by Gene Howington
This Tuesday, a new book will be released that is sure to ruffle some feathers in the U.S. military circles. “Why We Lost” is retired U.S. Army General Dan Bolger’s attempt to address why we are still in Iraq and Afghanistan after fourteen years. According to the review, his primary focus is the use of counterinsurgency tactics and a politicized military (although he stops just short of placing the blame on either the Bush or Obama Administrations). It sounds like an interesting read and by all accounts, General Bolger is a highly respected military historian in addition to being a well respected officer. While the book itself sounds quite interesting, what I caught my eye was the following comment by Guardian reader
The political reality in the US is that Americans favor wars early on, but turn against them as they drag on. And, Americans have a low tolerance for casualties. We don’t like seeing out young people come home brain damaged, legless, or otherwise mauled . . . particularly from a war that is only tangentially related to any national interest. Hence, US warfare has an over reliance on air power while, on the ground, the US deploys a laughably small number of troops. The result: “The War” becomes a typical government program. It goes on day after day, year after year, with no real point. As one purported goal is achieved or abandoned, we find another one to justify the ongoing combat. There is no winning or losing, just as there is no victory or defeat for the Social Security Administration. If any of these wars had more than a trivial impact on US national security, the government would propose, and the people would accept, the deployment of sufficient ground forces – hundreds of thousands of troops – to assure victory. But nobody really cares if we win. The wars involve a relatively small number of people, who are volunteers, and are fought on behalf of special interests. Hence, the Forever War has become a permanent part of the US economy.
This comment, like Bolger’s forthcoming book, does not directly blame politicians for their role in fostering a state of perpetual war. However, it is a maxim that “sometimes what is unsaid is as or more important that was/is said”. What is unsaid here is that the previous and current administrations have done everything possible to create not just the perception but the reality of institutionalized perpetual war. They have done so while riding on the greenbacks of “campaign contributions” from the MIC. They have done so all the while militarizing our police forces and encroaching upon our liberties because they see little consequence personally other than they get more money to keep running for office as if being a representative of the American people was their God-given right. What is unsaid here is that war is indeed too important to be left to politicians but that politicians have invaded the military from within.
Perhaps this shows the way to a more important battle to be waged on the home front by every American citizen who is tired of politicians putting their own personal interests ahead and above the best interests of the country and its citizens.
The battle for campaign finance reform.
It isn’t hard to follow the money in this sad state of affairs. All one needs to do is pay attention and ask the right questions. Questions like “have we won or lost” and “at what cost” and “who’s responsible and should be held accountable for bad decisions in government” and “is perpetual war a good idea or an invitation to a third world war”. Some people are paying attention as evidenced by the comment of dallasdunlap. But perhaps it is time to connect the dots, isolate the primary driving factors in creating a dysfunctional government, and do something about it.
It’s not too late, but the hour seems to be getting on . . .
What do you think?
Source: The Guardian
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
An additional review and interview with Gen. Bolger from NPR’s All Things Considered.
A 3-Star General Explains ‘Why We Lost’ In Iraq, Afghanistan
Gene,
Looking for what is “unsaid” also is the understanding that most senior military officers are political players in their own right. Few rise in a bureaucracy on their own merit. In the military this is doubly so because of the rigid command structure and the “old boys network” developed through the service academies.
Mitch McConnell is firmly against campaign finance reform and very pro the Citizens United ruling so their will be perpetual war and no campaign finance reform for the foreseeable future. There were a few people working on campaign finance reform like Al Franken and Mark Udall but McConnell will shut that down. McCain is taking over Armed Services. Any attempts at reform are indefinitely put on hold.
dallasdunlap got it exactly right. Normally, I’d have something to add. But that said it all.
http://boingboing.net/2014/09/12/not-one-republican-senator-vot.html “The entire GOP Senate caucus voted against Tom Udall’s proposed Constitutional amendment that would have allowed states to set rules limiting campaign contributions, overturning the notorious Citizens United Supreme Court decision that found that money was a form of protected speech.
The final vote was 54 senators for ending debate and allowing the idea to come to a vote, and 42 against ending debate.
