I think life in the universe is ubiquitous but what we call intelligent life may be rare, just ...

cava comments on Oct 5, 2018:

And anatomically modern Homo sapiens were in Africa about 315,000[6] years ago, modern behavior about 50,000 years ago. It seems, in comparison to how long it took us to get to this point, like an incredibly short time to be now talking about extinction. Many species fitness have been tested and many species are gone, but some have been around for quite a long time. Either we survive our challenges or we do not. It is the survival of the fittest.

The Reality of Nothing: Time & Space Go into a dark, quiet room with no sensory distractions.

cava comments on Oct 8, 2018:

I think space & time are how we construct a coherent world. To the extent that they form the intuitive building blocks of the world we cannot at the same time say what they are without circularity.

Since the recording of the film, there was no miracle of any prophet

cava comments on Oct 9, 2018:

What?? https://youtu.be/0GOg54qSAfQ

Why does christianity have a trinity? A father, a son, and the holy ghost?

cava comments on Oct 10, 2018:

I think the Gnostic conception of the Father, the Mother and the Son is more logical. Mathew states that the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary. So perhaps understanding the necessity of the Trinity, the substance of God is the necessity of understand why the Holy Ghost & not the Mother are part of the Trinity.

Is anyone else grateful that the fashion for the word 'Bright' seems to be fading.

cava comments on Oct 11, 2018:

The Dawk & Pinker will always be the Brights as far as I am concerned.

Republican Nominee: God Is A White Supremacist, Jews Come From Satan | Michael Stone

cava comments on Oct 14, 2018:

If " Jews are descended from Satan" And Christ was a Jew Then Christ was descended from Satan

Are Particles Conscious?

cava comments on Oct 15, 2018:

I favor panpsychism, but not one that gives every particle a bit of consciousness, rather I think brute fact of the awareness exemplified by life is a product of the correct and unique arrangement/structure of matter.

Scientists Created the First Successful Human-Animal Hybrids - DhakaReport.net

cava comments on Oct 18, 2018:

It ought to be interesting. The article suggests that the problem researchers had to overcome was a timing issue. The proper time during the pig's gestation period for the insertion of human cells into pig's embryo, so that the human cells are not killed off. So far they have done this with 100,000 cells, they don't know if there are other built in restraints, the human body has trillions of cells.

First Aid Kit - America (Cover) - YouTube

cava comments on Oct 22, 2018:

There are about 7000 walking this way right now.

Like the deaf or the blind There’s something out there which we left behind But like the saying...

cava comments on Oct 25, 2018:

aa, bb, cc, dd...

Is man's internal struggles with good vs evil manifested externally through religion?

cava comments on Oct 27, 2018:

I think that the ego is initially* ruled by desire (the Id) where pleasure and pain provide the motivation. If there is an inherent source of good and bad, it may be traced back to this differentiation (which is what Melanie Klein, who followed Freud asserted) between the good breast and the bad breast. "The breast that feeds the hungry infant is the "good breast", while a hungry infant that finds no breast is in relation to the "bad breast".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_relations_theory * the ego is not united in itself until after the mirror stage (Lacan, also close follower of Freud)

Some More Thoughts About The Reality Of Space PROOF THAT SPACE IS NOT A THING If space were a ...

cava comments on Oct 28, 2018:

I agree, space is not a thing. Space & time are how we intuit the world, without these "intuitions" there would be no world. Our need to order the world, to have coherent experiences, rests on our ability to represent the world in time and space. Defining these terms is problematical because they are the way we construct the world.

Mickey Mouse - The Haunted House (1929) - YouTube

cava comments on Oct 30, 2018:

Great. I especially liked the raging storm and the bats. One weird thing is that Mickey answer's "Yes ma'm!" when the grim reaper commanded Mickey to play.

