Up@dawn 2.0 (blogger)

Delight Springs

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Minority rule is not democracy

"Democracy is supposed to be a game of numbers: The party with the most votes wins. In our political system, however, the majority does not govern," write political scientists Steven Levitsky and @dziblatt https://t.co/7PeyZbczxN
(https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1320383630900924421?s=02)

"...Critics of reform assert that counter-majoritarian institutions are essential to liberal democracy. We agree. That’s what the Bill of Rights and judicial review are for: to help ensure that individual liberties and minority rights are protected under majority rule. But disenfranchisement is not a feature of modern liberal democracy. No other established democracy has an Electoral College or makes regular use of the filibuster. And a political system that repeatedly allows a minority party to control the most powerful offices in the country cannot remain legitimate for long."

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Desert Island

Nigel Warburton (@philosophybites) tweeted at 5:16 PM on Sat, Oct 24, 2020:
Desert Island Philosophy Books. Which 8 books would you want with you if you were stranded on a desert island?
(https://twitter.com/philosophybites/status/1320127146774433792?s=02)

I would just bring Rousseau's "The Social Contract" so I could read about how free and happy people were in the state of nature while I desperately tried to ward off starvation for another day. --Ex.Comics

You can run, but...

"My obsessive running... was my distraction, my escape, my solution—the way that I tried to order a chaotic universe. It's ironic, but true, that running eventually forced me to face up to the very reality it was meant to hold at bay." From @JohnKaag:

https://t.co/jyqtEhVXlb
(https://twitter.com/TheAmScho/status/1320009698515537921?s=02)

@JohnKaag discovers a better solution: Solvitur Ambulando, it IS solved by walking, knew Aristotle, Diogenes, and so many others. Terrific essay, honest testament, further inducement to the peripatetic life.

Remarkable, John. Glad you've found the wisdom in Aristotle and his peripatetics. Consider as well the wisdom of Satchel Paige: "avoid running at all times." Get a dog, and walk her twice daily. Bring your daughter too.

Questions Oct 26-29

W 28/Th 29. FL 31-32, WGU -p.79.

Now that we've finished the Little History we can turn our full attention to the other texts. In light of Neiman's Kantian contention that maturity and growing up are key to philosophical enlightenment, Fantasyland is clearly spotlighting ways in which American history and culture lack maturity...

FL
  • Will Jesus return before 2050? 274
  • What do you think of Blame-the-victims evangelicals like Pat Robertson? 277
  • Why do you think so many Americans believe in  Satan and demons? 281
  • Why have Americans, compared to Europeans in particular, "rushed headlong back toward magic and miracles"? 288
  • Do you buy the economic theory of American religiosity? 290
WGU
  • Should philosophers pay more attention to child-rearing and parenting? 36
  • What do you think Cicero meant by saying that philosophy is learning to die?
  • Do you feel fully empowered to "choose your life's journey"? If not, what obstacles prevent that? 37
  • In what ways do you think your parents' occupations influence the number of choices you'll be able to make in your life?
  • If you've read 1984 and Brave New World, which do you find the more "seductive dystopia"? 39
  • Are we confused about toys and dreams? 40
  • Do others make the most important decisions for you? 41
  • Do you "make a regular appointment with your body"? 42
  • Do you trust anyone over 30? 45
  • Is it "reasonable to expect justice and joy"? 49
  • Are you "committed to Enlightenment"? 51
  • Do the passions for glory and luxury make us wicked and miserable? 53
  • What does it mean to say there are no atheists in foxholes? Is it true? 54
  • Was Rousseau right about inequality and private property? 55
  • Should philosophy be taught to children, so as to become thinking adults? 57
  • Should children "yield to the commands of other people"? 61
  • Should parents "let the child wail"?
  • Are Rousseau and Kant right about the true definition of freedom? 62
  • Is Rousseau right about desire? 65
  • Did Rousseau's abandonment of his children discredit his thoughts on child-rearing? 69 Or show him to be a hypocrite for saying no task in the world is more important than raising a child properly? 72
==
M 26/T 27. Rawls, Turing & Searle, Singer-LH 38-40, FL 29-30, Why Grow Up (WGU) -p.35