“I am extremely disappointed that not one Republican voted today to stop billionaires from buying elections and undermining American democracy,” Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent who aligns with Democrats on this issue, said in a statement after the vote. “The fight to overturn Citizens United must continue at the grassroots level in every state in this country.” “
What about the perpetual war on our intelligence,at least there seems to be one to me anyway.That war has shown its spoils in this last mid term election as to who is winning that battle so far.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/SenJohn-McCain-ISIS-Troops/2014/11/10/id/606356/
excerpt;
Obama on Friday authorized up to 1,500 additional troops to serve in a non-combat advisory capacity in the ISIS campaign, joining the 1,600 U.S. service personnel already in Iraq.
=============================
If you have a weapon in your hand and you are in a war zone are you really non-combat?
The President is Commander- in – Chief of the military. He decides all military operations.
Why do we go on about campaign finance reform ? The buck stops at the President !! It always has – it always will. FDR, Lincoln, Madison, Wilson etc.
Actually, only Congress has the power to declare war according to the Constitution.
Art. I, Sec. 8 lists as one of enumerated powers of Congress as “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;”.
That is part of the problem with the AUMF. The President has the power to control the armed forces, but the effective abdication of the power to declare created by the nebulous language of the AUMF violates the Separation of Powers Doctrine.
Congress isn’t doing their job.
That’s why we go on about about campaign finance. The MIC backers of their campaigns want perpetual war, Congress is unwilling to be seen as warmongers, so they pass the buck, but when it comes to where that buck stops according to the Constitution?
It’s Congress. Not the President. The President can’t declare war on jack shit legally.
Read his Constitutional powers:
“Article. II.
Section. 1.
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years….
Section. 2.
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Section. 3.
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”
Nowhere is the power to declare war mentioned.
this boils down to philosophy. There isnt some grand conspiracy, it is just bad philosophy.
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-spring/just-war-theory/
““Altruism” literally means “other-ism”; it holds that one should live one’s life in selfless service to the needs of others, with sacrifice for their sake as the highest virtue. To act for one’s own sake, according to altruism, is immoral (or, at best, amoral). The morality of altruism is descended from Christianity but is accepted today in various forms by both the religious and the non-religious. While consistent adherence to altruism is widely recognized as impractical, altruism is nevertheless almost universally upheld as the moral ideal, and almost never challenged. Observe that while few seek to live a Mother Theresa-like life, no one questions that her life was a moral archetype.
Augustine did not write systematically about the application to war of his altruistic, Christian views on the use of violence, though he did apply these views to strongly endorse the practice of fighting wars to relieve suffering and spread Christianity to other nations. After Augustine, other Christian theologians greatly expanded Just War Theory (as it later came to be known). Eventually, it was developed by both religious and secular philosophers, and adopted in various forms by groups as disparate as Christians and atheists, by self-proclaimed “hawks” and borderline pacifists, by moral absolutists and moral relativists. The most significant development in Just War Theory since Augustine’s time is that the theory has come to include an endorsement of what it calls a “right to self-defense.” But because Just War Theory has maintained its Augustinian, altruistic roots, its alleged “right” to self-defense turns out to be no such thing.”
Altruism is the cause of our inability to defeat militant Islam.
Congratulations, B.
That’s one of the most nonsensical claims you’ve made in quite some time.
Not only is it the fallacy of simple cause, it’s not even close to one of the correct causal factors. Radical Islam is like any form of radicalized religion in that the only (and this next word is real important) practical means to eliminate it is from within the Muslim community itself; the war for the hearts and minds so to speak. The Suni and the Shia (like the Christians and Jews before them) need to realize en masse that 1) radicalization is just as bad for their moderates as it is for everyone else (possibly more so) in addition to 2) realizing that a whole lot of their strife is caused by that most extreme form of state religion as practiced by Saudi Arabia – Wahhabism – constantly pits them against each other and does so with purpose (Wahhabism not only revolves around the idea that Islam is the only true religion but that Wahhabism is the only valid form of Islam). This is not a comprehensive list in the slightest, but it illustrates the simple cause fallacy trap sufficiently. Altruism though? Hasn’t got squat to do with that battle regardless of your distorted understanding of created by still adhereing to a philosophy favored by disaffected 14 year olds and those who will say anything to rationalize the self-worship of egoism and notion that greed is good that underlies Rand’s ridiculous works.
Seriously, man. You seem like in some ways you’ve realized that Objectivism is flawed, yet you still run to it as your go to philosophy. What’s up with that?
““Altruism” literally means “other-ism”; it holds that one should live one’s life in selfless service to the needs of others, with sacrifice for their sake as the highest virtue.”