All Men are Voyeurs and All Women are Exhibitionists. Where does the line begin?

cava comments on Oct 31, 2018:

Exhibitionist is to Sadist as Voyeurs is to Masochist

[investors.com] The UN admits that the Paris Climate deal was a fraud

cava comments on Nov 1, 2018:

Flat out BS The agreement itself is not taking effect until 2020, and and US is part of it until November of 2020.

Who wants to talk about Plato?

cava comments on Nov 1, 2018:

Plato's theory of forms is only concerns a small part of his 35 dialogues and his latter dialogues (Parmenides, Statesman, Sophist) are self critical of the theory.

Some years back, I was at the post office , waiting in line to mail a package.

cava comments on Nov 1, 2018:

I know...let's face it, 'V' is a difficult letter, it gets pronounced like a 'B' in some languages. Also 'W' is pronounced as a 'V' in German.

In Our Alternate Reality, Here Be Dragons: Part One As a personal philosophy I have tended to be ...

cava comments on Nov 2, 2018:

"Might dragons be one of those cultural universals; one of those molehills of mythological reality? Might dragons, as well as their lords and masters, the ‘gods’, all be part of what I term our Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe?" Humans and monkeys fear snakes. I think our/primate instinctive fear reaction to snakes is imaginatively heightened by giving snakes wings to soar about. The reality of a snake versus the reality of a dragon; pragmatically in our experience, it is easy to suggest the difference, since there are snakes about, but no dragons. We generally pay more attention to what we understand is real as a part of our experiences in life. Virtual experience requires enough imagination to give license to things like dragons scaring us. You might have more success in thinking about the universals in human sexual development, such things as the Oedipus Complex, and how and why it changes in some cultures. We all have mothers and fathers or care givers.

Is there even a such thing as community?

cava comments on Nov 4, 2018:

I think we can only be individuals in relations with others, that it is community which provides us with a language, a context, a way of acting, a culture. Our private thoughts are not ours, they belong to the community, and we think them. There are no new-new thoughts, but syntactical differences can be important.

Food for thought and action

cava comments on Nov 4, 2018:

Philosophy "... is not to be envisaged as a straight line, but as a circle returning into itself. ... In development there is an advance, not into the abstract infinite, but returning back into itself." G.W.F. Hegel The people, you mention, all thought deeply about life, they all had something important to say and there will be more people like them. The closer we look the more we learn about ourselves; the deeper and more complex our thoughts about each other and life we lead, the richer our insights. You ask "Does this exist?", I think it does, and it is history.

The Psychology of Anti-Semitism

cava comments on Nov 5, 2018:

Peter Glick;s paper is excellent. One of the problems we have in the US is labeling people as anti-Semitic because they don't support Israel's actions in the Mid-East. Some pro-Israeli factions aggressively attempt to brand people like Linda Sarsour, as being anti-Semitic and these factions succeed in smearing her name in the press. These factions are trying to dissuade women from taking part in the Women's March because Sarour was co-chair in 2017. See following: https://nypost.com/2018/11/04/dont-join-this-years-womens-march-unless-youre-good-with-anti-semitism/

Can we ever reach beyond human understanding?

cava comments on Nov 6, 2018:

This is what we do when we die.

Sleep and Dreams: Some Random Thoughts Why Sleep?

cava comments on Nov 9, 2018:

Perhaps we don't sleep, rather we automatically change or lower our level of awareness and allow our minds to wander.

Do you display any symbols of your humanist philosophy?

cava comments on Nov 9, 2018:

☮️

Hard To Swallow Pills

cava comments on Nov 12, 2018:

Perhaps... most of the world believes, and only a small percentage resist... the world is kinda crazy.

