Michelle

Whim-worshipping inconsistent transcendentalist. I like that.

Well, the show does feature such classics as The Obsolete Man and Number 12 Looks Just Like You (episodes denouncing totalitarianism and selfless conformism, respectively, although I didn't enjoy the strong religious element in the former)

I do have one major complaint about season six, though. It concerns the character development of Willow. Considering her growing power-mania was maintained and heightened over the show's five seasons, I was highly disappointed when they tried to play up her power abuse as a metaphor for drug addiction. Buffy and the others running around pulling down things that might make her think of magic (drugs) like she's some kind of junkie was ridiculous. The problem wasn't that she was addicted to a substance (magic) so much that she was abusing magic as a means of maintaining power over others. Give a lonely little nerd girl who has been pushed around all her life the powers of a powerful witch and bad things start to happen. Magic became her replacement for self-confidence, and her second-hander mentality led to the inevitable: Dark Willow, a self-destructive and valueless creature driven by envy and a thirst for vengeance. (Dark Willow was something of an ingenious creation because Whedon used it both for his dramatic purposes and as a kind of nerd in-joke. The Dark Willow storyline definitely resembles the Dark Phoenix Saga in the X-Men Comic) Are the Law and Orders worth following? The sheer quanitity of these types of shows boggles my mind, and I never know where to start with things like this. I DID watch an episode with Whoopi Goldberg in it that was actually rather involving.

Both Buffy and Firefly are the brain children of Joss Whedon. I think Joss is one of the true geniuses of American entertainment. Firefly is considered a sacrament by libertarians, but Whedon himself is not a libertarian. In an article I read (I will see if I can find it) he wanted to play with the notion of how people on the losing end of a civil war would make out after the war. Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds named his ship (a Firefly class freighter) after the the battle of Serenity Valley, the loss of which broke the back of the rebel (brown-coat) cause. I truly loved that series and I am sorry it did not go on for a few seasons. Here is the theme song from the show. I sing or hum it frequently: http://www.fireflywi...of_Serenity.mp3 or Ba'al Chatzaf Yes, both are by Whedon. And they're his two best shows. Angel I've only seen a few episodes of, and they were OK... I'll have to see more of it. And I'm honestly not sure how I feel about his most recent series, Dollhouse. I've watched every episode so far, but there is just something... off about it.

Ted's thread is begging for this. I don't watch much TV (less than five hours a week), but there are shows I enjoy. - King of the Hill (Best animated show I have ever seen. The humor is very organic and down-to-Earth. Unlike other shows like Family Guy or South Park which can be downright malicious, this show never laughs at people: it only laughs at their flaws. The humor, thus, is benevolent. Any other show would have turned Hank Hill into a cheap five-second joke, but here, he is a bit of an elevated figure. Great in his flaws, but greater in his virtues. All of the characterizations are well-done. The opening theme is awesome. The sense of life is life-affirming.) - Torchwood (The only reason I would ever watch BBC America. What a fun show!) - Firefly (Joss Whedon's masterpiece. If you've seen it, you know why it is great. If you haven't, then you are missing out on one of the greatest American science-fiction programs ever made. Too bad FOX got it canceled so early in its first season.) - The Twilight Zone (Best anthology-type show ever made. Famous science-fiction writers regularly contributed to it, and episodes were almost always of the highest quality. The show has no established genre, as its stories span everything from historical drama to fantasy to horror to science fiction, and everything in-between. Rod Serling's baby is one of the greatest programs ever to appear on television.) - Futurama (This is one of those rare shows that is intelligent, hilarious, AND emotionally engaging. The episodes vary wildly in quality, but even the least of them are still clever, and the best ones are utterly unforgettable. Never have been a fan of The Simpsons, but Mr. Groening won my heart with this one.) - South Park (While I did cite it unfavorably earlier in the post, this is still a classic. No other show manages to combine juvenile grossness with intelligent social commentary quite like this one does.) - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I ignored this show for years due to its silly title. That was a huge mistake. It is a great show somewhat hampered by seasons one and seven, both of which are relatively lackluster. Watch at least halfway through the second season. It becomes utterly compelling through season six.)

