a larger impact

• Additionally, if government started funding museums, we could run into the problem of funds channeling only towards those areas which the government deemed worthy, leaving smaller, local specializations out of the mix. This may not be a problem, however, if the local governments of each museum are able to support free admission for locals; in these cases, the locality and specialties of each museum would be inherently supported and augmented.

• Perhaps a good course of action would be to let some museums choose to be free for locals, and some not, depending on whether wealthy donors and/or local government can step in to offer support without removing/limiting an important source of revenue and thus squashing the potential for greater research and restoration efforts, among other things.

• I should note that this argument depends on whether locals comprise a large proportion of the visitors to a museum. For some museums, it may be tourists which make up the majority of visitors. For others, locals may be most of the list. Local free admission may only take away from museum- and culture- enhancing revenue streams in cases where locals generate most of the ticket sales.

It's probably best to follow our scientific truths, while remembering their potential and likely limits anyway.

• In a case where a scientific discovery calls social equality into conflict, I think it's important to acknowledge the limitations of any current scientific evidence while still not completely writing it off.

• For instance, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens got into trouble after publishing an opinion piece about "Jewish Genius". Stephens referenced cultural reasons for what he perceived as Jewish people's abilities to "think differently", but he also mentioned certain statistics on IQ and Ashkenazi Jews, as well as the comparatively large amount of Nobel Prizes won by Jewish people (a cultural but also potentially genetic phenomenon, the research seemed to say.) Since he also cited a paper that included authorship from someone who promoted racist views during his lifetime, the NYT revised the piece with a statement clarifying, for the critics who came after him, that Stephens should have attacked it critically.

• Whether and to what extent any of the "Jewish genius" Stephens championed is genetic or cultural or anything in between can and should always be contentious. There will, I think, always be limits to what any one layer of phenomena can explain. Even if there is truth to the Jewish genetics in this case, it being the case won't explain everything, and there's no need to imagine it means one group is better than all others just because of one trend that has seemed to hold true for some amount of time. But shutting down any inquiry at all into the matter, like happened in this case where now the cited paper can't be considered at all, doesn't seem necessary to me. Whatever the findings, it's just one snapshot in time, anyway. Everything is evolving, and there'll be something new along soon.

A couple other cases to consider:

• There could be some studies that may merit the title of "scientific truth" that will likely do nothing but harm to essentially the entire population. Say, something drawing a conclusion about a certain group of people that is negative but that is very superficial and will quite literally only fuel discord.

• Oppositely, there might be cases where social equality goals would demand the suppression of very important information---e.g., a study on deleterious effects of hormone therapy that is kept under wraps for the sake of equality when in fact there might be serious harms associated with such use.

• Cases like these seem a bit more clear-cut to me, in that following the "truth" in them might not actually be the best option.

Charisma can be learned, but it seems like some people have an inborn quality of something more elusive that leads to their being charismatic.

• Charisma is something I think anyone can work to improve, mostly by focusing on augmenting the methods by which one connects with others, rousing their emotions and appealing to their logic to develop an overall sense of purpose and motivation.

• Charismatic people are often thought of as assertive and exuberant, but some quiet people nonetheless have a charisma about them which enables them to attract and enrapture others. This adds to the side that there are some aspects of this quality of charisma which might have to be innate, since it's often quite hard to change one's nature from assertive to non-assertive/extroverted to introverted and vice versa. There might, then, be some type of quality to people that increases their charisma that, no matter the external factors of personality development and mutability, is something you either have or you don't.

• I'd never venture to say this would be across the board. But I do often feel there to be some people who have a charismatic quality about them that defies categories of "assertive" or "exuberant" or "passionate" or "expressive". They don't necessarily have an animated voice or immediately striking facial expressions and gestures, and their passion is deeply internal, and calm, and listening-based, but it's there nonetheless, drawing large swathes of people in in ways that defy simple explanation. Maybe that's the kernel of inborn charisma.

The multiverse is an as yet, and perhaps forever, unfalsifiable idea of there being multiple-to-infinite other universes besides our own.

• The constantly-splitting, forking-paths conception of the multiverse is typically referred to as the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, after Hugh Everett. Also known as the many-worlds interpretation, it's not really a definite theory so much as a way to contextualize the wavefunction collapse described by quantum mechanics: Instead of the hyper-set of all possibilities (the wavefunction) collapsing into a singular "choice"/a singular reality every moment, the hyper-set of all possibilities itself is the objective reality, meaning there's a new universe being spawned with each collapse.

• Physicist Max Tegmark conceptualizes several "levels" of the multiverse, one of which is the Everettian quantum mechanics interpretation above. Another is simply "regions beyond our cosmic horizon", where, if the universe is indeed infinite, there will exist, given enough expanse, a repeat of everything eventually. Others involve purely-mathematical-multiverse conceptions and other imaginings of "many-worlds" based on abstract forms of numeration purported to exist.

• Here's a curiosity: The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics makes some people question whether "quantum immortality" is possible. Effectively, if there's always a chance for your consciousness to exist in some form, you'll "always" be alive. Whether it's a smoothly-transitioned continuity of the same consciousness that feels like "you" right now, no one knows. It very well could not be, if any of this were even true, though it's likewise possible you might just keep living forever with each split of the wavefunction in which your survival has a probability greater than zero.

• Thinkers have devised methods for "testing" quantum immortality, but none of them has ever been found to make a difference in our certainty one way or another. (And they involve quantum suicide, which not only would only prove the theory to the person undergoing it but is also, it must be said, not something anyone should ever attempt, given the stakes.) Additionally, there are some requirements for the idea of quantum immortality in the first place, anyway: 1)The multiverse theory does not have to mean that absolutely anything that can happen will happen; there could very easily and likely be limits to occurrences, whereby only things that follow the chain of events happen. 2) Ruling out the universes where our existence turns to potential oblivion when we die is not necessarily something we have to do. In these cases, especially where 1 and 2 might be combined, we would, indeed, eventually die. And, of course---the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is, and may forever remain, simply one unfalsifiable possibility for reality.

Dark matter in the terms of something missing from what we know about the universe probably exists in some form, even if it literally is a type of existence that relies on non-existence.

• Dark matter is the term given to matter which, if it does exist, is unobservable due to its noninteraction with electromagnetic force (light). Scientists infer its existence from the mismatch between galaxy rotation speed and the gravity of the observable matter for each. The speeds are too fast for the observed amount of gravitational generation we see; galaxies should have torn themselves apart long ago.

• Classically, scientists have wondered if dark matter might not be composed of some as-yet undiscovered subatomic particles, often referred to as weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).

• Additionally, explaining dark matter may require tweaks to general relativity. It's possible dark matter in the conventional sense doesn't exist. New theories suggest the problem is fixable mathematically using what's referred to as the modified Newtonian dynamics theory (MOND). MOND postulates that gravity creates a small acceleration for large, galaxy-sized objects, dispensing with the need for dark matter.

• Personally, I still wonder whether dark matter, inferred at any point in our scientific history, may literally be a different type of "non-existence" that interacts with our universe "of existence" in a way that makes it appear undetectable to us. This is an extreme hypothesis at the far end of reasoning, however. But I do like to consider it a possibility:

• Even if new theories get rid of new the need for dark matter, I sometimes wonder whether that might simplify things too much. For example: The existence of dark matter was at some point something missing in our explanation of the universe. Science can and should dispose of models which fail to explain things fully or end up being falsified in general, but philosophically I think we can rightly wonder what it is we might lose when we scrap a problem entirely after seemingly having solved it. Just my opinion, but I wonder if there might, indeed, be a whole bunch of different aspects to things which we miss out on because we sometimes consider things solved. That is, the original grounds of the problem may still exist, even if they're confined to our original/more limited understanding beforehand, and in those original confines, there may occasionally be a different way of viewing everything which could still be valid in some way. We might miss out on these potential insights if we focus too much on fitting things into some kind of arbitrary whole: an always-forward-looking mindset that progresses linearly and with a sense that "all things become more settled in time" while occasionally neglecting those concepts which fell to the wayside in its hyper-focused wake.

I think it's definitely possible, we just need to keep working on growing ever-larger social groups, maybe even a global polity.

• Dr. Mike Martin, a Visiting War Studies Fellow at King’s College London, talks about why we fight. Morals and ideologies actually limit warfare, he thinks. A deeply shared sense of identity in the form of a large global group would probably do much the same.

• Ultimately, Martin sees the trends of ever-decreasing violence and ever-increasing group size as correlated.

• A large enough group could rid us entirely of warfare.

The classic belief in God is dead for many people nowadays, but I think other conceptions have and probably will continue to be able to replace it, maybe even for as long as we are around.

• The future of worship of "something beyond" is interesting to consider. I think it will always be around, no matter what it morphs into. The possibilities for its morph are endless.

• Interesting also to think on is the increasing amount of people even in the "West" who have come to deeply consider classically Eastern notions of Divinity: That, for example, we really are all one experience, just simply experiencing each life separately. This makes intuitive sense if some kind of fundamental level of reality is a process of experience (or just a process in general) rather than a separable set of selves of experience. Alan Watts's Out of Your Mind series goes into this. This kind of "God" seems not quite to be dying out in the same way the other Western type appears to be.

What if we could have broad knowledge that was really deep?

• Barring that, since it seems we can't usually have the two so well together, I think deep knowledge is admirable and necessary; but maybe we should not put so much emphasis on specialization when cross-disciplinary information/synthesis can be really enlightening.

• Synthesizing information across disciplines is a way to achieve broadened knowledge. Cross-disciplinary learning and instruction, for instance, is typically quite beneficial for knowledge development.

• Precisely when broad knowledge turns into deep knowledge is an ever-moving line, I think, if there even ever is a precise line to it at all. It's harder to compare ideas to other ideas when we get stuck in a set way of seeing them; we can't see how different or similar the levels of knowledge are. We appear liable to miss that kind of reading, that comparison state, if we don't expand the lens to multiple disciplines of thinking. That expanded state doesn't separate the disciplines/theories within those disciplines so neatly, but instead shows the subtle gradients of similarity and difference between all of them, so they're better able to be used together in a conjunction state that is just as "deep" and "broad" as it needs to be at each level of precision (which stands in relation to the larger whole, usually.)

I'm sure it depends, but one reason I love the act of fasting is its biological benefits.

The proven benefits of fasting:

• "Decreased resting heart rate (HR)

• Decreased blood pressure (BP)

• Improvements in pumping action of the heart

• Lowered levels of LDL or bad cholesterol

• Reduced level of fasting insulin

• Increased insulin sensitivity

• Fasting for a short time can produce ketosis, which accentuates weight loss

• Reduced production of inflammatory substances (such as HOMA-IR and C-reactive protein) in the body

• Ketosis during fasting triggers several responses, including decreased inflammation, improved blood sugar regulation and better response to physical stress

• Fasting can slow down aging, prevent the development of diabetes, thyroid disorders, hypertension and heart disease and increase the chances of a long and healthy life. It also promotes weight loss. A healthy body weight automatically translates to healthier joints and a great body image."