Looking for logical discussion about religion

cava comments on Nov 15, 2018:

You might look for an anthropologist who specializes in religions & culture. It's an important topic since something like 83% of the world claim to be religious. Perhaps look at an anthropological magazine for someone that attracts your intention...https://www.americananthro.org/search/?Keywords=religion#gsc.tab=0.q=religion.page=1

Our money/currency system in the U.

cava comments on Nov 15, 2018:

"Fiat money is currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, but it is not backed by a physical commodity. The value of fiat money is derived from the relationship between supply and demand rather than the value of the material from which the money is made." The user trusts that the government's minted currency has exchange value. The government can print as much money as it wants, so it can pay off any debt, however the more currency in crculation the less valuable its currency can become....inflation. Some countries have tried to print their way out of debt only to find their currency became virtually worthless. Modern Money Theory suggests that governments enter into debt with instruments such as bonds in order to control the amount of money in the economy, which is supposed to effect inflation, but the government could have just as easily created more money, assuming that the issuance of additional capital does not impair trust in the value of the government's minted currency.

I am trying to write my Thanksgiving column, but it turning out to be about discrimination and ...

cava comments on Nov 17, 2018:

I have always been fascinated by the story of Squanto a member of the Patuxet tribe and his incredible life, especially how he help make the Pilgrims settlement in Plymouth MA viable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto

[washingtonpost.

cava comments on Nov 17, 2018:

She is a corporate shill, whatever her corporate donors want, she gets. Money has to be gotten out of politics and neither she nor 'roll-over' Schumer are good for that task in my opinion. The Dems are at war with themselves internally, there is even talk of Hilary running in 2020. Beyond that she wants to work with Trump...and fuck that, our representatives must battle against the fascist idiot we have in the White House.

God existing or 'existing' or just thinks he 'exists'?

cava comments on Nov 20, 2018:

According to Matthew, Mary was impregnated by the holy spirit. Circumcision was part of the covenant g made with Abraham. "The first covenant was between God and Abraham. ... You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Genesis 17. God promised to make Abraham the father of a great people and said that Abraham and his descendants must obey God" This suggests (a la Freud) that the genesis of civilization was a traumatic (or primal) event, which is recognized in the continuance of the circumcision ritual.

If a conjoined twim commits a crime, then what happens to the other attached twin?

cava comments on Nov 21, 2018:

If they are conjoined then they are responsible for their joint actions, and all we can do is look at the consequences of those actions. I don't think there is a way to prove intent.

7.

cava comments on Nov 22, 2018:

Depends

You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

cava comments on Nov 23, 2018:

There probably is a monolithic direction that each culture follows but I think we are almost completely unaware of it, and I think it changes as our culture changes. Feminists talk about the male gaze as being unescapable, that is sorta what I mean. I think/feel that sex in America is becoming more liberal overall (big exceptions include the forces exerted by religions) and it appears to me that to our concept of justice, of treating people fairly without regard to their sexual practices is prevailing in our court system. I think this is important because as laws change our perception of sexual preferences and practices also change, our mind set changes. I think the major faction of our culture that demonizes sex are religions which use the fear of different preferences and practices as a powerful way to direct their congregations. Even here the rules of law appear to be changing their approach, at least in some major religions. Anecdotal bits: "Earlier this month, Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse in Chile who was a guest of the Vatican's in late April, says he and Pope Francis discussed more than the scandal that has roiled the church in Chile. They also discussed Cruz's sexuality. He is gay. According to Cruz, the Pope told him, "It doesn't matter. God made you like this. God loves you like this." Of course the Vatican would neither affirm nor deny the conversation. "The Presbyterian Church (USA) is currently the only Presbyterian Denomination in the United States that allows same-sex marriage, and ordains openly LGBT members in committed relationships as teaching elders (clergy), and ruling elders (elders elected to serve on the Session)."

Be good. Do good.

cava comments on Nov 23, 2018:

BS...what is good, bad, & happy for one, may be rotten, fantastic and depressing for another.

The Simulation Hypothesis and Panpsychism.

cava comments on Nov 27, 2018:

"Panpsychism is the concept that all things, even the fundamental particles, are to some degree or other, conscious." Theories about panpsychism are not monolithic. I think that panpsychism describes the effect of matter structured in a certain manner, the effect this structure we call awareness. I don't think a fundamental particles have consciousness/awareness, but they may have the potential to participate in such awareness depending their ability to be in the certain structural relationships, which we call life.