Well, color me confused. If you had said I was "similar to" those people, your post would still have been ridiculous, but at least it would have been comprehensible. You would have clearly been drawing a parallel to illustrate a point (however incorrect). The form of it would have been correct, at least. But this... am I supposed to be insulted by an insinuation which has no basis in reality? Hell, I was born in the late eighties. I can assure you I did not exist when the Vietnam War was going down. Please, if you're going to insult me, at least do it correctly. And yes, that last sentence (what you're seemingly attempting to mock here) was warping what you said. That was deliberate. You've taken one judgment of mine, that Pinochet is evil for torturing and killing tens of thousands of his own citizens, and constructed a bizarre web of accusations against me: that I value peace in itself, that I divorce ends from means, that I am against war in general, etc. etc. I was hoping my own distortion would get you to reflect on your own thinking. It apparently did not. It was a failed bid on my part. And I see you are still obsessing over the discussion in that last thread. On that point, my terminology was skewed there. If it is justified to kill a person, it is also a contextually good act. I had thought I'd cleared that up, but apparently I did not.

I'm done. If this miserable little creep wants to treat the systematic torture and murder of tens of thousands of innocent people like it's something out of The Lord of the Rings, he can do so by himself. I should have learned my lesson with him when he was waxing poetic about the joy of killing people.

In fact, it makes him the least evil of all available avenues. Perhaps you say? was it or was it not preferable to that kind of communism that had risen every where else and killed millions? And if it was preferable then, was it good that it occurred instead that megadeath hole of communism? A disingenuous analogy, because you act as though there was some other world where no one needed to be murdered and somehow communists jet let Pinochet take power and lay the foundations for freedom - in opposition to everything they have fought and murdered for. A more proper analogy would be to consider a runaway train, and an operator has control over one switch. On path makes him run over 5 people, the other path makes him run over 50 people. Would that conductor be a good man if he made the train run over only those 5 people? The Soviet Union sent those trains on runaway courses, plowing over millions and millions of people. It is the only nation in the history of the world that was founded with the explicit principle of taking over every other nation on the planet, and it expended tremendous effort to try to do so. Yes I suppose in some perfect world none of this would have been at all necessary, and assuming actions of some sort were required by Pinochet to secure the foundations of freedom, then perhaps he could have just made a resort compound and sequestered suspected communists to that palace, keeping them well fed and well treated, explaining that he disagrees with them but does not advocate murdering them, but sees the world they want as a threat to humanity. Of course, assuming some of them were involved in assassinations, kidnappings, and terrorist attacks (standard fare for communist insurgencies) I don't know how good this polite treatment would have worked. Talk about being disingenuous! Your post is nothing more than a series of evasions, strawmen, and false dichotomies. I said perhaps, because, quite frankly, it is anyone's guess how much worse it would have been had the communists obtained power. I don't know, and, unlike you, I'm not going to pretend to know. Most likely it would have been a much worse situation. Your train scenario is rubbish. Pinochet was not some innocent fellow who had to make some rough choices in order to avert the greater disaster. Reality did not compel him or his Junta to sanction or commit the kinds of atrocities that were sanctioned and committed. I mean, really, please explain to me how torturing 30,000+ people serves the cause of freedom. How does playing Russian Roulette with an inmate stave off communism? You end this post with a false dichotomy. A rather patronizing one at that: apparently we can either treat political opponents (though, again, more innocents than socialists were tortured) like VIP guests, or we can subject them to pointless and cruel torture exercises designed for no other reason than to force people to say what they want them to say. Torture, after all, is a notoriously unreliable way to get real information from a person. Torture a person enough and you can make him confess to anything. Although I should have said 'to delight the sadistic fancies of the torturers' as well. After all, they were burning people alive in the streets, and electrocuting them to death in their state torture centers. I'm curious as to how those methods in particular served freedom.

Michael, Thank you. I really mean that. You know, reading this thread, I'm reminded of the policies police agencies have when they require their officers to carry tasers. Every officer, before he gets to carry one around with him, has to first get tasered himself. Not a day goes by that I don't appreciate the wisdom of that policy more and more.