“While consistent adherence to altruism is widely recognized as impractical, altruism is nevertheless almost universally upheld as the moral ideal, and almost never challenged.”
Bron,
I hate to double team you after Gene disposed of your comment but I can’t let your misconceptions go unchallenged. Altruism is not the philosophy of the left, but a utopian ideal held by and espoused by few. I spent my entire career helping people in need. I’m a social worker, a psychotherapist and a Social Service Program Creator/Administrator and yet I don’t have an altruistic bone in my body. Empathy for people is NOT altruism, in fact it is the opposite. One feels empathy for people because one recognizes the commonality between oneself and others. Altruism pretty much is a philosophy that puts one as a “Lady Bountiful” helping unfortunates and sacrificing ones self. The only people I’d sacrifice my own well-being for are my family and my friends. I spent a career helping people because it made ME feel good, that they benefited was in a large sense a collateral effect. I know what Rand spouted about Altruism and the truth is she created a “straw man” for her argument for selfishness.
Mike/Gene:
I dont think I mentioned the left nor did the article. Did you read the article? It is pretty good.
I dont have trouble with helping people at all, I am all for lending a helping hand. But there should be a limit on the help as Mike said.
I think it is a pretty good article and a viable reason for the endless war in which we are engaged.
We sacrficied our young and our treasure, for what? The result seems pretty altruistic to me.
Gene:
Islam is not a good philosophy. It is totalitarian at its core. A “good” Muslim is in reality a non-believer.
Good luck thinking you are going to wind hearts and minds, the only way to take care of this problem is kill them or convert them. Or change the religion to a more human centric view.
Why dont you head on over to Iraq and see if you can spread the good word of secular humanism?
Bron,
Why don’t you go and kill them. Seems the most expedient between your two options.
gbk:
how are you? I have 3 options or cant you count very well this evening? I understand too much pot causes the frontal lobe to shrink.
I think you should go and spread the good word of secular humanism as well. I anticipate your report with much interest.
Are you finished with your master’s degree?
Bron,
When are going to stop putting words and arguments in people’s mouths, Bron, just so you can argue without changing your approach? You’re not going to “change the religion” so that is not an option for you — hence the two.
I don’t smoke weed, Bron. It’s nice to see you buy the new crusading without question.
Fuck off.
gbk:
Sure you can change the religion. Why not? Put some Western Imams in positions of authority and just tweek it a little bit.
The new crusading? I was for killing a bunch of Al Qeda, Taliban and their supporters years ago. I am glad to see people are coming around to my way of thinking.
people who think militant Islam is going to sing songs and hold hands around a campfire are too fucking stupid to be adults and should not be able to vote and own property.
You’ve truly gone off the rails today, B.
No one is saying it is a mistake to kill an intractable enemy, but “intractable” in this instance comes from zealotry and a refusal to recognize the freedom of choice of the individual in matters of conscience. That is why the 1st Amendment was formulated the way that it was and we have a secular form of government. However, you seem to have no problem with forcing your religious choices on others.
How is that any different than the radical Muslims?
Your right to free exercise is just like all your other rights. It ends where the other person’s rights begin. They, like you, are free to believe (or not believe) in any religion you like. Consequently, you have no more right to make that decision for them than they have to make it for you.
But radicalized religion? Has historically only changed when the community itself realizes the error of its ways and often only after the state has intervened to prevent abuses. If you doubt this, read up on the history of the Spanish Inquisition. The secular principles embodied in the philosophies of the Enlightenment were for reason. Read that again. Not for a reason, but for reason. Zealous dogmatic thinking is the opposite of reason in no small part because it is rigid and logic is a pliant tool. One wins that war? In the minds of others.
As evidenced by our running battle over the years, one cannot change the mind of another. When they do change their mind, it may be influenced by what you’ve told them? But they changed their own mind themselves in the end.
Bron,
“people who think militant Islam is going to sing songs and hold hands around a campfire are too fucking stupid to be adults and should not be able to vote and own property”
Who said this, Bron? Just you, again putting words in people’s mouths so you can attack an unsupported position.
Tell you what, since you’ve always preached that people should go to where the money is to work, why don’t you join some mercenary engineering company working “over there” and make a lot of cake.
Because, as a side benefit, in the evening’s you could proselytize; convince people that just buried some loved ones due to a drone strike how they are wrong. I’m sure it would be an engaging conversation.