The fact that the word faith is so closely associated with religion and God is annoying.

cava comments on Dec 2, 2018:

I am not sure we can have faith in anything beyond our own selves, at least not in the with the same force as a true believer can have in god (regardless of what we may think of such a belief). Faith in success, progress and science is different because these are exterior goods and involve others, which are not totally within our control. The person who creates and lives in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience, who have faith in what they do regardless of outcome, I think these people have a deeper sense of faith than any Christian. Faith in this sense is morality, what one ought to do without being told, without outside influence or purpose. It is faith in the truth, where truth is fidelity to one's own self.

Is time relevant.

cava comments on Dec 5, 2018:

All time measures are conventionally determined. "The base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), and by extension most of the Western world, is the second, defined as about 9 billion oscillations of the caesium atom." Wikipedia Time's importance to individuals is culturally determined. I had some friends that went to Liberia in the Peace Corps a long time ago. They were frustrated by the Liberian's very liberal interpretation of time: a Monday 9:30 am appointment might not actually take place until later in the week and the person making the appointment would no disagree about the initial time as it was scheduled, but rather it has to do with the relative importance of the appointment. Many cultures act differently regarding the importance of time measures. Some are very precise, such as the Swiss, others not so much.

And this goes for all teams ( politically and most socially)

cava comments on Dec 8, 2018:

I share George Carlin's expression of dislike of "ass-kissers, flag wavers or team players", and his like of "independence, individuality, and integrity", clearly none of this makes any sense without **Others**, people we love, and trust, like George.

Thomas Nagel on the nature of moral progress: [law.

cava comments on Dec 12, 2018:

Hum, I'll need to read it again. Nagel is a great thinker, but I'm not sure I agree with all that he is saying in this brief essay. For instance he says that: "The offense of harassment is not merely an interpersonal transgression but a form of social injustice." and he goes on to say that is only true of women's harassment by men. He does not disregard the fact that men harass men, women/women & women/men but he thinks only men's harassment of women deserves institutional sanction, that the other forms of harassment require interpersonal sanction, that " ...they are not part of a pervasive problem of social justice". Which kinda goes along with his idea of moral progress, where men's systematic mistreatment of women is now recognized as not socially just. He goes on to state: "I believe that for this reason the institutional reactions to the cases of Kevin Spacey and James Levine were completely disproportionate—motivated by a punitive spirit toward sexual transgression that has nothing to do with social justice"

How do you trap someone into committing perjury?

cava comments on Dec 17, 2018:

Doesn't the prosecutor ask the person being questioned something the prosecutor thinks might elicit an lie....like did you pay those women hush money two week before the election? No.....

[m.youtube.com]

cava comments on Dec 19, 2018:

Free will is as real as a $50.00 bill.

Base Reality vs.

cava comments on Dec 21, 2018:

The reality, the only reality is that of the (m)other, which I mistakingly but rightly take to be my own.

LIGHT starter ideas for Christmas Day?

cava comments on Dec 22, 2018:

Well you could always go with a Cava champaign ;) I like a nice prosecco like: Nino Franco Prosecco Rustico $16.99 at Total wine

Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist explains why there is something rather than nothing.

cava comments on Dec 24, 2018:

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" Because we think. [I tried to listen to his podcast but his presentation style drove me nuts, more side notes than I could take]

Oh dear...

cava comments on Dec 24, 2018:

I don't get it, how is that half way to a billion[maybe it's a Trump inspired joke]? And, I don't know how fast this fund is growing but a quick search suggests it is quickly growing. It says $16 million plus right now.