The majority of leftists are decent folk who aren't far gone like the revolutionary Marxists are. Let's keep some perspective. I aɡree that many leftists believe they are well intentioned, and I very much enjoy my cousins' company. But this is a very important truth that people do not ɡrasp. Silly leftist beliefs held in the context of a free country with a responsible ɡovernment are one thinɡ. The very same beliefs held in the context of Chavez or Allende are totally different. Votinɡ is a violent act. It is a substitute for civil war. If you vote in a would-be dictator, and continue in spoutinɡ leftist nonsense, at some point you have become the apoloɡists and advocate of a murderer. The difference is subtle and the chanɡe catches people by surprise. Do you really think that all those ɡermans voted for a dictatorship under Hitler or that people who voted for Chavez owuld approve of firinɡ squads? But then what happens when the person you voted for does start doinɡ those bad thinɡs? Does no one have responsibility for their words? Can they keep on usinɡ that lanɡuaɡe because when they used it before it was all in fun? At some point, protestinɡ on behalf of a leftist (dictator) becomes protestinɡ on behalf of a (leftist) dictator. Freedom of speech is contextual. One does not have the freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater. One does not have the freedom to advocate the initiation of violence, or support for a dictator who uses violence. Once your man in office starts seizinɡ people's property and throwinɡ them in jail if they resist, you are on the dictator's side in a civil war. This is not a ɡame. This country was close to civil war in 2000 when ɡore tried to steal the election, and it isn't very far from civil war now. People who take words seriously and who object to calls for violence aɡainst the rich or whomever are not the ones who need to take it easy. It is people who call for revolution who need to learn the danɡer of the objects they are playinɡ with. What, exactly, are you going on about? My point is that, by and large, most leftists are not psychopaths drooling about the coming revolution. They are typically well-intentioned people, usually rational in other areas of their life, who believe in dangerous nonsense. Yes, very, very, dangerous nonsense, dangerous to themselves in the foremost. I assume what I said was absolutely clear. How were we close to a civil war in 2000? Hell, how are we close to a civil war now? Barack Obama becoming president is mostly the fault of conservatives, you know. He wouldn't have had a chance at the oval office if George W Bush's administration hadn't so thoroughly linked capitalism with fiscal irresponsibility in the public mind in the first place. And the fact that blowhards like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh represent the modern Republican party doesn't exactly help, either. Do know what the average American layman thinks now? He thinks that it is the fault of "unregulated capitalism" that the economy is tanking. Hell, Alan Greenspan even said as much. So, most people now associate capitalism with immorality, fiscal irresponsibility, Enron, and George W Bush, and you expect them NOT to support Barack Obama? Civil war is not a matter of mere disagreement on issues, civil war is a failure of legitimacy, such as can result from such things as stealing an election. There is a reason why the party out of power is called the loyal opposition. Once the fairness of elections is no longer believed in, violence in the streets is just an accident away. Look at Iran, look at contested elections everywhere. America is no different. We were one supreme court decision and less than a week away from violent demonstrations in 2000. You are too young to know the reality of riots. They have happened here before, and if they happen here again for the wrong reason the result could be catastrophic. Don't you mean civil chaos?

GAH How do you delete posts now?