• Anti-inflammatory and decreased cancer risk as well as slower aging

• More mental sharpness as ATP/energy is more available to the brain during periods of fasting

• Decrease of toxins in the lymphatic system and bloodstream, also contributing to, among other things, more mental acuity

• Dissolving of diseased cells to make room for healthier tissue

• Decreased neurological disorders

• In a comment above, some of MrStrawHat's sources reiterate the health benefits of fasting

• Even given all these benefits of fasting, I would agree that it depends on what works for the individual person. Some people may not be able to fast for various health reasons, such as diabetes, long-term conditions like liver, kidney, or heart problems, compromised immune system functioning, or the use of certain medications

Sources: https://www.medicinenet.com/what_are_the_health_benefits_of_fasting/article.htm
https://www.webmd.com/diet/psychological-benefits-of-fasting#2-3

That's true. I guess I should say, then, that overall I do believe fasting is better than calorie counting, since, as we both agree, it has tons more benefits in addition to weight loss.

I personally like the 16:8---16 hours fasting, 8 hour window for eating. I like to have the last meal of the day by usually 8p.m. and then not eat again until noon or up to several hours after noon the next day. Having the majority of the hours being sleep hours anyway makes it feel like I'm not even fasting, necessarily, which is a great benefit.

Fasting for several full days per week can also work really well for a lot of people, but I'm partial to the 16:8 since it feels steadier, and thus to me more manageable/habitual---easier to stick with long-term. Another way is to only eat meals when you're hungry and skip them when you're not. This seems also to be suitable for the long-term.

There hasn't been a ton of research on comparing the styles of fasting, but some experts feel pretty certain that weight loss benefits kick in with 12 hour fasts or longer, but nothing less. Around 16 hours seems to be when the deeper, more sustained fat loss processes kick in. And 24 hours or above of fasting is necessary, researchers think, for any of the autophagy results to come out (the reduction of oxidative stress and inflammation.)

Overall, it does seem that the 16:8 method is one of the most popular, if not the most, because, again, it seems to be easiest for the long-term for a lot of people. It may not lead to exactly the same level of anti-disease and anti-aging benefit as methods which use whole days of intermittent fasting, but for weight-loss, it seems potentially optimal. (It's also possible to get the best of both worlds---using the 16:8 method for a daily, long-term thing, but then having a few days per month of 24 hour fasting (or slightly longer) to reap the benefits at a cellular level as well. There is evidence that that can be enough, since it can be done over a lifetime, which is the span of time over which chronic diseases develop anyhow. Perhaps the mix of 16:8 with a few full days of fasting per month could be a candidate for the optimal way of fasting for most people, short-term, long-term, and then even longer-term.)

I definitely do agree with you. I only just wonder if there might not be a mismatch between these cues, which sometimes causes problems for people---some think we evolved in a certain way that doesn't enable us to use these cues very effectively when combined with the modern life, etc. For instance, we get hungrier when we haven't eaten for a while, but our body might tell us to binge/overeat at that point. Which would have been fine if we were going to then go without food again for a long time, as perhaps happened frequently to our ancestors, but which potentially becomes less fine when we are able to eat again relatively soon after because of modern convenience? Not sure, I could be completely wrong. It's quite true that most of us could probably listen to the hunger and fullness cues and be just fine, but I wonder if sometimes it's harder for some people to do that than to try fasting or other methods.

I completely agree with the notion of making Organ Donation default rather than mandatory.

• Some people have a fear that being an organ donor will affect their level of care. This is one other argument against organ donation that I've heard from people, though I have no idea whether or how often this really happens in practice (my guess is not terribly often, but I have no idea.)

• Letting people opt out of organ donation would benefit those who feel this way, too, while still ensuring enough organ donors.

It does seem true that forgiveness can usually only ever be quite beneficial to all who are involved, but there may be times when not fully forgiving someone might be necessary to leave room for both the acknowledgement of potentially important feelings and further growth.

• Overall I think forgiveness is extremely helpful, and I would readily accept the argument that there is virtually no case where forgiving doesn't also and importantly benefit the forgiver in some important way.

• But I think there could be cases where someone has to not forgive so fully in order to leave open the door for change.

• For example, if someone's forgiveness is not quite complete, they could end up carrying around resentment that gets in the way of the relationship. Whereas if they'd not told themselves or that person that they fully (or perhaps even just partially) forgave them, they might act more in line with a helpful course of action: talking more about it, reaching a better understanding, etc.

• I do think it's ultimately possible to forgive someone either partially or fully while still having an open discourse around what was wrong to you about what they did. So, in a way, forgiving to be kind to yourself and them as well as leaving room for the acknowledgement that there might be something left to address, at any point.

I like the idea of having art be its own thing, something that exists independently from whoever made it, something that can transcend any specific locality of having been made---but it's a bit difficult because the person who made the art is a huge layer to the art and for good reason sometimes can't be totally disentangled from it.

• I like the idea of having art be its own realm, in a sense---something we can regard as living in its own world, at least most of the time, for the full experience of it. This way we can plumb the depths of a work as it lives and breathes on its own terms, a world unto itself.

• A lot of artists who are socially cancelled nowadays do have the repercussions of either having their art removed or having people at least stop giving it attention. I personally tend to prefer the last option: Having it get less attention naturally rather than having rigid censorship come out to play.

• This is because I believe it's at least somewhat hard to completely eviscerate an entire body of work if its creator turns out to be someone a lot of people find fault with. I think I mostly subscribe to the idea that the essence of the art itself still stays the same no matter what we learn about the person who created it. I like to think that world where the art lives and breathes on its own can transcend any particular circumstance.

• If you think the essence of the artwork (and thus that "world unto itself" that it exists as) fundamentally changes when new lights are shined on its creator, then I could definitely see being convinced even more by the idea and practice of fully connecting the art and the artist rather than trying to keep them separate for the sake of the art itself.

• Additionally, if there's a personal connection to what many are considering the problematic nature of the artist, I can understand the desire to find more control over that (personally) traumatic link of circumstances. Censorship at large could help someone fashion more control over something deeply and intensively traumatic to them. They might be able to get a sense of control in the world by feeling as though they can do something larger about something traumatic that happened to them, something that the behavior of the artist reminded them of.

• In these cases, I tend to think that maybe a natural process of "change-making" in the world will kick in---either the activism towards censorship for personal reasons will take, or it won't, which I think is the natural course of activism.(Most likely, pockets of success will occur, where the work is censored, etc.; while other pockets might crop up wherein people still allow the work to hold sway culturally).

• So I might argue for the course of action that just lets things go: Mostly separating the art from the artist, but letting some forms of attempted censorship take hold if they're naturally able to garner enough support. This may be not really saying too much beyond what is already fairly obvious/what already kind of happens, but I do personally feel like this large-scale natural selection of sorts might be the best way. Although:

• With "naturally selective censorship" there is still the problem that for some cases, even any kind of "natural course" of censorship will eventually end at a point where one person or group decides for the majority. (For instance, the media house which is responsible for continuing to keep the art alive or not.) At which point, we are back to the original problem of whether art should be judged by the artist's behavior overall.

• But I wonder if, in most cases, there is the possibility for art to be cancelled more naturally by individuals on the ground without the need for a decisive end-player in the censorship game. I'm not totally certain, anyway, which type of potential censorship is more common in this day and age of hyper-connected, hyper-fluid consumption, where individuals hold more sway over the decisions of media at large. (Think, e.g., the rise of streaming services---the success of any given show or movie depends much more now on how well it performs according to pure audience interest; the end-point players of media houses, etc. don't hold as much sway over whether things will be cancelled or not. Even if the big conglomerates try to keep something relevant amid potential cancellation, individuals have much more power from the ground up to disrupt that process.)

• Overall, I like the idea of, when possible, separating the art from the artist and thinking of the art on its own terms sometimes just for the sheer experience of it. But of course, there can be good, natural reasons for people to try to naturally work things out with some kind of censorship, if enough people feel a certain way.

We never know what knowledge may ultimately prove useful.

• It's possible that we live in a world where everything we know is something that necessarily and perhaps by definition can be used. If there's something we feel confident enough to consider as something we "know", does it follow that we'd be able to do something, in some way, with it? The case could be made so. If we are never able to use knowledge, it seems far less likely for us to have ever started referring to it as "knowledge" in the first place...

• Unless, that is, I'm accidentally completely neglecting a whole lot of stuff here? I could be. I'm trying, also, to only consider things here that are more real-world, anyway, and not quite so abstract, since abstract forms of "knowledge" could easily and right away fall out of the arena of consideration of anyone who really wants to drill down to the usefulness of knowledge.

• I think, however, that even if we live in a world where usefulness seems inherent to anything we can confidently refer to as knowledge, there's still a whole line of thought that could see usefulness as something that is hiding in places we won't look if we don't try to think about and value more seriously a type of knowledge beyond usefulness.

• For instance, it's often only apparent in hindsight what and how many pieces of knowledge were useful, and to what extent. I'd argue this might even be just a natural principle of living in a world where time moves forwards and yet we have the ability to look back once it's passed. We don't typically know how the pieces of, for example, a scientific puzzle are going to fit together until we literally see, in the future, a larger picture that includes precisely how we initially fit it all together, as we went along, in our past. Then at that current point we can take our knowledge of the way we initially fit the pieces together in the past, as we moved forwards in time and decide at that current point if we want to try to get to our more contemporary big picture in a different way, now, by fitting them together in perhaps some other way.

• All of which is really just to say it seems to be an almost impossibly messy process, our building of knowledge---to the point of potentially never being able to drill down exactly on which parts of our knowledge were useful, and when, when they can all morph into each other in such nonpredictable ways in hindsight.

• More concretely, it does seem true that history is full of randomly acquired knowledge that originally seemed unimportant at best and incomprehensible at worst. It was only later that the usefulness of such knowledge came to light or came to be understood. An example could be Non-Euclidian geometry, invented by Carl Friedrich Gauss, which is essentially a rethinking of things like points, lines, planes, for a non-flat conception of space. Gauss himself did not acknowledge it for nearly a quarter of a century, but Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, which turned out to have virtually infinite practical applicability, would not have been possible without it. In the extreme, the original iterations of knowledge that seem unuseful might create the literal conditions for a/the usefulness of its later form to arise.

• The part of this opinion that might refer to knowledge of circumstances and action in the world is a bit trickier for me to form an opinion on. Say we receive information about someone that would feel, to them, as though it had consequences for their future if they could do something about it or change something using it, but we ultimately know they can't and won't ever be able to do anything about or change anything using it even with the knowledge. Is that knowledge still valuable for them? I tend to think it is, but of course it just depends on the case and how they themselves feel about it. (They could, for instance, come upon a time where they all of a sudden are able do something about it. Or, even if not, maybe they'd still just rather know, regardless of whether they could have ever ended up using it.)

