You seem to contradict yourself. For example, you say:
> While I like many aspects of the being part of a religion, what I like is completely viable without the religious aspect.
How do you know it's viable without it? What evidence do we have of that? You claim:
> I have some good friends who are very religious and in chatting with them I can see the benefits of community, helping others and being inclusive..
> it just seems, to me, such a shame that to be a part of such a positive community you have to believe in God.
And:
> I just wish we could figure out am effective way to do so without religion.
I'm an atheist, and I've slowly come to accept that the communal aspect that you're describing is unattainable without religion. Or at the least, I, like you, have not "figured out an effective way to do so without religion". It seems to me that you need something transcendent and non-material to bind people materially. Isn't this the lesson of the 20th century "isms" (communism, capitalism, socialism) - the supplanting of religion with ideology, and it's disastrous effects?
Are we could allow local communities to govern themselves and decide what should and shouldn’t be legal when it comes to this stuff? Federalism and all that.
There are good arguments from each side, so a top down one size fits all approach doesn't seem like the proper way to go about it.
Well, you know, the Protestant notion of predestination is something quite interesting. I think that it's very pure in a sense, in that it strips away the sort of material or "transactional" nature of faith.
Good acts don't guarantee you a place in the afterlife - they stand alone, whole in and of themselves, giving them a moral dimension outside the bounds of faith. It's not that your fate is predetermined, which it is, but more importantly, you don't KNOW what the predetermination is.
I won't digress since I don't know if HN is a good place for a discussion of the metaphysics of predestination, but it's something very interesting to think about.
Well, not within some strict confines, but there is academic work that looks at society as a sort of "social organism" that exhibits many of the traits that you might ascribe to "life".
Fair enough - I think that you make a good point. I think the overall political climate is fueling this, but you're right, it does degrade the value of this site.
While I do agree with you that these are all potential causes, I would appreciate any citations or sources. There is an interesting report from the Brookings Instituion that goes into this a little more deeply:
I think it's worth a read regardless of where you stand on the ideological spectrum. I think there is room for both sides to find some headway in areas like healthcare, incarceration, and education...
I've been both sexually harassed at work and groped by strangers when out on the town (by a woman) - but yeah, I agree with your larger point. I think it's certainly more prevalent the other way around.
Do we? How do you draw that conclusion from the data? Personality disorders seem to be fairly resistant to treatment/therapy, and certainly more than 1% of the population has issues with mental health, yet they don’t seem to commit crimes at such an alarming rate.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I don’t think your conclusion is directly supported by this study.
Not at all - I abhor racism, sexism, and homophobia. My point has more to do with our general indulgence in materialism, offensive and gaudy cultural products (such as music that is highly denigrating and much of TV), a general contempt for anything religious or sacred, and our habit of placing relatively minor issues on the pedestal, while doing little in the way of pursuing policy that would benefit most people.
No, but it's important that we control and police language and shove PC culture into your head at absolutely any opportunity and just grind and grind and grind away at any artifact of traditional culture.
Case in point - see the 900 post Tesla Falcon Heavy thread, where the majority of the discussion centered around a tangential point over gender expectations.
Maybe because it's a ridiculously vague and abstruse question that presupposes a set of ideas that libertarianism, or any political philosophy for that matter, never set out to directly answer?
Libertarianism is simply a political framework which we can use to see and interpret the world. It can be combined with other frameworks to help us reach even deeper levels of understand (or perhaps not).
The right-libertarian could argue that the best solution is a competitive marketplace that will fuel hyper-economic growth, and accelerate the rate at which we develop technologies that allow us to ween off of fossil fuels.
A left-libertarian, maybe someone with a strong civil libertarian persuasion, could argue that the non-aggression principle is being violated by the emissions of greenhouse gasses. They would then establish an "emissions rights" framework, and perhaps a marketplace to address the issue.
Thanks for the reminder; and to think that I've spent a lifetime just assuming that public infrastructure grew out of the ground, like grass.
Look, I said I wasn't trying to change the guy's mind or debate. This isn't anything new, we've discussed this about a million times and I'm sure we'll never agree on the proper role and scope of taxation. My statement was simply a counterpoint to the completely undefended and unqualified idea that "Eluding taxes is super-unethical."