The majority of leftists are decent folk who aren't far gone like the revolutionary Marxists are. Let's keep some perspective. I aɡree that many leftists believe they are well intentioned, and I very much enjoy my cousins' company. But this is a very important truth that people do not ɡrasp. Silly leftist beliefs held in the context of a free country with a responsible ɡovernment are one thinɡ. The very same beliefs held in the context of Chavez or Allende are totally different. Votinɡ is a violent act. It is a substitute for civil war. If you vote in a would-be dictator, and continue in spoutinɡ leftist nonsense, at some point you have become the apoloɡists and advocate of a murderer. The difference is subtle and the chanɡe catches people by surprise. Do you really think that all those ɡermans voted for a dictatorship under Hitler or that people who voted for Chavez owuld approve of firinɡ squads? But then what happens when the person you voted for does start doinɡ those bad thinɡs? Does no one have responsibility for their words? Can they keep on usinɡ that lanɡuaɡe because when they used it before it was all in fun? At some point, protestinɡ on behalf of a leftist (dictator) becomes protestinɡ on behalf of a (leftist) dictator. Freedom of speech is contextual. One does not have the freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater. One does not have the freedom to advocate the initiation of violence, or support for a dictator who uses violence. Once your man in office starts seizinɡ people's property and throwinɡ them in jail if they resist, you are on the dictator's side in a civil war. This is not a ɡame. This country was close to civil war in 2000 when ɡore tried to steal the election, and it isn't very far from civil war now. People who take words seriously and who object to calls for violence aɡainst the rich or whomever are not the ones who need to take it easy. It is people who call for revolution who need to learn the danɡer of the objects they are playinɡ with. What, exactly, are you going on about? My point is that, by and large, most leftists are not psychopaths drooling about the coming revolution. They are typically well-intentioned people, usually rational in other areas of their life, who believe in dangerous nonsense. Yes, very, very, dangerous nonsense, dangerous to themselves in the foremost. I assume what I said was absolutely clear. How were we close to a civil war in 2000? Hell, how are we close to a civil war now? Barack Obama becoming president is mostly the fault of conservatives, you know. He wouldn't have had a chance at the oval office if George W Bush's administration hadn't so thoroughly linked capitalism with fiscal irresponsibility in the public mind in the first place. And the fact that blowhards like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh represent the modern Republican party doesn't exactly help, either. Do know what the average American layman thinks now? He thinks that it is the fault of "unregulated capitalism" that the economy is tanking. Hell, Alan Greenspan even said as much. So, most people now associate capitalism with immorality, fiscal irresponsibility, Enron, and George W Bush, and you expect them NOT to support Barack Obama?

The majority of leftists are decent folk who aren't far gone like the revolutionary Marxists are. Let's keep some perspective. I aɡree that many leftists believe they are well intentioned, and I very much enjoy my cousins' company. But this is a very important truth that people do not ɡrasp. Silly leftist beliefs held in the context of a free country with a responsible ɡovernment are one thinɡ. The very same beliefs held in the context of Chavez or Allende are totally different. Votinɡ is a violent act. It is a substitute for civil war. If you vote in a would-be dictator, and continue in spoutinɡ leftist nonsense, at some point you have become the apoloɡists and advocate of a murderer. The difference is subtle and the chanɡe catches people by surprise. Do you really think that all those ɡermans voted for a dictatorship under Hitler or that people who voted for Chavez owuld approve of firinɡ squads? But then what happens when the person you voted for does start doinɡ those bad thinɡs? Does no one have responsibility for their words? Can they keep on usinɡ that lanɡuaɡe because when they used it before it was all in fun? At some point, protestinɡ on behalf of a leftist (dictator) becomes protestinɡ on behalf of a (leftist) dictator. Freedom of speech is contextual. One does not have the freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater. One does not have the freedom to advocate the initiation of violence, or support for a dictator who uses violence. Once your man in office starts seizinɡ people's property and throwinɡ them in jail if they resist, you are on the dictator's side in a civil war. This is not a ɡame. This country was close to civil war in 2000 when ɡore tried to steal the election, and it isn't very far from civil war now. People who take words seriously and who object to calls for violence aɡainst the rich or whomever are not the ones who need to take it easy. It is people who call for revolution who need to learn the danɡer of the objects they are playinɡ with. What, exactly, are you going on about? My point is that, by and large, most leftists are not psychopaths drooling about the coming revolution. They are typically well-intentioned people, usually rational in other areas of their life, who believe in dangerous nonsense.

The majority of leftists are decent folk who aren't far gone like the revolutionary Marxists are. Let's keep some perspective.

Here are just a few of the techniques used by this regime on their capitives: * Deliberate corporal lesions * Bodily hangings [suspensions] * Application of electricity * Mock execution by firing squad * Sexual aggression and violence * Witnessing and listening to torture committed on others * Russian roulette * Witnessing the execution of other detainees * Asphyxia * Exposure to extreme temperatures I can guarantee that these were not necessary to stave off communism. Ted and Matus: The entire argument against my judgment of Pinochet as pure evil seems to be that what happened in Chile was preferable to the alternative of communism. Perhaps, but this does not make Pinochet any less of an evil scumbag. If murderer A kills five people every month, and murderer B kills thirty people every month, it is rational to conclude that this former is less dangerous than the latter. It does not mean, however, that he is a good man, let alone some kind of hero of freedom. It is still completely immoral to idolize a murderer or dictator of any kind.