• Further, if I know some vital information about some happening that I may wish to, for instance, prevent, and that information would theoretically help me prevent it... but in the real world, constraints make it so that I can't act on it to ever do anything about it, then does having knowledge of the circumstance have any value for me? Is it the case that knowledge must only be valuable to me if it's actionable? It seems like it depends on the specifics of the case: If I can't do something about which I have knowledge and it disturbs me that it exists and that I can't do anything about it, then I'd probably rather not know it---meaning I could consider the knowledge to lack value because of its nonactionable character and harmful rather than helpful psychological prospect.

There is some evidence that the benefits of therapy, either alone or in conjunction with medication, can be more extensive and even last longer than medication alone.

• Of course, for some people, like those who have psychosis or schizophrenia, etc., the benefits of medication can sometimes be quite nearly impossible to achieve just by talking/CBT. But overall, I tend to believe we are creatures who are quite good at working with a sense of meaning and purpose and values, and finding/reframing those can sometimes transcend nearly anything. (Indeed, even in cases of psychosis/schizophrenia there is some evidence that CBT helps people engage with their particular mindsets in a way that works for their personal situation, no matter how severe the problem could sometimes get for them. The CBT that works in these circumstances involves helping people function, decrease distress, and increase their quality of life overall even if it's not directly able to intervene on the core symptoms of psychosis itself.)

• If it's true that the benefits of therapy last longer and can be more extensive than medication alone, then we might need the medication as well, but therapy seems to also be necessary, mostly, making it very important.

• Overall, therapy may not work all the way for everyone, but if it helps even a little, I personally consider that a win, if only just because there is nothing that ever really can help all the way, it doesn't seem like.

• I suppose what I mean is that it seems to be true, as far as I can tell, that a complete fix for any mental issues is fairly impossible, except maybe in specific-goaled, particular-bound cases, like a traumatic event that needs to be fully worked through, for example, or the achievement of getting out of the house and/or functioning for even just yourself again after/with anxiety and/or OCD. Beyond that, it depends what you'd want to consider as "fully helped", though---the person being happier, more fulfilled, more functional, gotten over nonspecific sources of trauma, less anxious in exactly the ways they want to be? Those tend to be really nonlinear tasks that go on nearly forever across a lifetime, which is why I could see an argument for the notion that what makes therapy something we can call completely effective is the feat of making any progress on these large, often unattainable-by-nature goals. (It's usually and probably necessarily all very relative, anyway, to the point that effectively each time someone steps into therapy they're working with a rewritten, if likely somewhat reiterated, sense of what a "complete fix" would mean for them. So any progress is good, often very much enough, even, if the whole thing has the potential and tendency to reset anyway.)

• Of course, I may be forgetting some really important things that could have a potentially "full" fix in the same way I envision some time-bound traumatic events and specific-goaled overcomings with problems like anxiety to be maybe fully-work-through-able. Please let me know of any that come to mind!

• In addition, it's quite possible that we can make total progress on a therapeutic goal by going to an opposite, meditative extreme of ridding ourselves of the acts of holding onto desire or grabbing onto any or all intense feelings in general. I suppose I might consider keeping this idea separate, excluded from our conversation of the possibility of therapy ever having an essence of "completely helpful", if only just for the fact that I personally tend to believe that it's really hard to live in a world and sustain the non-attachment mindset. I think attachment and happiness and hardship will always arise, making the process, indeed, a forever kind of project. In fact, that these thoughts and experiences will always arise is actually inherent in/to these kinds of therapies, and oftentimes the point is to continually let them be without battling or engaging much farther than acceptance---pure, spiritually medicinal mediation, CBT for anxiety or depression, or otherwise.

• I'd also like to note that I love Eleanor's point about non-talking therapies like music, dance, or art. I personally tend to include those together with other forms of therapy, so that's why I've chosen to feel that I can still be hopefully justifiably "For" this opinion. But, indeed, nonverbal therapies can be really effective for those who don't or don't want to express their feelings best using words. The concept, in the article Eleanor shared, of having to alleviate mental-illness based structural brain problems such as memory, attention, and concentration before therapy can be effective is also interesting. Nonverbal therapies can help in those cases, and then I wonder if it might often be the case that after that, other kinds of therapy can come in to help even more. (Either way, though, I think the structural recreation of meaning/values/purpose is something that is coming in to help---nonverbally or verbally.)

Meaning/values/purpose of the type that therapy can help rewrite or bring about seem to be able to transcend so many physical circumstances, in my opinion.

Stonehenge is certainly a mystery, given how much physical labor and across-time coordination was required to build it. The most commonly held explanations for how it was built:

• Stonehenge was built in a number of stages, over the course of an estimated 1500 years.

• Neolithic people used primitive tools to build the circular ditch on Salisbury Plain. Several hundred years later, builders hoisted bluestones (the smaller of the two types of stones making up the monument) into place. The larger sarsen sandstone slabs were placed in an outer circle formation many years after that, likely around 2000 B.C. Radiocarbon dating proposes that work on the monument continued until near 1600 B.C.

• New research has revealed that the source of the sarsen stones was West Woods, on the edge of Wiltshire’s Marlborough Downs. The bluestones have been traced to Preseli Hills, Wales.

• The feat of building the monument was enormous. For the bluestones, people think the builders created sledges and rollers out of tree trunks and/or used oxen; another common theory holds that the boulders were transferred onto rafts and floated down the Welsh coast up to the River Avon and onto the Salisbury Plain. For the sarsen stones, it is thought that builders used ropes and sledges for aid in transporting.

• There has been some theorizing of glacier activity taking the brunt of the work---although generally not accepted as a very likely explanation, it's possible that glaciers during the last ice age carried the bluestones closer to the Stonehenge area.

• It's also possible that part of Stonehenge was originally built in Wales and then transferred over to Salisbury Plain by hand. Different methods of doing this have been hypothesized, such as ball bearings in wooden tracks.

• Most approximations say that it took at least 30 million hours of labor over the course of the estimated 1500 years it took to build Stonehenge. Given the tools that were available to the builders during this time, both for the movement of the stones and the forming of them, this makes sense.

• Overall, it is, indeed, a very mysterious thing to think about: This coordinated project of probably 30 million or more hours of labor across a thousand or more years during the Neolithic period! The social structure to maintain such coordination is fascinating to think on---it seems likely some relatively advanced social organization would have been necessary for the building and maintenance of the monument. In addition, the will to produce such a thing must have been incredibly strong for it to keep going as it did. It was used as a burial site, so perhaps that serves as an explanation for the force of the will to continually build it. Beliefs around life and death are some of the strongest motivators there can be.

• Finally, theories about alien intervention in the building of the monument have existed for a long time. Considering just how much labor was required to erect the thing, Stonehenge builders might have benefited from some extraterrestrial help, the theory goes. Especially if one doesn't quite buy into the notion of such a sustained, coordinated effort---and such a profoundly developed will to keep the project going.

• However, considering there is evidence for the continued work across thousands of years on just such a project, it's harder to support the extraterrestrial intervention theory. If aggregated radiocarbon dating showed an instant erection of the stones, perhaps more skepticism would be warranted. It's never impossible, of course, and if the alien theory did happen to be right, there could be all kinds of reasons the extraterrestrial building project itself would have taken (or, more aptly, shown up to be) thousands of years in the making. We just don't know. Any way it's looked at, Stonehenge is an amazing mystery, indeed.

There is not at this time any consensus that COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan Lab. Recent investigation has suggested that the virus had already been circulating in China as early as September of 2019, and there is also the suggestion that the Wuhan Lab's genetic sequencing database was taken offline during that month in the middle of the night, which has prompted some to consider cover-up. Important to note, however, is that there is certainly nothing like a consensus yet, even given these most recent proposals for evidence. It is still completely possible that COVID-19 transferred to humans from another animal.

Theoretically, COVID-19 could have come from a lab in several ways. SARS-CoV-2 could have been either collected from an animal or engineered by the lab, and then either accidentally or deliberately spread to someone who spread it to others. In addition, people argue that 1) it's strange no closest relative of SARS-CoV-2 has yet been found in animal, 2) COVID-19 being first detected near the Wuhan Lab seems an odd coincidence, and/or 3) the virus contains unusual features in the form of genetic sequences and increased spreadability among populations, pointing to its being engineered by humans. Finally, some say that "SARS-CoV-2 might have derived from coronaviruses found in an unused mine where WIV researchers collected samples from bats between 2012 and 2015."

There is some historical precedence for lab leaks. Lab leaks have never caused an epidemic, much less a pandemic, but small outbreaks have occurred, such as the 2004 SARS outbreak from a virology lab in Beijing. The disease only spread to seven others before being contained.

Each of the points above can be argued against, and many researchers and scientists have done just that, favoring the proposition that the virus came from another animal as in most pandemics. For example, some counterarguments: It can take many years to pinpoint the natural source of a virus; nearly every time some natural spread of a virus to humans occurs, there is a lab studying the same type of viruses nearby; and the optimal nature of the virus's genetic sequences could easily emerge naturally, including its optimization for human infection and spreading. (As well, the virus wasn't necessarily optimally transmissible until later on in the pandemic, anyway---once variants emerged, as they do naturally under natural selection pressure.)

Finally, even any emerging evidence of a cover-up from China would not necessarily provide a smoking-gun signal for lab leak, since the country could have engaged in any potential "covering-up" just in case it looked like a lab leak happened, despite, perhaps, a lab leak actually not occurring. (Far-fetched, maybe, but not impossible.)

It remains to be seen whether there will be any consensus on a lab leak for COVID-19. Intelligence communities are gathering more evidence for now, attempting to piece the puzzle together.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01529-3

Recent fact check on the latest findings of the US Republicans in the House Foreign Affairs Committee: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-wuhan-lab-leak-confirmed-us-house-foreign-affairs-committee-1615732

New update:
A new origins report find that "SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t weaponized and is unlikely to have been engineered." It is still inconclusive on the virus's origins.

Writer and Native David Treuer is a big proponent of returning U.S. National Parks to Native Americans. His idea is to return the parks to a consortium of tribes to manage for everyone's use and benefit. He says:

"As parks were being created, over 87 million acres of parkland were being set aside for Americans, Native Americans were being deprived of and we lost control of over 90 million acres." He believes they should get them back.

Treuer also says that "[A]s the efforts to assimilate [Natives] largely failed and we remained, mostly, in our homelands, Americans have gradually assimilated to our cultures, our worldview, and our modes of connecting to nature. The parks [...] emphasize and prioritize a particular way of interacting with the land. In the nation’s mythic past, the wilderness may have been a dangerous environment, something to be tamed, plowed under, cut down. But that way of relating to the land is no longer in vogue. For many Americans, our wild spaces are a solace, a refuge—cathedrals indeed. America has succeeded in becoming more Indian over the past 245 years rather than the other way around."