Roger Waters - What God Wants, Pt. 1 - YouTube

cava comments on Dec 27, 2018:

Great artist who supports BDS in spite of the smears and disinformation flung at him by Israel's propaganda machine. Following from his response to Nick Cave on playing in Tel Aviv 2017: "Rage. This is about children, like the young boys blown to bits while playing soccer on the beach in Gaza. Boys murdered by Israel. Boys symbolic of the thousands and thousands of children sacrificed in Israel’s “Mowing of the lawn.” Israel’s terminology, not mine. We, hundreds of thousands of us, supporters of BDS and human rights throughout history all over the world join together in memory of Sharpeville and Wounded Knee and Lidice and Budapest and Ferguson and Standing Rock and Gaza and raise our fists in protest. We hurl our glasses into the fire of your arrogant unconcern, and smash our bracelets on the rock of your implacable indifference."

So what do you think he meant? Compliments: Philadelphia Museum of Art

cava comments on Dec 30, 2018:

He was so much better than Jeff Koons. Female phallus

Ok judge not

cava comments on Jan 2, 2019:

Perhaps along the lines of 'let those among you who has never sinned cast the first stone'. You can never know what the other person has experienced, so don't judge them without walking in their shoes.

Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.

cava comments on Jan 3, 2019:

Well that probably depends on what you think is mad. People probably thought Copernicus was mad to speculate that the sun was the center of the solar system.

"Whoever despises himself respects himself as one who despises." Friedrich Nietzsche

cava comments on Jan 3, 2019:

Narcissist

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

cava comments on Jan 9, 2019:

The link to Sulla didn't work. Strong epitaph.

The only thing constant in this life is change

cava comments on Jan 19, 2019:

The essence of being is becoming.

Does the end justify the means?

cava comments on Jan 25, 2019:

"Is it alright to hurt a few in order to help many?" Your questions are broad. Do you mean like a train with no brakes coming down the tracks to a junction box which is controlled by some one who now has two options, allow it to proceed along its regular course and thereby run into an another train with hundreds of passengers on it, or send it over to the other set of tracks where four boys walking and would surly be killed if the train were diverted.

I hate "Thoughts and Prayers" - to me it means "I do not care enough to actually do anything about ...

cava comments on Jan 30, 2019:

Sounds like Little Marco's response to the killings of innocents in Parkland FL.

Aliens?

cava comments on Feb 5, 2019:

"Aliens? Why does that word frighten people so much?" The film Alien (1979) has been analysed as an example of how in horror and science fiction monstrous representations of the female resonate with the abject archaic figure of the mother. Bodily dismemberment, forcible impregnation, and the chameleon nature of the alien itself may all be seen as explorations of phantasies of the primal scene, and of the encounter with the boundaryless nature of the original abject mother." Wikipedia :)

This is what propaganda looks like.

cava comments on Feb 7, 2019:

Russia spent 61 billion on defense 2017, their budget actually dropped by 17% from the year before...USA $590 billion in 2017 and has now increased to $716 (and more somehow) billion in 2019. It's a bloody joke.

Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act seeks to abrogate SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage.

cava comments on Feb 12, 2019:

Lock them up!

Wisconsin's "Unborn Child Protection Act" [rewire.news]

cava comments on Feb 13, 2019:

I read up on Wisconsin's Cocaine Moms (mentioned in the article)...WoW it Draconian to the max https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wisconsins-dirty-secret-about-the-treatment-of-pregnant_us_58efdd88e4b0156697224d94

Happy Valentine's Day.

cava comments on Feb 14, 2019:

Roses are red Violets are blue I ain't got none, Happy Valentine's to you!

W.

cava comments on Feb 14, 2019:

Neat poem. It's a put down poem by a spurned lover, who is willing to take the blame, If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.

People like Ocasio Cortez will cost New York big time.

cava comments on Feb 16, 2019:

The biggest opponents to Amazon moving to NYC were unions, Amazon said it would crush unions. It would have also adversely affected ordinary working people who would have been further pushed out of any affordable housing. For what? An absolutely miserable company, one that pays zero Federal Taxes...get woke.