Bob is right. Uniformity of nature has not been not proved and cannot be proved, it is a hypothesis that seems to work well for that part of the universe we can observe. However, we do not know whether that uniformity can be extrapolated to a larger universe or a multiverse of which our visible universe is only a small part. Nothing can be more treacherous than so called "common sense". Many notions that were common sense during centuries were destroyed by the emergence of new and successful theories, like the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. It turned out that you cannot extrapolate the behavior of systems moving at low speeds to speeds comparable to the speed of light, and that you cannot extrapolate the deterministic and localized behavior of macroscopic systems to systems at atomic scales. You said it. Uniformity holds for the observable universe. Man can only obtain knowledge about the observable universe. Your speculations exist outside of the context of man's knowledge. Do invisible pin unicorns exist? You cannot say "no," because it is quite possible that, somewhere out in the depths of space, or perhaps in another dimension, where nature is suitably distinct enough from our own to allow a creature to be both invisible and pink at the same time in the same respect, invisible pink unicorns do, in fact, exist. But we have no reason to think that they exist, the traits they possess are self-contradictory, and there is no justified reason to entertain their existence. Thus, it would be absurd to speak of invisible pink unicorns as being anything other than pure fantasy. This is not saying that they cannot exist. They might, in a universe or section of a universe that is different from our own. But, within the context of man's knowledge of the universe, they don't exist. So we are justified in saying "invisible pink unicorns do not exist," as we are justified in saying "the universe is uniform in the laws governing its nature." Of course, if evidence to the contrary surfaces, then a person is justified in taking an interest in it, as they have a good reason to. Until then, however, you should just admit that there is no celestial teapot.

OH MY GOD

We have not looked everywhere. Since each second light that has never reached us before finally reaches us, as the cosmos expands. We have not seen everything so we cannot assert the uniformity of nature on empirical grounds. There is just too much cosmos for us to examine in detail in the limited time we have. We assume uniformity since science based on general laws is impossible without uniformity. Uniformity is not a priori necessary, since a consistent set of laws which is not uniform can exist. Nor is uniformity given to us empirically, for the reasons stated. We simply have to assume it to do science based on universally quantified postulates. And we have not (yet) found a fact to contradict uniformity but that does not mean there is no such fact. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Keep in mind that until the middle of the 19th century no fact contradicting Newton's law of gravitation was observed. Then lo!, it was observed. When telescopes with sufficient resolution were finally built, the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury counter indicated Newton's law of gravitation, which is only good as a first order approximation. When we have observed ALL the facts and the evidence shows uniformity of the laws of nature we may conclude they are uniform. Please write as soon as we have observe ALL the facts there are. Ba'al Chatzaf It is not the business of philosophy, science, or any reasonable person to consider something for which no evidence appears to exist. Your reasoning here is epistemological poison.

More than 30,000 people were tortured in the state detention and torture centers. Also, note that the Valech Report only took the testimony of people who were tortured in these centers. So when people were being tortured and maimed in the streets during the eighties, they weren't included. Like Carmen Gloria Quintana, who was burnt alive for demonstrating against this dictatorship. You're seriously going to point to this scumbag and his goons who killed, tortured, and forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of people and say he is a proponent of freedom? To say that I am disgusted is an understatement. Apparently torture and death are fine tools of the state when they're used in the context of a capitalist economy.

Just another reason to get cremated.

Why don't you just PM him instead of following him around the forum asking the same question over and over?

I like the new look. Very snazzy. Definitely an improvement over the last one. Though I will be glad when that horrid temporary header is replaced with the real one. Good work, Michael.

Title please? D. Dennett has written many books. Ba'al Chatzaf As far as I am aware, however, he has only written one book directly addressing the subject of religion. As to the title: "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"

Has anyone here read Daniel Dennett's book on religion yet?

Maybe I should make myself clear. I have no interest in reading any of his political screeds, and I am very wary about what he has to say about religion (although, as I told Ted, if he makes even one insightful point, I'll read his book on the subject), but I have considered getting his book on Orwell. And I will say that I DO like Dawkins when he isn't whining about religion. He should stick to speaking about science. His anti-religious arguments are usually embarrassing, and his understanding of religious ideas is simplistic.