Philosophy Now Forum

It's Iain M Banks when he's sci-fi Notvacka. :) Yes, I know. I find it a bit silly though. While novels like Walking on Glass and The Bridge deal with inner space rather than outer space, they're SF enough for me. Or perhaps fantasy. The main difference between SF and fantasy is mostly whether the ...

I don't read much SF nowadays, but on the whole, Arising_uk's list seems more interesting and up to date than chaz wyman's . (Hubbard? Anthony?) I would like to recommend Ian Banks in particular, though he sometimes tries too hard to be clever. My favourites are Walking on Glass and Feersum Endjinn .

With regard to government; I am not a consumer, I am a citizen. I don't want the most efficient execution of administration, I want to have a say in how we govern ourselves. Well said. Also, experts tend to have narrow focus, which makes them biased, while government needs to consider the larger pi...

If your motives do not interest you, in other words if you do not interest you and you are only interested in other, then what the hell are you doing pretending to be interested in philosophy? You misunderstand. I was referring to your motives in the example you gave. The point being that cooperati...

If you wish to explore reality, as it is rather than as you prefer it to be, you should, at least, try to escape human contrivances or dissect them with honesty. I'm not sure about the line you seem to draw between "reality" and "human contrivances". At least I don't think that ...

Then your world-view is admittedly subjective...and you are proud of it. Yes! :D Objectivity is nothing but common agreement, for which you show such disdain. This is herd morality, dear boy. Yes, if that's what you like to call it. Since the need for morality and morality itself emerges from the e...

Now, if you can prove rights are universal forces, then I'm listening, if you simply repeat how we must all pretend that we are all the same, for the sake of comfort, then that is not philosophy. Universal forces, like elektromagnetism and gravitation? Don't be silly. Rights are neither universal n...

It is rather silly to pretend there is such a thing as rights outside human contexts. It's even sillier to pretend that we could possibly understand anything outside human contexts. The notion of rights, like everything else, must be understood in a human context, because we can't view the world or...

Rights can only be granted by others. Nothing is ever right unless it's agreed upon. ... Depends what you mean by "grant"? As my opinion is that rights can only be demanded and fought for, that those who they are demanded from 'give' them is because they know they are going to lose. Yes, ...

If we agree, you and I, to pretend that you can fly, this is a right granted to you, by a mutual agreement that may have nothing to do with reality. This example is rather silly, since we are all slaves to reality in the first place. We can agree to pretend all we want, and people do, but that has ...

Who "grants these rights"? Are they divine, natural or man-made? Who grants someone the "right to vote" or the "right of ownership" or the "right to live free"? Rights can only be granted by others. Nothing is ever right unless it's agreed upon. The idea of e...

I mostly express my opinions on the matter to other men. Yes. And this is a male dominated forum. Though I agree that feminism doesn't need male "champions", I think that male feminists are important to show that feminism is not a matter of women struggling against men, but rather women a...

Women are struggling against thousands of years of oppression. We can either offer solidarity or continue to stand in the way. If we choose to offer solidarity, we should resist the temptation to flip from telling them not to fight to telling them how to fight. This is why I don't consider that a m...

Yes, a bigger penis would be lovely. But there are limits to everything. If it's too big, it becomes useless and gets in the way. I also think that attacking another's penis compensates for an absence of an argument. I figured that was the reason behind your attacks, yes. Here's the thing, ignoring...

Here's the thing, unlike you I do not dismiss physical evidence as being irrelevant. When I see a rooster, I do not say it is just like a chicken, erasing millions of years of evolution history to fit my world-view to a post-modern lie. Now maybe for you a penis is but a superficial appendage, in w...