>And what country did they live.....
Ah yes, the cosmic effects that we must pay tribute to because we happened to be in the right place at the right time. If we're headed down that route, "America" deserves about as much credit as the invention of mathematics, or at the very least, the computer. Maybe we should thank Steve's mother. We can go down the line infinitely. The point is, people create, build, and make things, and it's those people that should be attributed and credited.
>This is the success sequence stuff? Look it's just not very true. Almost the entirety of various 'success sequence' poverty figures can be explained by one thing: maintaining full-time work
This isn't true, and a random blog post where the author has difficulty replicating the studies results does not prove it so. There is a mile high pile of literature that shows marriage and high school graduation to be vitally important. It would not surprise me in the least that these two are strongly correlated with full-time employment. The "Success Sequence" has lifted more people from poverty than any social welfare program has to date.
>You didn't need a social scientist or sociologist to declare that class distinctions are natural and helpful. Why the trepidation on race?
I genuinely still have absolutely no idea what you are asking me to clarify, and I'm taking offense at your insinuation that I'm being coy about some matter regarding race. I will gladly answer your question, but what is it that you are asking or need clarification on? Are you asking me if racial distinctions are natural? Yes, race is hereditary, is this not self-evident?
> Are many mobile in an effortful sense though?
I don't know what you mean by effortful, so the best I can answer you is to say that socially mobility is a very real and recognized phenomena in the United States of America.
>This society would demonstrate perfect intergenerational mobility yet there would be no way to exert effort and change your circumstance
As far as I understand you, your underlying premise here is that social mobility is, like a dice roll, pure luck. I think this premise is completely baseless.
>'luck' component to mobility? It's the same deal
It absolutely isn't the same deal. I don't doubt that race makes it more difficult for some people to succeed, but this is completely tangential and I'm finding it difficult to see what, if anything, this has to do with my original statement.
Debatable - some of us hold taxation to be tantamount to theft, so we believe in the exact opposite. I'm not here to debate or change your mind though, just offering a perspective.
> America made it possible for them to start a company like that....
What do you mean by "America" made it possible? Steve Jobs, Wozniak, and all the other people who worked there made it possible.
> people gave the a shitload of money,
No one "gave" them money. They voluntarily purchased a product or service.
> It doesn't matter if one is obliged by law to do something or not.
Yes it does.
> I don't have to offer an old lady my seat on the bus, but what kind of piece of shit doesn't do that?
We can have a sensible discussion without condescension.
> You're in a thread about class and you're saying that class distinctions are good......You don't think those people who have experienced the bottom are going to have a reaction to that?
I've "experienced bottom" and I don't really find what I said to be inflammatory or offensive, if we're willing to be honest with ourselves, it's rather quite self-evident.
>You make it sound so easy! But it's not, growing up in a poor community frequently means growing up in poor schools with poor opportunities, no mentors and rare role models.
I'm familiar with how "easy" or not it is - I've lived it. If you graduate high school and don't have a kid before you are married, you're pretty much guaranteed to enter the middle-class.
> Would you say the same thing about racial distinctions? If not, why?
What exactly do you mean? Do I think that racially homogeneous societies exhibit more social order? I don't know, that to me sounds like a question for a social scientist or sociologist. I don't find it to be analogous to what we're talking about here though, as one cannot change their race, but many are socially mobile.
> While I like many aspects of the being part of a religion, what I like is completely viable without the religious aspect.
How do you know it's viable without it? What evidence do we have of that? You claim:
> I have some good friends who are very religious and in chatting with them I can see the benefits of community, helping others and being inclusive..
> it just seems, to me, such a shame that to be a part of such a positive community you have to believe in God.
And:
> I just wish we could figure out am effective way to do so without religion.
I'm an atheist, and I've slowly come to accept that the communal aspect that you're describing is unattainable without religion. Or at the least, I, like you, have not "figured out an effective way to do so without religion". It seems to me that you need something transcendent and non-material to bind people materially. Isn't this the lesson of the 20th century "isms" (communism, capitalism, socialism) - the supplanting of religion with ideology, and it's disastrous effects?