Someone on Quora asked the question ”Why Do British People NOT Like Trump?

cava comments on Feb 16, 2019:

Nice rant. "And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.".... Jeremy Corbyn?

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

cava comments on Feb 18, 2019:

Piglet: “How do you spell ‘love’?” Pooh: “You don’t spell it…you feel it.” —Winnie-the-Pooh Fuck Nietzsche what do you think?

Beliefs.

cava comments on Feb 19, 2019:

"It's not what you believe, it is belief itself that is the confounding problem of the human race." Disagree, knowledge is Justified, True Belief...belief is a necessary (but IMHO not sufficient) condition for knowing. If we don't believe in what we hold to be true then we don't know it. The other things in your rant, Karma, fictions, all are all examples of things that can be believed, but are not justifiable, hence not true knowledge.

With this new category of people BAME (I think it means Black, Asian, Middle Eastern), does that ...

cava comments on Feb 19, 2019:

The acronym BAME stands for black, Asian and minority ethnic, which has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. Some brushes are wide, some are narrow, I guess it depends on how detailed you need to be, I think it's more of a academic idiom. Apparently people who are described by these categories were not happy about being lumped together in the singular term Black. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43831279

My all time favorite word is “enthusiasm.

cava comments on Feb 21, 2019:

Plato talked about being in tune and out of tune with one's self, Socrates said he would rather be out of tune with the whole world then be out of tune with himself. I think being in tune means regardless of what you are doing. Like when you get in the groove skiing, you forget your self, your organism takes over and it feels great. That's how I imagine Socrates felt in the mist of a dialogue, and why he spoke about his daemon.

Is Jeremy Corbyn "fit for purpose" ?

cava comments on Feb 22, 2019:

I'm not British, but from what I read he has the experience and long practiced hard nosed political integrity, capable of bringing the UK forward on a solid basis. He has had a lot to put up with including multiple smears, labor leadership that was dead set against him, and now even the polls seem to be suggesting his popularity is slackening. He has had, and I suspect he continues to have the majority of the members of Labor (& not Blarites) behind him.

Too many levels of irony to address.

cava comments on Feb 23, 2019:

"A total of 84 farms in the upper Midwest filed for bankruptcy between July 2017 and June 2018, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. That’s more than double the number of Chapter 12 filings during the same period in 2013 and 2014 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/27/18114566/trump-trade-war-china-farm-bankruptcy

I shall take you to bed and have my way with you, I will make you ache, shake and sweat until you ...

cava comments on Feb 23, 2019:

Naw, it was telegraphed from the start.

Ben Shapiro calmly EDUCATED by Stephen Woodford - Rationality Rules [youtube.com]

cava comments on Feb 25, 2019:

If there were a god, it can't be proved by any logical or empirical argument because everything changes and nothing stops, which entails that no universals actually exists outside of our imagination.

“I am Johannes Verne.

cava comments on Feb 27, 2019:

Very nice, please pass the cheerios.

Had another round of my pet argument, referring to scientific theory as fact.

cava comments on Feb 28, 2019:

We see only a very small part of the universe, so to claim that this or that law holds everywhere may be a mistaken notion. There is no **reason** why nature must be uniform, that any of the laws we have derived hold in all places at all times. All phenomena is contingent, and all the laws we have come up with express probabilities based on our observations.

I had an X-ray and they found models of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Moulin Rouge in my ...

cava comments on Mar 1, 2019:

He must be in Seine

What type of person figures a room full of strangers want to hear them blather for two hours?

cava comments on Mar 3, 2019:

The majority of the GOP who now, with some rare exceptions, live in Trump's mythic America, where truth & lies become merged, a a Trump inspired dream scape where matters of fact depend on points of view, where racism is conflated with Nationalism.

Old but relevant article on drone civilian casualties, relevant because Trump just cancelled ...

cava comments on Mar 7, 2019:

Innocent lives mean little to these people.