Hell, if you convert enough of them you might get a Medal Of Freedom just like that Tenet guy.
Until you put your money where your mouth is, and stop putting bullshit in mine, I would still suggest that you fuck off.
Bron,
“people who think militant Islam is going to sing songs and hold hands around a campfire are too fucking stupid to be adults and should not be able to vote and own property”
Who said this, Bron? Just you, again putting words in people’s mouths so you can attack an unsupported position.
Tell you what, since you’ve always preached that people should go to where the money is to work, why don’t you join some mercenary engineering company working “over there” and make a lot of cake.
Because, as a side benefit, in the evenings you could proselytize; convince people that just buried some loved ones due to a drone strike how they are wrong. I’m sure it would be an engaging conversation.
Hell, if you convert enough of them you might get a Medal Of Freedom just like that Tenet guy.
Until you put your money where your mouth is, and stop putting bullshit in mine, I would still suggest that you fuck off.
Bron,
“. . . should not be able to vote and own property . . .”
My, my, just a few short steps from patriotism by the sword, isn’t it?
Why it even sounds totalitarian, fascist, socialistic, and downright communistic.
I thought you were against all that stuff.
It’s definitely not an Aynish thought, because you would be forcing a condition on people based on their belief, wouldn’t you? I thought you were against that also.
I don’t think you have shit figured out, Bron.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/12/obama-administration-reverses-bush-policy-says-u-s-torture-ban-applies-abroad/ “As Charlie Savage of the New York Times reported last month, President Obama’s legal team was debating whether to reaffirm a Bush administration position that the United Nations Convention Against Torture imposes no legal obligation on the U.S. to bar cruelty outside its borders.
The debate is over. And the good guys won — this time. See the following statement issued by the White House this morning, even as State Department officials were answering questions about he administration’s position in Geneva before the United Nations Committee Against Torture.”
gbk:
I know you dont have shit figured out.
Bron,
“I know you dont have shit figured out.”
How do you “know” this, neo-crusader?
If you are so sure of your philosophy then why are you belligerent beyond your means to convince.
I thought it was you, many years ago on RIL, that claimed philosophy could not be syncretically derived, that any belief was all or nothing — even though syncretism is the very root of human thought and adaptation — as you are now experiencing.
Perhaps your angst comes from your inability to admit that your unavowed syncretism has shifted due to demands of adaptation?
Bron,
The above post contains the root of my objection to your proclaimed “three options,” where I read two.
So sorry it blew by you; as your third option was one of assuming others would adapt to your unacknowledged syncretism of righteousness with, or without, your direct proselytizing.
For this slight of assumption I am, according to you, a pot-head.
Be careful out there, Bron.
Bron,
Here’s some leads for you:
http://www.expatrecruitment.co.uk/search.php?job=262
http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=40224
Good luck!!
Bron,
Good night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su_NI9PQ1XQ
“I thought it was you, many years ago on RIL, that claimed philosophy could not be syncretically derived, that any belief was all or nothing — even though syncretism is the very root of human thought and adaptation — as you are now experiencing.”
Well said. I’ll be using “syncretism is the very root of human thought and adaptation”, gbk. It has the beauty of being both true and concise.
Wow.
I wish I could say that. I can’t even think it.
gbk:
I did say that and still believe that a philosophy cannot work very well with competing ideas. It would become non-sensical. A little bit of this and a little bit of that and pretty soon you have nothing at all. Unless of course they are similar ideas. Not much benefit that I can see in a mix of capitalism and communism. I guess the Chinese leadership would disagree but eventually China will be free, so there is that.
I am really unsure how anyone could accept what militant Muslims do as some sort of alternate culture. A syncretism of religion and murder. Yeah, a little bit of this and a little bit of that and pretty soon you are talking death camps.
Thanks for the leads on the jobs, I contacted them but they dont pay enough, why take a pay cut.
“but eventually China will be free, so there is that. ”
The history of China informs otherwise. The Far East has no (as in none) democratic tradition. They can plod on and on with totalitarian state capitalism so long as they have enough guns to cow the people.
“Yeah, a little bit of this and a little bit of that and pretty soon you are talking death camps.”