Logistically, this plan could be difficult. Treuer maintains that Native people have the experience necessary to maintain 20,000 trails, recreational areas, and wildlife:

"What I propose is that there would be sort of covenants put in place that protects the parks and protect access to them.

As to whether Native people are equipped, you know, we have, through long and difficult experience managing our own tribes by sort of fighting the United States government and trying to establish our own tribal governments, working with the United States to form our tribal governments, enduring the sort of paternalistic hand of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, we have, through long experience, developed the perfect skill set.

There is no one better equipped to manage parks than tribes. We have the experience necessary."

The return of the parks to Natives, in this view, is more than just for important and overdue reparations---it's for the good of everyone, going forward.

While of course there are other extremely important qualities (and different ones, certainly, are needed at different times), I can get behind the case that humor can sometimes be seen as rising above all else in a partner.

• I do often feel that in the worst of times, humor can be the only savior. It can change people's perspectives on themselves and the world, and if not, it can at least help ease pain that may otherwise be too thick or even unbearable.

• Kindness and a sense of excitement are two other qualities that come nearly exactly close to humor in a partner for me, personally, but an interesting thing to think about is the comparison of them:

• It's possible that being kind all the time is harder than having a sense of humor all the time. Problems will always arise that, especially between people who are close, make it difficult to stay fully settled into a deep sense of kindness. If that's the case, the quality of humor might be "better" than kindness, if the two are going to be split up as such. For instance, if someone is mean for a second, but then is able to have a (shared) sense of humor about it, then the humor has done something spectacular that a fallible possibility of kindness couldn't do.

• Ultimately I think I would tend to say that kindness is actually really what I view as the most important quality in a partner. But if we are working with limits that acknowledge that it might be harder to be kind all the time than to have a sense of humor all the time, I could get behind the case that humor is the most important quality in a partner.

The argument that Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time is based on the idea that it was revolutionary---the "pinnacle of the American studio system" as well as a critically different take on it altogether.

• Orson Welles's 1941 film has classically been held by many to be the greatest film of all time. It's come to be seen as a milestone in cinematic technique, a "landmark achievement in film" that is "entertaining, poignant, and inventive in its storytelling."

• Some claim that virtually every film maker has been influenced by Citizen Kane.

• Writing for Screen Rant, Cathal Gunning says that a certain part of the film "[I]s one of the many moments where Welles’ ambitious filmmaking allowed future directors to collapse long, complex stories into a string of easily understood images, a technique that has become so commonplace it barely merits notice in the twenty-first century. Without Kane’s two-minute marriage, viewers may never have seen Up’s heartbreaking opening scene or the unforgettable montage sequences of 2001: A Space Odyssey."

• Gunning also says that "much of what makes it hard to argue against Citizen Kane’s impressive claim [to supremacy] is the fact that any later movie contending for the title of 'greatest movie ever made' will inevitably have borrowed liberally from techniques established by Welles’ film." The movie-making innovations Welles created were derived from his lack of experience as a filmmaker; his fresh approach worked to establish groundbreaking techniques precisely because he had no idea what rules he was even breaking.

• A final argument in favor of Citizen Kane's supposed superiority, as Gunning tells it: "[A]lmost all of the movies that could contend for the title of the greatest movie ever made are built upon the techniques and innovations featured in Welles’ landmark release, whether they borrow deep-focus photography, Eisenstein-inspired montage editing, or disordered storytelling from Citizen Kane."

• Many people would not be swayed by these arguments, and of course, ultimately, there is no such thing as a true "best movie ever", since all tastes are different. (It's also in no way foolproof to proclaim, for instance, that because Citizen Kane introduced the techniques used in other potential "best films" that means it's the greatest overall. Just because it came first, the argument might go, doesn't mean something else wouldn't have arisen at some point to bring about the same thing. A question about the fundamental nature of the conditions for a "greatest ever" arises. Not to mention, there are many more cultures than just the one that created it, and what counts as "great film techniques" to one culture varies from one to the next and will forever across time.) But these are just a few reasons people have classically called Citizen Kane the greatest movie of all time.

There is some evidence that AI could one day become quite sophisticated.

• Reasoning under uncertainty for AI might be possible with Quantum Artificial Intelligence. The computational power of a Quantum Artificial Intelligence could increase exponentially, speeding up the process of deep learning to an enormous degree. The physical body that AI might come to be housed in could conceivably aid the AI in modelling its thinking more directly after the physical world, much like the human brain does with its connections to our body and environment.

• Given the many ways quantum physics can be harnessed for computation, it's possible that one day, even some of our most creative abilities (like imagining under highly uncertain conditions, holding opposing ideas in the mind at once, creating in other general senses) could be surpass-able with AI.

• It's impossible to say, of course, whether even super advanced AI would take over all of our deepest theoretical endeavors. It's hard to imagine it would, just in the sense that we will always still live in this world, and need to learn about it, including comprehending whatever such advanced AI comes out with. So I'm quite mixed here, and could see things going either way---perhaps a little of both: Being replaced by AI but keeping some distance from it as well.

One thing I do find great about him is his somewhat unparalleled drive and attitude about "big things".

• I certainly don't dismiss in any way at all the points people have made already above; everyone has made fantastic points, and they should definitely be considered when it comes to evaluating Elon Musk. However, just on a general level, in terms of ambition and ability to get stuff done, I find Musk to be potentially unparalleled.

• Musk knows how to dream big, but he also knows the technical limits that exist, which is a seemingly hard line to straddle. Pairing idealism with the limits of reality and the realities of technical capability is not easy in any way, and the argument could be made that few other (singularly acting, perhaps) people in history or current day have been able to achieve the same things. (Not in terms of theoretical endeavors---simply confining us here to the arena of practical action in life/society.) Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Nikola Tesla, and a great many others come to mind when I imagine high practical achievers, and Musk might be able to fit into a similar category of high-achievers.

• "Musk has an understanding of physics and thermodynamics that has helped him know what boundaries could be successfully pushed," writes Walter Isaacson in The New York Times. Isaacson compares him to Steve Jobs, who had similar ambition but apparently not quite as much technical and physical know-how.

• Of course these are by no means the most important qualities for someone to have, but I do think they might contribute to a case for Musk's currently singular capacity for idealism coupled with hard reality---and making those things work, for the sake of at least some kind of higher mission or purpose.

TL;DR - Those born between 1996-2001 are a micro-generation that can relate to both millennials and gen-z while at the same time not fitting either group completely.

• Zillennials feel too old to relate to the core of gen-z. But they also feel too young to relate to the core of millennials.

• Zillennials can remember, briefly, a much less technological world. But they also grew up for the most part in the thick of great technological evolution. So they're versed in both worlds.

• Zillennials have, for the most part, hazy memories of 9/11. The litmus test for gen-z versus millennials has come to be whether one is able to remember 9/11. Most Zillennials have a few brief memories of the event, and likely didn't fully understand its implications. Which tracks with the sense of their being a crossover microgeneration with feet in both worlds.

Totally agree. I've never thought the idea of breaking people up into generations was that great of a thing to do, nor is it necessary in much of any way at all. My only thing is just that, considering it does happen, and now is out there in the world as a thing that people talk about, having a microgeneration for people who feel like they don't fit into either could potentially be nice. It's already clear that there's no label that can fit everyone, for sure. But when the divide comes up, and people are talking about certain general characteristics of a group (but also not saying that these fit everyone, because of course nothing can)...there can be a group that feels a bit stuck in the middle in what can sometimes (though, again, not always) be a meaningful way. Because if it means something to them, maybe we could say it matters at least a little bit, even if it's only in contexts where a mostly unimportant divide arises? Not totally sure, just a thought.

So, overall, I completely agree that it isn't good to focus on people's differences. We are all more alike than not, on a deep, deep fundamental level. But maybe a problem is that on the surface level, in society, differences are talked about at one level as something somewhat meaningful. So in a purely social way, it might be nice to be able to have a method for delineating between Millennials and Gen Z when people are trying to conversationally fit people into one of them. I think it can leave people feeling a strange sense of lost identity when they're grouped into something (even superficially) that doesn't recognize their differences, even if it's just on a person-to-person level. That's really my only reason for trying to distinguish between the two generations. Otherwise, I'm in complete agreement with you, and absolutely love your argument! It's super important and well-argued as well. I can definitely see how putting emphasis on the process of creating microgenerations serves simply to increase what we're trying to avoid (separation when unity is oftentimes much more important and real.) If my narrower-view argument here doesn't really end up being that meaningful, then you've definitely changed my mind.

Viscerally, and in a way I can't quite explain, I do feel that hurting a defenseless animal is one of the most deeply troubling things a person can do.

• Just on a purely emotional level, I feel so intensely that hurting something that is so unable to defend itself, and so incredibly innocent, is profoundly sad and horrible. Of course hurting human beings is equally terrible and sad, but there's something of a gut reaction to the notion of innocent, defenseless animals being hurt. It's the same type of thing, maybe, as feeling that crimes against children are all that much more disturbing and sad.

• Some might argue that hurting animals could be justified by the tendency for animals to be savage themselves. If a bear, for instance, would kill a person in a heartbeat, hurting the bear might not seem so bad. However, a defenseless animal wouldn't fall into that category of willing-to-hurt-people-in-a-heartbeat. And even in the case of the relatively savage bear, I don't think hurting an animal is anything less than a cruel thing to do, ever. (I don't mean to refer to any cases where an animal such as a bear were actually attacking someone. It's okay to fight back to the point of damage if need be in those cases, certainly, as Laura as already pointed out.)

• Animals that can't defend themselves and that are so incredibly innocent should be protected at all costs, especially because they likely can't understand our human world. My heart absolutely breaks to think about animals being hurt in any way when they've nothing to do with anything at all, and can't even comprehend human affairs. There's something that just feels so deeply wrong about that to me, and probably to a great many others---hurting in any way something that doesn't even know what's happening and that is so, so innocent and sweet by default/pure nature.

Right, yes. Should you? Probably not, unless I've done something so awful that you feel you need to.

• Just on a strictly personal, one-on-one level, I tend to think that the action of offense is something that works itself out between people. This is certainly not to say that people can't be outright offended, even terminally offset, by someone with whom they're interacting or have some sort of relationship---or people with whom they are interacting and with whom they also have a relationship. But in a general sense, I think that any deep offense that takes place in these spaces will find its way out, whether that's in the form of deeper understanding and a changed relationship, or no relationship at all from that point forward. In the case of a changed relationship, the offender may learn and change their mind, or start to care more for the other person, maybe to the point of placing more importance on incorporating the opposing view than on maintaining, at any cost, just their own. In the case of a lost relationship, the offender might slowly lose other sustaining relationships, as well, perhaps to the (ultimately net-positive) detriment of the offender's very sensibilities which caused unnecessary offense. In both cases, the offense becomes more or less tempered by the conditions surrounding its acceptance or demise.

