My response to an article on ‘sense data’. Everything we are aware of is a ‘mental state’: typically, some primary idea of an object we are focussed on, which is conceptually related in space and time (also ideas, organising ideas) to countless other ideas. This state of ideas changes and accommodates change itself as an organising idea to maintain the integrity of relations among ideas. Some ideas are integrated in a particular, persistent way. We call them physical objects, and tomato is an example of these. We can recognise a tomato precisely because we know what a tomato is like, what kind of lower level ideas (properties) an object “tomato” has. We have developed all these ideas over millions of years by interacting with beings of the same kind, together with the central idea, the source and locus of ideas: the conscious self. So when we see a tomato we are aware of an actual tomato, a physical tomato, a true object, meaning a tomato integrated in the context/realm of ideas shared and similarly integrated by all other beings of the same kind (conscious, rational agents like me). The result of this shared integration is not an individual action but an accrued social effort older than we have a record of, and this makes it for all practical purposes independent of individual mental manipulation; we are subordinate to this realm in order to ‘make sense’ of anything and to be a ‘self’. From this shared context of restricted individual influence to physical means vis a vis the capacity for relatively free conceptual manipulation (thought) we have collectively derived ideas like mind, thought, brain, sense data, perception, atoms and of course what kind of properties make up a ‘real’ tomato. https://fakenous.substack.com/p/sense-data/

This should be a mandatory disclosure notice on every vaccine dose.

Peace is “offensive” only to hate.

Diversity for the masses, but only ‘old boys’ where it matters: https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-in-banking-and-finance

The elimination of private property rights is a poor strategy for controlling the population. When you “own nothing” you have nothing to lose, and people who have nothing to lose are uncontrollable, dangerous to centralised power. Legal protection of private property rights was probably the most effective tool ever devised for controlling populations, except that it was never fully adhered to at the top levels of the wealth pyramid. Modern banking is based on violating property rights of others via an imperfect transfer of purchasing power, allowing banks to charge interest on the purchasing power that was not derived from their own capital but expropriated by inflating the money-tokens held by all other economic agents.

Supply of housing can NEVER be a problem. If there is demand, houses will be built. If some stand empty, no problem, more houses will be built for paying customers. This would also be good for the economy. The problem is affordability, which is determined entirely by the credit conditions set by the banking system and the interest rates. When interest rates are high there is more incentive (and easier) to save before buying, while property prices are kept relatively low to income. Banks and central banks have created a bubble; nothing else is a problem, and they know it. Old people downsize anyway, because it is hard work to maintain a large property, and then they die.

All traditional cultures are repressive, demanding adherence to contingent customs whose function is to sustain the illusion of moral authority as the organising principle of social order. By implication, culture has social utility commensurate with the degree to which moral authority of the group is deficient. The critical question: what are the objective criteria of moral authority?

A universal standard of morality must be based on the most basic normative property that all humans have in common: the immutable laws of meaning/sense. In this context we must begin the analysis of objective morality indirectly, not by asking what is moral, which is inescapably tainted by our own cultural conditioning, but what is rational, and thus pursue rational morality. In more practical terms, we must work to identify and dismiss any beliefs that are not logically consistent (lead to contradiction), and refine social norms on the basis of systemic consistency and objective grounding. Confusion and disagreement about values and norms that is now sweeping the world due to radical influences of various ideological formations compels us to deliberate towards a universal moral standard, because hiding from one another behind culturally impervious borders is no longer a viable solution to moral disagreement.

Did any student Union, at any university, oppose the vaccine mandates for students to attend their university?

What do you call a habitat in which everyone – regardless of gender, race, income, age or ability – can live and work side by side? Answer: a gulag! Or a Commune, which is a gulag managed by the inmates under remote supervion. I love the “storytelling” touch. So cosy:) When people can’t reason consistently then everything is just a story. I guess all of this would be fine if everyone were given a choice. Perhaps the vaccine IS that choice, but I don’t know. https://www.globalshapers.org/impact/themes/shaping-my-citys-future

Fair Work Commissioner found that Jetstar vaccine requirement (under the threat of termination of employment) was “lawful and reasonable” and did not constitute unlawful coercion. Clearly, ‘informed consent’ is not equivalent to ‘free consent’. https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/unvaccinated-jetstar-exworker-loses-legal-battle-with-airline/news-story/19855f3733dd7299d239909134362ed2

If those who act in your name do not believe in the unconditional right to free medical consent (with no exceptions for martial law, public health emergencies or government approved injections) then you should ask yourself whether they really serve your children’s interests. Ask them.