Philly Taco Bell Workers Fired After Video of Center City Attack Surfaces - NBC 10 Philadelphia

cava comments on Mar 7, 2019:

There must be more to this...it is hard to believe that the attack was completely unprovoked, regardless, it was an assault and the termination of those involved makes sense.

A major puzzle about our moral psychology is why, as a species, we have evolved to be so sensitive ...

cava comments on Mar 7, 2019:

So you think ethics is part of our phenotype or our genotype?

I love points made with GRAPHICS- how about you?

cava comments on Mar 11, 2019:

Unity in wake of disaster https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2015/11/Jean-Jullien_illustration_Peace-for-Paris_attacks_dezeen_square.jpg

This has me confused.

cava comments on Mar 12, 2019:

I don't see it. Bob Menendez bipartisan bill that would impose drastic new sanctions on Russia is based on its meddling in U.S. elections and aggression against Ukraine is the latest congressional effort to push U.S. President Donald Trump to ratchet up Washington's response to Moscow. https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-senator-no-provisions-on-nordstream-2-in-new-sanctions-bill/29776811.html A few items. Menendez said: “there's no specific provision here on Nord Stream 2, let me start off with that, in terms of the sanctions that we have envisioned, and we seek to have a close collaboration with Europe on perfecting sanctions that can hit our ultimate target which is Russia for its violation of international law.” Trump is probably not happy with this bill, he was reluctant with CAATSA, the 2017 sanctions against Russia. He has no choice, because both Dems & GOP are dead set against Russia. The Trump administration favors sanctions as its form of diplomacy, 'extortion in lieu of statecraft'.

Catholic Leaders Demand ‘SNL’ Apologize For “Alarming” Sex Abuse Joke [deadline.

cava comments on Mar 12, 2019:

No, pedophilia is offensive and an endemic aspect of the Church's misogyny. How many thousands of children have suffered at the hands of sexually deprived and depraved priests? It is obscene for the Church to protest these jokes as if it was somehow above this sort of criticism.

Peterson: Host's excellent commentary about the left-pole's march against free speech, and therefore...

cava comments on Mar 13, 2019:

There are a very few theories that have massively changed man's understanding of himself and the world around him. I suggest that Marx's works and Darwin's works have respectively played a major role in social theory and science. So then Peterson asks why the postmoderns choose a Marxian approach over some other basis (and he does not specify what basis), I think it's because these thinkers realize that they cannot avoid confronting Marx despite the horrific history of applied Marxism. The French Revolution's principles suffered a similar fate in the Reign of Terror.

Do we see reality as it is?

cava comments on Mar 15, 2019:

I think he is conflating two kinds of discourse in his presentation; our discourse about what is manifest versus scientific discourse. Manifest images such as the sun rising and setting are important to how we conduct our lives, when things need to done and so on. The scientific image is constructed based on what is observed, it explains that the earth rotates on it axis as it revolves around the sun which explains why we see what we see. The scientific explanation has its own important utility. But what we experience is reality...the data...our interpretation of that data involves abstractions which are useful until they are no longer useful. Not all scientific explanations stand up over time.

Kissing Professional Women Rant.

cava comments on Mar 15, 2019:

"You don't see men kissing men (not in our country, some foreign countries do as that's their culture) but kissing women is still done? No. Stop it. We will always be seen as "women in the workplace" instead of co-workers until we get treated as any co-worker." Its been my experience that it is the woman who initiates the formal kissing, not typically me, unless I know it is expected.

Is Time A Concept Or A Thing?

cava comments on Mar 16, 2019:

Space describes the relationship between things. The relationship between things changes, which describes time. These relationships exist regardless of whether or not we exist.

Sarah Abdallah on Twitter: "Tulsi Gabbard: The CIA was using American taxpayer dollars to provide ...

cava comments on Mar 16, 2019:

Tulsi Gabbard is the real deal, unlike most of the other Dems candidates, excepting Bernie.

Nothing is as it seems

cava comments on Mar 17, 2019:

Everything is as it seems, why it is as it seems is another story.