• Inside of a relationship, if someone finds me to be offensive, I sort of sometimes hope they'll offend me back so that I might learn more deeply. If someone instead offends me for no good reason, continues to do so, and has and makes no desire or effort to change, then the relationship will change deeply. And a lonely person might come away from it, at scale, if this happened enough times across the whole of the world. Empathy, then, would win its way forward, as the offender-for-the-sake-of-offending will desire to accommodate the needs of others for the sake of their own needs as well.

• I'm probably being too optimistic here, and there are probably a good lot of examples that would throw my main argument for a loop. Would love anything that might cast doubt on what I've said!

Wim Hof ran half a marathon above the Arctic Circle barefoot and with only shorts on.

• Extreme cold weather athlete Wim Hof finds barefoot running to be, quite literally, the best. He frequently runs barefoot even in extreme temperatures and snow, all as part of his system of personal physical and mental betterment.

• Hof has developed techniques to control his responses to the extreme cold. Whether he has some unusual genetic ability or if this intense control is something anyone could potentially do given enough effort is not currently known. Nevertheless, he appears to have unparalleled ability to control his body with his mind and conquer extreme situations.

• Since Hof is one of the most extreme of extreme athletes in the world, there may be a compelling case to be made for considering his idea of best to correspond to, at least, some kind of deep superlative/best. In this case, one could be swayed into thinking that barefoot running is, indeed, the "best".

Having a good sense of humor in terms of ability to be funny seems to be mostly innate.

• Of course what counts as a "good" sense of humor varies enormously. But in general, we do often seem to have at least some consensus on who's skilled at being funny.
• Humor skills such as timing and delivery are skills that, while capable of being practiced, appear to be innate. Effortlessly making people laugh is not something that is easily learned.
• Although it's certainly possible for people to to learn how to be effortlessly funny, in practice, it doesn't seem to happen much. This, though, could always have something to do with people who aren't predisposed to being effortlessly funny not tending to derive as much pleasure from the process of being or learning to be funny as their more humor-enjoying counterparts.
• There is limited research on locating genes associated with humor. The 5-HTTLPR gene appears to be associated with controlling emotional responses to stimuli.

Unless the Sado-Masochism goes too far, those who use pain for pleasure do not need therapy.

• Taking pleasure, often sexually, from the "inflicting or suffering of pain, hardship, or humiliation" is totally fine so long as there is no direct seeking of or ultimate engagement with uninvited abuse or aggression. Anytime the acts of aggression turn or are non-consensual, then those who engage in Sado-Masochism might, indeed, need therapy to help them overcome traits that are harmful to others (or even themselves.)

Replying to myself here to add something important: It seems to me that cases could get tricky if one of the participants were to think that they wanted to be hurt in a very intense way but then afterwards realize it was way too far. If this realization happens during the engagement, and they let it be known, of course the other person has an obligation to stop. However, I completely acknowledge that there could be very hard situations where people don't quite know exactly what they want, possibly until after the situation. In which case, it's hard to be clear about whether, for these people, stopping engagement with activity might be better for them.

I think more than anything this question is probably just forever unknowable to us. Hard scientific evidence would most likely not be possible in the case of any kind of afterlife, anyway.

• There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of NDEs, and there definitely can be lots of scientific explanations for what might be happening in the brain during these times, as mentioned elsewhere. But some researchers have made compelling cases for, if not the soul, necessarily, then the possibility that consciousness does something different, at least in the brief period of time immediately after death.

• NDE researcher Jeffrey Long has studied the phenomenon for a long time.

• Of particular interest are accounts of people being able to report on specific information from the short time they were clinically dead that they should not have been able to know. There are many stories like this, although, of course, it's not possible to know whether they are true or what they necessarily mean. And a large amount of them have not held up to materialist standards. But it's interesting that there are at least many reports of doctors and nurses being totally baffled by the information that their patients report back after nearly dying.

• The other really intriguing thing to me is that some cases seem to indicate a possibility that consciousness expands after death. There are many accounts where people experience a breaking down of space and time, an ability to see and experience timelessness or from all angles at once, feelings of moving at super fast speeds the likes of which they have never experienced before, and other kinds of things like that. (For how long after death this would happen, no one knows. Even assuming all this were true, we would still never know for how long the continuity of any kind of "self" the person would recognize to be their own self would last after any initial "expansion", anyway.) But some researchers and scientists do consider the possibility of a universal consciousness possible, if not even likely---a sort of panpsychism that could be expressed in so many different ways. One example might be that we are a focused, local version of a more universal type of consciousness, and that's what NDErs might be experiencing near death: a return to that different sort of sate. In that case, the brain acts as a sort of filter for consciousness, but the real thing is more expansive than we could understand.

Totally agreed. The unfathomability of time not having a beginning or an ending is super intriguing. As you say, it's of course also possible that time will end, turning into some kind of state of absolute nothingness where nothing happens and keeps not happening forever. What's then interesting to me is what happens "after" that potential nothingness that might occur should time ever have an ending. In the case of thinking about an occurrence beyond any potential nothingness that might happen if time ends, it's possible our universe is cyclical in nature, perhaps as like in Roger Penrose's conception of conformal cyclic cosmology. Meaning that time is eternal in some other way, even if it does in fact end at some point. In any cases like these, there's a possibility of eternal return, perhaps even in the vein of Nietzsche's own imagining. Eternal return/eternal occurrence of sorts is also possible if spacetime really is infinite, such as in Max Tegmark's conception of the multiverse with infinite possibilities spread across endless, expanding, or endlessly expanding space.
Maybe we can never not be here in time.

Focusing just on the idea of fostering curiosity in children and adolescents, I'd say some potentially growth-stunting overprotection occurs.

• I personally believe that children could be exposed to much more intellectually earlier on.
• Holding back in teaching makes sense when some things seem too hard for children to grasp, but consciously pushing a bit farther intellectually could have untold benefits for intellectual development and creativity.
• Not everyone is the same, of course, so sometimes it would make sense not to. But overall, I do personally believe children and adolescents are capable of much more than we might imagine---or could imagine, without letting them go there.
• Certainly, it would be hard to figure out how to strike a balance between doing too much and having enough restraint. Some researchers of education are looking into more open-ended methods for learning.

It's probably impossible to ever claim something is spiritual and know it fully to be. (There are just too many options for what spiritual might even be, and evidence would always be hard to come by.) However, in a few different ways that we commonly think of spirituality, I would say humans do possess something that we could call a spiritual dimension.

• We engage in general feelings of there being something greater than ourselves, even if we don't directly connect those feelings to something like a specific higher power or a non-material level of existence. An (albeit contested) example of this is art: We often say that the arts touch something "other than our emotions and reasoning." It's not uncommon to consider art as satisfying some spiritual side to us rather than only our emotional and reasoning sides. (Or even as satisfying the last of another common set of qualities: Mind, body, "soul.")

• Even if we don't believe we are, for example, praying to a higher power, a lot of people do engage in wishful thinking, perhaps without being aware of it. For true skeptics, the philosophical hardline is actually that everything beyond your current moment and sense of self right now is faith. You have faith when you believe in anything beyond Descartes's famous feeling of: "I think, therefore I am." Now, whether that's to be equated with spirituality is another question altogether, but I could envision a line of reasoning where we do just that.

• The art and practice of meditation, although certainly not common to everyone, is popular enough that we could consider it a kind of entering into some sort of potentially spiritual state of existence when done in a certain way. The loss of ego that comes with some forms of meditation is a loss that does, indeed, seem to see "us" engaging with general feelings and notions of there being something "greater than us".

• There are probably tons more examples besides these, and of course, the above could always fairly easily be considered non-spiritual, so I'm mixed.

There's an interesting line of thought that wonders if the U.S. National Parks should be returned to Native Americans.

• David Treuer, a writer who is also Native, wrote about this idea recently.

• Treuer also lays out some of his vision in an interview:

"As parks were being created, over 87 million acres of parkland were being set aside for Americans, Native Americans were being deprived of and we lost control of over 90 million acres.

So, I think it's high time that the United States did the right thing and returned land to Native tribes. And we would manage it on behalf of all Americans. This wouldn't be a place that sort of non-Native people would be excluded from. These parks would be open to everyone as before, but they would be managed, controlled and protected by us.

And I think it's safe to say that we are much better, we are much better at encouraging and making room for our neighbors than the federal government and the majority of Americans have been, at least vis-a-vis Native people, for the past few hundred years.

So, if this were to happen, if the parks were run by a consortium of all of the tribes of the United States and managed on behalf of all Americans, this would be good for Native people, of course, but it would also be good for American people and good for parks."

• He continues on to respond to questions of logistics, which can also be read about here.

• It's quite possible that doing something like this would lead to a fundamental change in how we view the commodification of lands, although perhaps a bit farther down the line (e.g., an unanticipated consequence of engaging in this way of thinking.)

Along with Confucianism, it's interesting to look at rituals in the Buddhist practice, where they serve as tools for the progression towards enlightenment. Mental concentration and mindfulness are two of the most practical rituals that can carry over to anyone.

• Buddhism uses meditation and mental concentration as a foremost set of rituals for attaining enlightenment. Meditation and intensive mental concentration are means to transform the mind, to see existence in a different way. But ritualistic meditation is something a lot of people, who may or may not identify as Buddhist, take part in.

• Ritualistic meditation in a Buddhist context may be more extensive than "everyday meditation", but many people who meditate without necessarily identifying as Buddhist consider it to be a helpful practice and commit to it ritualistically. In this sense, the ritual of any sort of meditation and/or mental concentration could be said to still be fulfilling a deep spiritual function for humans, since the states that meditation/mental concentration promote can often be deeply altering of awareness---similar to, or perhaps even the same as, those shifts of perception that occur as or as part of some spiritual practice.

Read more about general rituals in Buddhism: https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/rituals-in-buddhism/

Read more about the connection between spiritualism and meditation:
https://mindworks.org/blog/what-is-spiritual-meditation/

Breaking up Google by improving antitrust laws would increase consumer welfare without creating so much market fragmentation that new problems emerge.

• Recently, the United States government has taken up several cases against "Big Tech," including Google and Facebook, for monopolizing the internet. U.S. Congressman David Cicilline has given a statement: "Right now, unregulated tech monopolies have too much power over our economy. They are in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices on consumers, and put folks out of work. Our agenda will level the playing field and ensure the wealthiest, most powerful tech monopolies play by the same rules as the rest of us."