LH
  • Does Rawls's "Veil of Ignorance" thought experiment help to clarify your ideas about justice and fairness? 230
  • Can you suggest an example of an inequity in our society that helps the "worst off"? 231
  • Does John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment persuade you that computers can't really think like humans? 234 Does the Turing Test show that they can?
  • Do you agree that computers can be programmed with syntax but not semantics? 236
  • Do you think it will ever be possible to transfer minds into computers? Would you want your mind "uploaded"? What could go wrong? 237
 

  • Should we all "give up one or two luxuries" to help less fortunate people?240
  • Is "species-ism" still too widely accepted? Is it species-ist to eat meat?242-3
  • Do you agree that Peter Singer represents the best tradition in philosophy? 244-5 Is he a modern Socrates? 
FL 
  • Is it dangerous when a President confuses legend and myth, and movies, with reality? 254-5
  • Is there any way to control the spread of "cockamamie ideas and outright falsehoods" on the Internet" 260
  • What do you think of the 80% of Americans who "say they never doubt the existence of God"? 267
  • What do you think of Augustine's instruction to Biblical literalists? 270
WGU
  • Do you think of growing up as "a matter of renouncing your hopes and dreams"? 1
  • Do you like the "well-meaning Uncle's" advice? Or the Rolling Stones'? 4
  • Is Kant right, in "What is Enlightenment?," about why people "choose immaturity"? 5
  • If distractions, especially "since the invention of cyberspace," are "literally limitless," is Enlightenment in Kant's sense a realistic goal for most people? 9
  • Do you agree that it takes courage to think for yourself? 11
  • Is travel necessary for growing up? 13-16
  • Is Larry Summers wrong about language-learning? 16
  • Do you believe the best time of life is between the ages of 18 and 28? 20
  • How innocent should childhood be? What do you think of the way French children were raised in the 17th century? 24
  • Do you wish you'd had a Samoan childhood? Do you think tests in school prepare you for life? 27
  • Is it bad to be WEIRD? 32
 

American moral philosopher and author, Susan Neiman, talks us about why we have been tricked to think we are happiest when we are young and why it is we need to grow up. Watch the full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeNQV... Institute of Art & Ideas
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Arts & Letters Daily search results for “john rawls” (3)


2017-10-25 | John Rawls called it "the best of all games"; Mark Kingwell calls it "the most philosophical of games." What is it about baseball and philosophymore »

2018-09-04 | What's the meaning of freedom? Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick disagreed on much. But they all emphasized universal values over group identity more »

2018-08-24 | The famously liberal philosopher John Rawls has been recast as a sharp critic of capitalism. If Rawls really was a socialist, why was he so reticent about it? more »

Arts & Letters Daily search results for “ alan turing” (2)



2012-12-22 | Alan Turing was a courageous, patriotic, but sad, unconventional man. He was also gay. Can homosexuality help explain his genius? more »


2014-01-01 | Alan Turing predicted that computers would be able to think by 2000. No dice. Not even close. We still don't understand what thinking is more »

Arts & Letters Daily search results for “john searle” (2)


2015-04-18 | John Searle has a bone to pick with Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and Kant. He blames them for the basic mistake of modern epistemology more »

2015-06-23 | Everything you know about perception is wrong – and it’s the fault of Western philosophers, starting with Descartes. Or so John Searle would have you think more »




“I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.” 

“I'm afraid that the following syllogism may be used by some in the future:
Turing believes machines think
Turing lies with men
Therefore machines do not think."









LA Theater Worksw dramatization, "Breaking the Code" - recording
==
Jaron Lanier on the future of virtual reality etc. - and he says AI is not a thing... On Point  11.29.17... Dawn of the New Everything
==
“To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.” 

“If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?” 

“The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.” 

“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” 

“To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race.” 

Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter, and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics. -” 

“Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity.”




  1. Out for , Animal Charity Evaluators has a new list of recommended organizations working for animals: 


Peter Singer (@PeterSinger)
"Philosophy Changing Lives" - an interview with me on Why? Radio:
goo.gl/ztR4m9

Arts & Letters Daily search results for “peter singer” (3)


2011-01-01 | For Peter Singer, the defining idea of the coming decade will be the Internet, which will democratize education, economics, and the media more »

2010-01-01 | Abhorring animal cruelty does not entail the idea that all animals, humans included, sit at the same moral level. Peter Singer has an argument to answer more »

2015-07-07 | Where morality meets rationalism. Is Peter Singer’s “effective altruism” the apotheosis of ethics, or an unempathetic, politically naive, elitist doctrine? more »
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