Protections for Gender Identity lead to Reverse Discrimination and Contradictions in Law. (Version 2)

Gender identity is typically defined as the personal sense of one’s own gender. I argue that this conception of gender identity, once generalised as a social principle, leads to legal contradictions. In summary, if your gender identity rests on certain premises, and if you must contradict those premises to recognise the gender identity of another, then any law compelling you to do so would entail discrimination against your own gender identity, therefore contradiction.

Premise 1: Gender-identity of X consists in being a Woman in virtue of her sense of having a female body, different from a male body. Her deeply felt sense of being different from the male sex is part of her gender identity.

Premise 2: Gender-identity of Y consists in being a Woman with a male body (Transgender).

Consequence 1: For X to recognise Y (a male) as a Woman entails invalidation of X’s own gender identity. Specifically, X’s acceptance of Premise 2 would amount to denying her ‘deeply felt sense of difference from the male sex’ being part of her gender identity.

Consequence 2: For X to preserve X’s own gender identity necessitates invalidation of Y’s gender identity, because of X’s ‘deeply felt sense of difference from the male sex’ being part of her gender identity.

Informally, what it ‘feels like to be a woman’ for Y is logically inconsistent with what it ‘feels like to be a woman’ for X, which either invalidates the concept of womanhood (by violating the Law of Identity) or entails that one of the mutually inconsistent identities is false. Legal protection of gender identity of one person may thus discriminate against gender identity of another; the exercise of the law violates itself, which is absurd.

What are the objective criteria of moral authority?

A universal standard of morality must be based on the most basic normative property that all humans have in common: the immutable laws of meaning/sense. In this context we must begin the analysis of objective morality indirectly, not by asking what is moral, which is inescapably tainted by our own cultural conditioning, but what is rational, and thus pursue rational morality. In more practical terms, we must work to identify and dismiss any beliefs that are not logically consistent (lead to contradiction), and refine social norms on the basis of systemic consistency and objective grounding. Confusion and disagreement about values and norms that is now sweeping the world due to radical influences of various ideological formations compels us to deliberate towards a universal moral standard, because hiding from one another behind culturally impervious borders is no longer a viable solution to moral disagreement. https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWODO

Communitarians argue that human values and norms are uniquely determined by the cultural community in which particular humans were raised. From this they conclude that moral norms are relative to communities. I contend that culture is not a fundamental principle, but itself a product of human rationality - the capacity to make sense and collectively generate meaning - which is in turn subject to the universal, non-contingent and indispensable laws of logic/sense. As such, all principled conflicts between culturally specific values and norms can be reduced to local deficiencies of reasoning. It is important here to differentiate here two types of disagreements that communitarians tend to conflate: cultural conflicts in principle vs. differences between local preferences, which are not a matter of principle and do not amount to moral contradiction.

My condolences to the citizens of the United Kingdom for their loss. Queen Elizabeth was not only a symbol of righteousness and dignity for the British society and for many citizens of the former colonies but one of the central figures of modern history, a bridge between the classical world and modernity. Her death marks an end of an epoch, at the threshold of unprecedented change. On the symbolic level, she was the Last Monarch, the last stand of monarchy as a political and moral principle.

Don’t Follow Stupid Rules

I told my kids when they went to school, “Look, kids, follow the rules, but don’t follow stupid rules.” Well, who decides if they’re stupid?
 
That’s a hard question because you should follow the rules most of the time. But now and then, the rules get pathological, and you have to stand up. If you’re going to stand up and break a rule, think about it.
 
You have to be willing to take the consequences. There are consequences to not standing up to stupid rules too.
 
And if you think that those consequences are lesser, then you suffer from the delusion that there’s an easy path through life.

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Per request of Barbara zondernaam