• Antitrust laws are accordingly in the process of being revised for the newer era of Big Tech:
  --> Breaking them up: Banning the big companies from owning other businesses in which they can unfairly squash the competition and skew consumers towards their product. In other words, preventing Big Tech from operating as, at the same time, both platforms and competition on those platforms. This is a hard thing to do. Proposed legislation tries to solve this by creating new legal categories called "covered platforms" that come with restrictions for "online platforms with 50 million or more monthly active users, annual sales or market value of over $600 billion, and a role as a “critical trading partner.”
  --> Crossing use and data over: Allowing users on one platform to communicate with those on another; facilitating the easy transfer of data from one platform to another.
  --> Squashing favoritism: Similar to a "break up", disallowing tech giants from favoring their own products and services over other competitors on their platforms.
  --> Making it hard to merge: Allowing regulators to block acquisitions of other companies by tech giants, effectively prohibiting unfair mergers.
  --> Increasing enforcement measures: Giving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) more money and power to enforce the antitrust laws. Increasing tech merger filing fees for proposed tech mergers worth over $500 million and cutting fees for those below that amount is one way to do this that the new legislation mentions.

• Breaking up Google in the above ways would benefit consumer welfare. Much more beyond that, though, and perhaps the pendulum would swing both back and even possibly very far the other way:
  --> Breaking up big existing companies and their products and services into too many pieces would lead to a feeling of choice for the consumer, but ultimately, users might feel too fragmented across the abundance of services and start to desire instead to stick with one platform, potentially undoing the break-up anyway.
  --> Having tons of start-ups offering a competitive range of new products and services would be nice, but startups cannot benefit from a free business model, so users would likely have to pay a ton for all the different services they used. It's doubtful many would want or be able to do this.
  --> Research and development enabled by Big Tech's investments into things such as AI and COVID-19 elimination would be more liable to go away.

• Overall, a mid-wise approach seems like it might best do the trick. Deepening antitrust laws for the era of Big Tech without fracturing the value of companies so far that new problems arise seems like it could be a good solution.

[This article] (https://www.livescience.com/female-orgasm-mystery.html) mentions a lot of the current thinking on this topic. Some highlights:

• Some scientists think that the female orgasm may once have helped reproduction but are confused as to why it stuck around, considering it isn't any longer, or perhaps even wasn't ever, necessary for reproduction. (Some researchers actually think that orgasms in females do still provide beneficial conditions for conception. The article mentions that some studies hypothesize that "more sperm" can enter the female's body if she orgasms closer to the time her partner does during sex.) Regardless, evolution probably wouldn't select for a trait that uses a lot of energy for supposedly no purpose, leaving open the possibility that the female orgasm stuck around because it does have a purpose---pleasure.

• The pleasure hypothesis of the female orgasm may have less to do with sex having to feel good for reproduction to be achieved and more to do with the social role orgasms played in our ancestral past. Conception happens "all the time" without female pleasure, but "ancestral humans might have engaged in sex to create more cohesive groups, smoothing over conflict and cementing their social network." In this hypothesis, the female orgasm served as a kind of beneficial "social glue," which would have had a ripple effect of aiding survival, explaining, potentially, why evolution kept it around.

• ESP doesn't seem to scientifically hold up. But those who believe in it won't take that to be the last word, certainly. And there are other forms of investigation that have seemingly demonstrated at least some type of evidence in favor of ESP.

• Between 1972 and 1995, the United States Government operated Project Stargate. Its aim was to investigate the potential for psychic phenomena in military intelligence applications. Uri Geller, a self-proclaimed psychic, was an early part of this project. The project's documents were released to the public by the CIA and detail a number of instances in which Geller was able to correctly draw random images that matched or were similar to the images drawn by a team of people who were securely placed in another room. The documents conclude, at one point: “As a result of Geller’s success in this experimental period, we consider that he has demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner."

• Additionally, Britannica's page on ESP states that "although many scientists continue to doubt the existence of ESP, people who claim this ability are sometimes used by investigative teams searching for missing persons or things."

Especially if polygamy moves towards more modern trends of equality in marriage, then I don't see too many problems with legalizing it. As it stands, though, polygamy is associated with some problematic outcomes.

• There is nothing inherently wrong with polygamy---people should be free to do as they wish, including observing their own types of marriage, and it would be nice for the institutions of marriage in general to respect that. Of course, there are problems with taxation and other fiscal matters to contend with, but overall a legalized polygamy shouldn't necessarily have to cause that many societal issues.

• There are some concerning aspects of current polygamist trends.
  Rose McDermott, a professor of political science at Brown University, wrote in The Wall Street Journal in 2011:

"According to the information I have helped to collect in the Womanstats database, women in polygynous communities get married younger, have more children, have higher rates of HIV infection than men, sustain more domestic violence, succumb to more female genital mutilation and sex trafficking, and are more likely to die in childbirth. Their life expectancy is also shorter than that of their monogamous sisters. In addition, their children, both boys and girls, are less likely to receive both primary and secondary education."

• McDermott's research provides further insight into potentially concerning aspects of the polygamist culture:

"Polygynist cultures need to create and sustain an underclass of unmarried and undereducated men, since in order to sustain a system where a few men possess all the women, roughly half of boys must leave the community before adulthood. Such societies also spend more money on weapons and display fewer social and political freedoms than do monogamous ones.

When small numbers of men control large numbers of women, the remaining men are likely to be willing to take greater risks and engage in more violence, possibly including terrorism, in order to increase their own wealth and status in hopes of gaining access to women."

• A more "equalized" polygamy is interesting to consider. If there were a man and two or more women or a woman and two or more men who were able to feel that there was no hierarchy within their marriage, maybe a type of equality better suited to everyone's needs could be reached. I wonder, though, if this would be more likely to happen only in a new kind of case: two or more men and two or more women together in a single marriage. Three- or more way marriages of the same sex happen sometimes, but I actually haven't heard of any marriages with multiple men and multiple women together. I wonder if they do or could happen.

Finding evidence for ghosts is somewhat problematic. There are, though, recent end-of-life cognitive lucidity studies that are causing some to suspect that consciousness can survive death, which would leave open the possibility for ghosts.

• There seems to be a problem at the heart of the search for ghosts: As writer Benjamin Radford puts it for an article on Live Science, "Either ghosts exist and appear in our ordinary physical world (and can therefore be detected and recorded in photographs, film, video and audio recordings), or they don't. If ghosts exist and can be scientifically detected or recorded, then we should find hard evidence of that — yet we don't. If ghosts exist but cannot be scientifically detected or recorded, then all the photos, videos, audio and other recordings claimed to be evidence of ghosts cannot be ghosts."

• Recent studies on end-of-life cognitive lucidity have revealed that consciousness, at least in some cases, appears to continue after biological death. Dr. Sam Parnia tells Robert Lawrence Kuhn on Closer To Truth that patients who were resuscitated hours after their deaths---after their brains ceased functioning---have provided scientific evidence that consciousness continues during those few hours, in the form of oftentimes-corroborated-evidence of conscious experience during their time being biologically dead. Whether it continues after three, four, five, and so on hours is not at this time knowable, but Parnia (and others) believe that the evidence for continued consciousness during the first few hours after someone would normally be declared dead is there.

• Personally, I spot at least two potential problems with this: 1. Maybe the resuscitated patients are remembering something that happened prior to their death, and thinking, once they've been resuscitated, that that experience happened when they were dead. Or 2. Maybe we just can't detect that there still is activity in the physical brain during these hours of death, but it's nonetheless there.

• Regardless, Parnia's research on resuscitation and cognitive lucidity in death is fascinating. I recommend reading this article/interivew, from which I have pulled the following three paragraphs:

"Recently some researchers have started to raise the question that maybe your mind, your consciousness, your psyche, the thing that makes you, may not be produced by the brain. The brain might be acting more like an intermediary. It's not a brand new idea. They have argued that we have no evidence to show how brain cells or connections of brain cells could produce your thoughts, mind or consciousness.

The fact that people seem to have full consciousness, with lucid well-structured thought processes and memory formation from a time when their brains are highly dysfunctional or even nonfunctional is perplexing and paradoxical.

I do agree that this raises the possibility that the entity we call the mind or consciousness may not be produced by the brain. It’s certainly possible that maybe there's another layer of reality that we haven't yet discovered that's essentially beyond what we know of the brain, and which determines our reality.

So, I believe it is possible for consciousness to be an as of yet undiscovered scientific entity that may not necessarily be produced by synaptic activity in the brain." --Dr. Sam Parnia

• Note: The second paragraph of the above quote is where I personally find there could be issues for scientific certainty, namely the 2 problems I mentioned above: Perhaps what we think is "nonfunctional" in terms of brain activity is actually lowly active in a way that defies current (or potentially ever possible) forms of measurement. And, second, maybe the "memory formation" from that time of death is not actually a memory formation from that time death, but instead a brief, dream-like experience people had before they fully died, which they then, after they're resuscitated, imagined to have occurred during those next hours after their death and prior to their resuscitation (the "full" death.) Dreams can, after all, feel quite long, even if they're in reality fairly short. And it seems possible that a resuscitated brain could be confused about the timeframes of events, considering it was potentially literally gone out of them, excluded from these timeframes in the heaviest way it ostensibly can be, for a period of time.

• Nevertheless, any evidence for continued consciousness after death is, of course, quite intriguing.

Finding evidence for ghosts is somewhat problematic. There are, though, recent end-of-life cognitive lucidity studies that are causing some to suspect that consciousness can survive death, which would leave open the possibility for ghosts.

• There seems to be a problem at the heart of the search for ghosts: As writer Benjamin Radford puts it for an article on Live Science, "Either ghosts exist and appear in our ordinary physical world (and can therefore be detected and recorded in photographs, film, video and audio recordings), or they don't. If ghosts exist and can be scientifically detected or recorded, then we should find hard evidence of that — yet we don't. If ghosts exist but cannot be scientifically detected or recorded, then all the photos, videos, audio and other recordings claimed to be evidence of ghosts cannot be ghosts."

• Recent studies on end-of-life cognitive lucidity have revealed that consciousness, at least in some cases, appears to continue after biological death. Dr. Sam Parnia tells Robert Lawrence Kuhn on Closer To Truth that patients who were resuscitated hours after their deaths---after their brains ceased functioning---have provided scientific evidence that consciousness continues during those few hours, in the form of oftentimes-corroborated-evidence of conscious experience during their time being biologically dead. Whether it continues after three, four, five, and so on hours is not at this time knowable, but Parnia (and others) believe that the evidence for continued consciousness during the first few hours after someone would normally be declared dead is there.

• Personally, I spot at least two potential problems with this: 1. Maybe the resuscitated patients are remembering something that happened prior to their death, and thinking, once they've been resuscitated, that that experience happened when they were dead. Or 2. Maybe we just can't detect that there still is activity in the physical brain during these hours of death, but it's nonetheless there.