Is he correct? [anticap.wordpress.com]

cava comments on Mar 19, 2019:

Nope.

We as humans trying to figure out where we came from is a little absurd, the cockroaches been ...

cava comments on Mar 23, 2019:

Maybe other creatures experience of life is rewarding to them in a species sort of way like enjoyment of their instincts, ways that we can't know or experience.

We have all heard people say there's evil in the world.

cava comments on Mar 24, 2019:

Well it does not exist in the same way as my desk, but how about the idea in my head, in our language, it exists there.

While Trump & Co.

cava comments on Mar 25, 2019:

I've read that there is a technical legal problem with releasing the report as is, the problem has to do with laws surrounding the secrecy of a grand jury investigation. " Mueller’s investigation included presenting evidence to a grand jury. So let us start with the rule that attorneys, jurors and others “must not disclose a matter occurring before the grand jury” – a rule that could be used to keep much of the Mueller report secret." https://theconversation.com/how-trump-and-barr-could-stretch-claims-of-executive-privilege-and-grand-jury-secrecy-114166

My new Bong

cava comments on Mar 26, 2019:

There are two bongs?

Interstellar facepalm. Reagan rides a dinosaur. Did he have a movie like that?

cava comments on Mar 26, 2019:

Republican's level of thought on a sustainable future.

A new study suggests that the formation of complex societies came first and that the beliefs in such...

cava comments on Mar 27, 2019:

"When did big moralistic gods enter the scene?." Maybe the entrance of big moralistic gods had to do with the introduction of local deities by war into new subjugated communities, as a new stabilizing ideology. I think war was the driving force behind the transformation of local god into the big time, for example how the Romans adopted several gods from Greece. The first million population communities were in Egypt around 100 BC and then Rome in 1 AD (I didn't see any other this early).

Information realism: Now there is something I cannot get my brain around.

cava comments on Mar 28, 2019:

I think this article conflates the scientific image with the manifest image of reality, which leads to the issues it presents. The desk in front of you is manifestly real, you can see it, stub your toe on it, it's very real ( it's real for the individual even if the individual is wrong). Of course that is the desk we experience. Why it is, as it is, is the chore of science and the answer might be abstract relationships of forces. Isn't it a bit like watching TV , the narrative the show presents does not really give a damn about the number of pixels, or any of the other Tech invested in it.

Science has been more evil to us than the benefits it yielded.

cava comments on Mar 29, 2019:

As others have stated you are conflating science and technology. While Science is only slightly swayed by ideological bias, technology is fully swayed by the ideology where it is produced. I doubt the nostalgic claim of happier forefathers can be defended, unless by "happier" you mean unaware as in 'ignorance is bliss'.

If we get to know everything there is.....what then?

cava comments on Mar 29, 2019:

If "everything there is" is infinite then we cannot know "everything there is", unless you are describing some form of god like knowledge.

I hope you live louder.

cava comments on Mar 30, 2019:

The original zip line?

Bill Maher, Trump’s “Got Away with Treason” [YouTube]

cava comments on Mar 30, 2019:

Clinton's dog.

EQUALITY BETWEEN PEOPLE.

cava comments on Apr 1, 2019:

Why chose the failed anachronistic ideology of the Enlightenment with all its squishy warmed over Christian beliefs? Look at the history...the ideas of the Enlightenment did nothing to stop the savage destruction of two world wars in the 20th Century. "Louis Althusser coined the term anti-humanism. Forget the significance of the human individual, he argued, it is historical processes that make the difference. There is no such thing as intrinsic humanity, we are all the product of external forces. Everything that cannot be analysed structurally is false consciousness. Humanism itself is false consciousness." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/04/atheistic-critique-of-humanism-forgotten [of course Altusser went mad and strangled his wife, but no one is perfect]

Does pineapple belong on pizza?

cava comments on Apr 1, 2019:

Yeah In hell