• Regardless, Parnia's research on resuscitation and cognitive lucidity in death is fascinating. I recommend reading this article/interivew, from which I have pulled the following three paragraphs:

"Recently some researchers have started to raise the question that maybe your mind, your consciousness, your psyche, the thing that makes you, may not be produced by the brain. The brain might be acting more like an intermediary. It's not a brand new idea. They have argued that we have no evidence to show how brain cells or connections of brain cells could produce your thoughts, mind or consciousness.

The fact that people seem to have full consciousness, with lucid well-structured thought processes and memory formation from a time when their brains are highly dysfunctional or even nonfunctional is perplexing and paradoxical.

I do agree that this raises the possibility that the entity we call the mind or consciousness may not be produced by the brain. It’s certainly possible that maybe there's another layer of reality that we haven't yet discovered that's essentially beyond what we know of the brain, and which determines our reality.

So, I believe it is possible for consciousness to be an as of yet undiscovered scientific entity that may not necessarily be produced by synaptic activity in the brain." --Dr. Sam Parnia

• Note: The second paragraph of the above quote is where I personally find there could be issues for scientific certainty, namely the 2 problems I mentioned above: Perhaps what we think is "nonfunctional" in terms of brain activity is actually lowly active in a way that defies current (or potentially ever possible) forms of measurement. And, second, maybe the "memory formation" from that time of death is not actually a memory formation from that time death, but instead a brief, dream-like experience people had before they fully died, which they then, after they're resuscitated, imagined to have occurred during those next hours after their death and prior to their resuscitation (the "full" death.) Dreams can, after all, feel quite long, even if they're in reality fairly short. And it seems possible that a resuscitated brain could be confused about the timeframes of events, considering it was potentially literally gone out of them, excluded from these timeframes in the heaviest way it ostensibly can be, for a period of time.

• Nevertheless, any evidence for continued consciousness after death is, of course, quite intriguing.

No one could ever say for sure, of course, but it's odd how we would even have such a concept as infinity, when nothing in our world would ever give that to us.

• Some thinkers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, believed that the notion of the infinite was a nonsensical extrapolation from distinctly finite and bounded particulars.

• Others, such as Georg Cantor, believed that the fact that we had any such conception of something so distinctly abstracted from our physical world was good proof for the validity of the notion of the infinite.

• Whether or not infinity is a purely theoretical abstract we create in our imaginations or a sort of Platonic Ideal Form that exists both in relation to and beyond our ideas, I find it intriguing that we would even be able to conceive of and have a word for such a notion as "never-ending."

• Quantum mechanics uses infinity (in the form of infinite dimensional Hilbert space, the uncountably infinite continuum of real numbers, and the countably infinite set of integers) to return its results. Whether the concept of infinity has any independent existence beyond the mathematical formulism of quantum mechanics is likely a philosophical/metaphysical pondering, though many physicists do actually accept that infinities might be realized in nature. I, personally, am also somewhat swayed towards considering infinity to exist "beyond" in actuality, considering how the various forms of physical "is" are already being thrown for such a loop in the realm of quantum theory. (For instance, what something "is" is a non-causal, nonlinear process under the terms of quantum mechanics. Things literally "are" and "aren't" unless they "suddenly" at some point (both here and there!) "are"--which is a whole new type of logic, though one that is still self-contained in some way, increasing its validity beyond the purely theoretical. So, following some of that new logic opens our eyes a bit more to the possibilities when it comes to actualized infinity.)

• I don't, however, think our universe would necessarily be infinite in and of itself. But its relation to some conception of infinity could be complex and ever-changing. For instance, there is evidence (most famous and utilized among them Cantor's set theory) that actual, mathematical infinity is not one concept, but instead an infinitely-splitting one with literally infinite sizes. Taking that into consideration, and coupled with the philosophy of what such fields as quantum mechanics provide us with in terms of the backgrounds from which our everyday world is derived and experienced relatively against...those very "backgrounds" may well be infinite alongside their inner components. (In this case, "component" could refer to an observed, single moment of spacetime, for instance, as contrasted with a larger set of them.) In plainer language, it's not far from a possibility that some things within a finite universe are or are somehow coming from a process that is actually infinite.

• A final note: If we actually take the implications of quantum mechanics seriously, the universe, especially any single, given part of it, is infinite when and if we ask the question in the right way. So possibly, but not often. And possibly, not often.

The "male" brain and the "female" brain can, indeed, be said to have different characteristics, but virtually no one has a purely "male" or purely "female" brain.

• The differences between what could be considered the "male" and "female" brains on the basis of large-scale similarities across sampled populations are vanishing as studies have gotten bigger. A recent, comprehensive meta-survey of many different brain studies across 30 years demonstrates that "few male/female differences survive correction for brain size." (Size difference "accounts for other reproducible findings {such as] higher white/gray matter ratio, intra- versus interhemispheric connectivity, and regional cortical and subcortical volumes in males" in comparison to females, but the overall difference in size doesn't affect functioning when corrected for.) In addition, when present at all, sex accounts for about 1% of "variance in structure or laterality," with no discernible effects on cognitive processing or performance.

• Even though the male brain size is about 11% bigger than the female brain, this is proportional to body size, and no particular brain areas are ever larger in men. More strikingly, characteristics usually called upon to explain different wirings between the two genders--such as the ratio of white matter to gray matter and the ratio of the connections between instead of within the two hemispheres of the brain--"are larger in people with smaller brains, whether male or female".

• Additionally: Another recent study has completely done away with the notion that "the tiny difference in connectivity between left and right hemispheres actually explains any behavioral difference between men and women."

• At the end of the day, each brain is a mosaic of different circuits, each controlling "the many dimensions of masculinity and femininity, such as emotional expressiveness, interpersonal style, verbal and analytic reasoning, sexuality and gender identity itself."

• In regards to hormones: When viewed through a large enough lens, the differences between wiring when it comes to the brain's use of hormones can, of course, vary largely. But zoom in closer and we tend to see that total differences are too complex to delineate in a distinctly bilateral way. We are each a mix of different characteristics (including the hormones that our brains "run like software" on their "hardware" )--all coming out and influencing us alike in different ways at different times.

All direct quotes are from these sources: https://theconversation.com/you-dont-have-a-male-or-female-brain-the-more-brains-scientists-study-the-weaker-the-evidence-for-sex-differences-158005 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804?via%3Dihub=

TL;DR - One could argue that rebellion of some sort is always inherent in change, since without it, there would be no impetus for making anything different than it is. However, even if it's less common, change can happen randomly and with less of any kind of coherent motivation(s) behind it.

• Rebellions have prompted countless changes in history. Here's an incredibly exhaustive list of [revolutions and rebellions] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions) throughout history.

• However, change often happens in complex ways that we can't quite pin to one coherent form of rebellious motivation. For example, when early humans switched over from bartering to money, it seems likely it was a rational choice, prompted by the gradual realization that there was a better way of doing things. Facilitating varied and even far flung exchanges became easier, and the system became increasingly more complicated as time went forward, but it was all to do with rationally thought out steps that were taken in a corresponding fashion.

• I'll grant that this money example is not necessarily of a type with all others, and it's true that it was so long ago that we indeed wouldn't have evidence of potential violence and insurrection (rebellion against systems as they arose.) However, it seems like something like the concentration of power to a few individuals or state actors proved to be a trend that pigeonholed the ways in which it was ever possible to create change (rebellion). So I'd say this needing rebellion for change is more the way things have been lately in the course of humanity, rather than being any fundamental law regarding the nature of and the possibilities that lead to change.

Since all body types have the potential to be beautiful to someone, yet it's true that beauty does have to be subjective, I'm mixed. I am quite swayed by the idea that beauty could be said to be inherent in the stunning complexity of all bodies' arrangements (not to mention the sheer wonder of their existence), regardless of type.

TL;DR - How we see the world will almost certainly change depending on the structure of our language. Our concepts are tightly linked with the physical world in such a way that either the physical world changes the structure of our language or the structure of our language influences our conceptualization of the physical world, or perhaps both together in some feedback fashion. Either way, how the world appears to us is tightly linked to the language we use when encountering it.

• Some languages have words for very specific feelings that other languages don't. One could argue that people who speak a language without specific ways to express such particular feelings are not impoverished by their lack of something to call the feelings, since they feel them all the same without having anything to call them. I would argue that they are indeed impoverished by not having the words to rely on; words are not solely something we pin to an experience after an event, but in fact most often cooccur with our experiences. Often, they will even create the feeling of the situation for us, albeit without us being too aware that is what's happening.

I love that you bring Wittgenstein into play. Indeed, I had him in mind when I made my points "for". I was arguing (though, admittedly, not very well!) that in constructing our shared frame, which is indeed the only way we can communicate, how we see the world changes, complicating the "one way effect on our worldview" view itself. So I agree on many levels with your final point about the reverse way of looking at it that enables us to imagine our language effects our worldview.

TL;DR - Love may be a chemical reaction in the brain, but without the higher cognitive functionalities of thinking and reflection, I don't think the "love" we mean when we talk about "loving" someone--at least romantically-- would exist.

• Lust, attraction, and attachment may all be chemically derived, but the idea of loving someone deeply in the sense that we tend to mean requires more than just purely/distinctly chemical processes in the brain; it requires cognitive reflection, thinking about our own states of thinking, and feeling something about what we feel rather than just the single level of feeling created directly by a chemical process.

• Jean-Paul Sartre's conception of love gives us an interesting example. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre manifests two major components towards his existential theories: "Being-in-itself" and "being-for-itself". A preliminary definition of "being-in-itself" could be the notion of being without the prospect of freedom to choose and assess; and a preliminary definition of "being-for-itself" could be the idea of being with the prospect of freedom to choose and assess. The latter creates an "us" that is conscious and has the ability to choose, the freedom to continually remake and reassess, and the capacity to look at things and more or less freely interpret what they are. In doing these things, "we" become something that can bring Nothingness into the world, thereby negating what we are not and seeing what we are in comparison to others.

• Sartre then dedicates time to the existential facets of what he calls "concrete relations with others," which includes love. For him, love is a continual struggle between two beings-for-themselves, each attempting to regain their own sense of self (more accurately, to regain their Being, a term Sartre uses to mean a distinctly objective, rather than subjective, state of existence) when the other negates that selfhood by making them into an object.

• Even though love is, for Sartre, a struggle against an objectification of sorts (which might make it seem that the "reflection" I've argued to be required for love is slightly more absent than increasingly present, if anything), there is still necessary in all of this the continual rising of new dimensions of Being that can reflexively reflect on their states, that can start to see themselves as objects outside of themselves, in another's eyes. This is enough to convince me that a lot of processing and reflection is required for "love" to exist, at least in the most romantic of senses.

TL;DR - If viewed from a really, really distant point, I think humanity is overall kind.

• Taking a very, very broad overview of this--I think humans could be said to be kind overall. I think when we strip away all context (which, of course, is not ever possible, but let's just say we can for a moment), humans ultimately want to feel meaningful, experience ego-centricity, or at the very least go after pleasure. The conclusion we seem to come to eventually is that the best way to achieve all these things combined is--corny as it may seem--love. Either love, or a parallel embarking on a long-term journey of caring for and making the lives of humanity in total better, both of which require a large-scale development and employment of kindness. We achieve a sense of meaning, a soothing for our ego, and even a pleasure from the act of engaging in either of those ultimately kindness-based things.

• Searching for a sense of meaning could be viewed as not quite a "kindness-based" endeavor. I still think that it can be viewed as that, though, when looked at from far enough away: The quest for a personal sense of meaning usually has to be diluted into (perhaps "expanded outwards towards" is the better phrase) a search for larger humanity's sense or senses of meaning, as the pure egotistical being cannot outlast the relentless pursuit of something basically infinite against its finite self.

• I have a feeling this opinion is too unpopular, too catchall, and makes too universal a claim to stand any kind of test of time. But part of me thinks it might be possible that this overarching lens explains a lot of what's happening in our world, or at least what the majority of people are pushing for. Or will push for, Godspeed.

TL;DR - Even the most hardcore criminals (e.g., mass murderers) can sometimes be rehabilitated. The trouble is allocating enough and appropriate resources for the rehabilitation, sometimes to people who don't want to be helped.

• There is evidence that rehabilitation for criminals--even hardcore ones--can work.

• A possible problem with rehabilitation is that people have to want to be helped, especially those offenders who are not necessarily certifiably mentally ill. Those people who don't wish to be helped may take full responsibility for their actions and might not care or want to change at all. (Perhaps, it could be argued, it's only that they think they can't change. Either way, it's still a problem in terms of being rehabilitated.)

• Finally, even given all this potential for rehabilitation, in an effort to avoid repeat offenders, emergence into society will oftentimes not be the best option. What to do in these cases besides lifetime, sometimes highly-restrictive imprisonment remains unclear to me, so for now I am of mixed opinion.

Further reading: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/rehab.html

Here's a really helpful article--it's on how oxygen isotope ratios from the deep past are measured to fill in a long-ranging expanse of the climate record. The first half of the article talks about how ice cores can be used for reconstructing the temperatures of the less distant past, but it's the second half that's even more crucial for filling in the full history of earth's climate: The discussion of isotope level measurement.

On a personal note, this is the only article I've yet come across that swayed a longtime climate change denier. While the article didn't specifically assuage his curiosity on the data front, he assured me he now sees it's possible to reconstruct with near certainty the deep past's climates.

TL:DR - Scholarly evidence from Shakespeare's time confirms William Shakespeare was a singular, real man who authored all of his plays.

• Multiple forms of evidence exist for the proposition that Shakespeare was a real person who wrote his own plays. Both during and soon after his lifetime, people deeply familiar with the literary world wrote about Shakespeare, corroborating his roots and authorship of 37 plays as well as over 150 sonnets. See this source here for details.

• In short, Ben Jonson, Francis Meres, and others make reference to Shakespeare as the man from Stratford who was a talented writer, discussing, among other things his plays, poems, and even writing technique. Meres in particular wrote about Shakespeare during Shakespeare's own time, making mention of other literary figures of the era, some of whom are later proposed to be the real Shakespeare. Meres writes separately about each of them, being "quite clear they're different people from Shakespeare," says Professor Jonathan Bate.

• An external source of verification for Shakespeare's singular existence is the fact that he acquired a coat of arms for his family in the pursuit of saving their reputation. In doing so, he left a trail of evidence: One of the two men in the heralds' office, called William Camden, referred to Shakespeare as having a player's background as well as being a writer, poet, and dramatist. See this source here again for more details.

• Even Shakespeare's work being varied is not a convincing piece of evidence for the opposition, for all authors can and often do display a range in their work.

Source used: https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeare-authorship-question/

The only thing I would add to this excellent argument (rather, further emphasize) is the idea of responsibility: People do have a responsibility to protect others to the extent they can, given very few people have chosen to live outside of society. The structures of society support, continue, and even ensure our lives, and for this reason I don't think it's unfair to say that certain measures must be abided for one to belong to such systems. We already do this with laws, etc.

TL;DR - There is nothing standardized about our educational or post-educational worlds anymore, even in the maths and sciences. Tests can provide a snapshot in time, but they don't measure potential or even creativity, both of which are increasingly important factors in our educational and post-educational endeavors.

• Education is becoming less and less standardized, at least in America.

• Post-education frameworks are becoming less that--less "frameworks", less "post-education." Our theoretical forms and subsequent methods of real-world application are increasingly expanding to include greater uncertainty and further proliferation, at nearly all levels of inquiry (application or pure theoreticals.)

• Even if standardized tests can show some processing work (everything is process--solving a problem always exemplifies some larger process of thinking), our larger understandings, theoretical frameworks, and applications of knowledge are becoming too complex to boil down to a singular, discrete snapshot in time. (In this case, I'm referring to a single test problem.) It is true that a high score on a set of problems indicates an ability to process concepts verbally and/or utilize figures nonverbally, two important categories of intelligence. But if we extrapolate to an overall, much larger sense of intelligence--the type that I'm arguing is increasingly more important nowadays--those tests don't say as much, since it's now a larger level of processing that's required in our hyper-fluid world, even if the test example processing and the larger world processing could still be considered a similar kind of processing at the ground level of similarities.

• At least, we haven't yet formulated new tests that would measure the more complex processing that happens both theoretically and experimentally, across larger levels of time, today. This is why I remain mixed.

• Creativity is becoming increasingly important as well. Standardized tests don't fare well with assessing creativity.

Totally agree here. I love how you emphasize that what we consider to fall within the realm of science always has the potential to change. Quantum Field Theory, for instance, which to date is actually the most successful physical theory we have come across (it can, according to Phillip Ball, a science writer, in his book Beyond Weird, "explain" every experiment we have ever done) is a theory that seems deeply odd and oftentimes metaphysically intensive. But the more we learn about it, the more the notion of what science even is changes. (Although, perhaps, it doesn't change when viewed at a certain level---the level of experimentation, etc. What we invoke to explain, say, where the outcomes of an experiment are coming from might change in the face of Quantum Field Theory's theoretical work, but the scientific method of experimentation stays somewhat similar. So far it seems that the human scientific method knows its limits, for better or for worse--oftentimes, actually for better! But that doesn't mean it doesn't at least have the enormous potential to change. Quantum Field Theory is the greatest exemplifier of this for me.)

TL;DR - UFOs are real in the sense that there are Unidentified Flying Objects (also called UAPs, for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) for which we as yet do not have any explanation. While a vast majority of these objects remain unexplainable, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are extraterrestrial in origin. They could be anything from tricks of the light combined with technological sensor errors to atmospheric phenomena we don't understand yet. However, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so we can't fully rule out extraterrestrial origins; it's still a possibility.

• The US intelligence community recently released a report of its preliminary investigations on UAPs. The report was inconclusive overall, coming up with an explanation for only one of the 144 sightings in consideration. Proposed categories of explanation for the remaining unidentified phenomena are: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, secret US government projects, advanced foreign adversary technology, or the catchall "other". This last category could include extraterrestrial phenomena.
• The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has explained that he remains skeptical of the UAPs, for the reason that "not knowing what it is" does not "count as evidence for knowing what it is." He has further said that he believes any of part of the sensor technology could be running errors, accounting for some of the videos/sensor recordings showing unidentified phenomena. New technology, especially when produced rapidly, can come out with errors in its software or hardware that could be misconstrued as evidence.
• Avi Loeb, an astronomer from Harvard, holds that the investigation of UAPs should be placed into the hands of the scientific community. New, in-depth scientific data and sensing systems can provide the explanations needed, and it's scientists and researchers, not government or military officials, who are best poised to do this research.
• Overall, it remains unclear whether any UFOs we've seen so far are extraterrestrial in origin, but we cannot rule out the possibility. Some can be explained in a terrestrial way, but that doesn't mean others aren't potentially extraterrestrial in origin.

"Order" as a universal probably should not be the chief goal for humanity. (And hyper attention to order does seem to work against us a lot of the time--race, class, gender, etc..)

However, at least some of the time, an action that causes disorder or chaos can be judged negatively solely by virtue of its having caused a rupture in some type of systematic, or perhaps just relatively unchaotic, existence.

For example, a bomb that disrupts the continued, orderly existence of some discrete portion of spacetime (all a sort of heightened way of saying: "a bomb that, once dropped, destroys a relatively ordered patch of existence, such as, for instance, a city") might be determined to be negative given its rupturing of the safety of relative stasis.

What we see, though, is that it all depends on whether we can draw neat lines like this in our determination of the morality of such an event. It happened to work well this time---the atrocities of the dropping of the bomb can all be encapsulated under the conceptual umbrella of "rupturing stasis", since in this case the idea of stasis is the maintenance of life itself. (Importantly, the "maintenance of life itself" depends upon the continued existence of its form of stasis relative to the other potential chaotic states of the universe. Meaning, more briefly, that life can only continue if it remains stable in relation to the forms of physical chaos around it. Which in turn, then, means that the maintenance of relative stability is at least mostly equatable here with the continuation of life itself. )

So overall, I think we should be mixed on this opinion. Sometimes our judgement of morality based on capacity to cause disorder or chaos seems to follow; other times it won't be as neat.

Another possibility for a mixed opinion is that maybe the chicken and the egg occurred concurrently, in which case it would be hard to choose one answer.

Very watertight argument. The only issue would be if the cause of our extinction happened not to be self-imposed. Then it might still be a tragedy, depending.

Free will in the strictest sense may be done for (Sam Harris's argument against free will is philosophically, psychologically, and perhaps even biologically, compelling: Do you have any say over what is coming into your head right now? Over what you are choosing to do this very second? If you choose to do one thing or the other in response to reading this, the background cause of your doing one thing versus another remains an eternal mystery. The fact seems to stand that we have no idea what causes us to choose one thing over another, make one decision over another decision, or even think one thought from amidst a great many potential others. The "you" who chooses seems to be an after-effect of the chosen thought itself.)

However, like so many moments in philosophy, we run up against a major problem here with how we choose to define concepts. Not only is the "you" who chooses defined differently depending on how the very concept is used, but so also is a deeper level of free will appearing in the debate that we may now wish to work with: The "you" that is making the choice out of all possibilities, the "you" who comes out of all (predetermined or not) steps in just one potential series of events... this "you" may not be how we typically conceive of ourselves, but it might be "free," nonetheless. We just have to spread the concept of free will to encompass more steps along the line---all those steps in the biological, physical universe that, looked at from this largest of lenses, create the choices "we" make. That, then, unknowable as it may forever remain from, say, just this one point in time, is who "we" are.

As Robert Sapolsky said, quoted here by Turi, "...free will is just what we call the biology that hasn’t been discovered yet."