A fine example of outcome determinism in “reasoning” there, B. Synthesis, the underlying brain process of syncretic thought, has lead to many wonderful things. Electricity. The pathogenic model of disease. Quantum mechanics. It has also led to some really bad ideas, like conflating eugenics and Darwinism with racism to create death camps. One thing is for certain though. The modern world, for good and ill, would not be possible without syncretic thought. This is a reality beyond your grasp though for as a binary thinker, you don’t do well when situations require you to color outside the lines.
Gene:
Now you are just making me laugh.
Syncretic and sanctimonious, that is a match made in heaven.
You guys dont even seem smart anymore, what happened? I think you havent been too well rounded lately and your old, tired, liberal ideas are causing your brains to turn to mush.
It is painful to read much of what is posted here but I do it so I dont get caught in the trap you are in, thinking my ideas are the cat’s ass because 15 people tell me right on, right on.
I may be a binary thinker but you are a “my way or the highway thinker.” At least binary thinking allows me to understand I may not be right.
Bron,
You’ve finally become self-aware. Your ideas actually are the cat’s ass.
“What’s all this I hear about sincretinism? Cretinism isn’t a sin! Those people can’t help themselves!”
-Emily Litella
Bob:
That is so profound, did gbk help you with that?
“I may be a binary thinker but you are a “my way or the highway thinker.””
Not in the slightest, but what I am is someone who applies principle based reasoning to empirical facts with skepticism. Binary thinking? Is a trap built of certainty. It allows you to understand only what is comfortable to you. If you find an idea uncomfortable, you rebel, often angrily. Why? Because it challenges your rigid way of thinking. I’m not a my way or the highway kind of guy. You are free to construct whatever you like in your head. It nether breaks my arm nor steals my property so think what you like. You are even free to express those thoughts.
What am I? Aside from a persuasive speaker? Carl Sagan summed it up when he said, “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
The notion that everything is black and white and not shades of gray? Is simply delusional. I don’t care what you choose to think, but when it is delusional, you’ll never convince we it is right. I am never plagued by certainty. There is truth in the old Chinese proverb that “uncertainty is uncomfortable, but certainty is foolish.” I know that uncertainty is built into the very fabric of reality at a quantum level. While this is a inherently disturbing idea, I accept it for it is what the mathematics tells us.
Understand that you may not be right?
I can honestly say that I doubt that thought crosses your mind with any sort of frequency. You illustrate that every time you feel threatened in your certainty by retreating into your trite Objectivist gibberish. Sure, you’ve modified your beliefs some over time, but when put under pressure, you retreat to what you’re comfortable with. And that’s okay. It’s human nature to seek comfort over discomfort. But knowledge and reason is the fire Prometheus stole from the Gods. It can be a great tool or a great destroyer, but no matter which, it can burn. And better an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie even if I’m telling the lie to myself.
I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again. There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. I can only point to the path. You must walk it or not yourself. But lead you astray? “If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.” – Marcus Aurelius. That learned stoic did not say “If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will angrily refuse to believe that which does not conform to what I want it to be, for I seek certainty by which no man ever came to the truth.”
But please, try to impune my intellect again. It’s cute when you try to hurt my feelings. Futile, surely. But really cute. Like a four-year old calling me a dooty-head.
Are you feeling okay?
I ask because you usually aren’t feeling well when you try this kind of nonsense argumentation with me.
Bob K.,
I’ve been
askedtold by my feline overlords that they consider your use of “cat’s ass” totally inappropriate in this context and they reserve the right to poop in your shoe. Well. One of them anyway. The other doesn’t give a damn what puny humans do so long as the food bowl is full and the box clean.Oh, yah? My 3 feline overpersons (otherwise known as ‘the stinky siblings’) can kick your cat’s ass. My blind cat (AKA ‘Master Po’) can do it blindfolded. ‘Cause it don’t make no difference to him.
Gene:
But this is by far the best thing you have ever written “I am never plagued by certainty.” You certainly seem certain in your beliefs.
Peter Lorre where are you?
Bron,
Apparently you are not gifted with a sense of irony either.
The basic problem in your ability to comprehend what I am try to say to you is this:
Certainty is not a thought terminating stultifying event in my process because when I examine the world I deal in probabilities because that is what quantum mechanics tells us underlies all of nature – a matrix of probability. Some probabilities are high order, such as the sun surviving until tomorrow morning. Some probabilities are low order, such as monkeys flying out of your butt. The difference between your kind of binary certainty and when I make a statement of certainty is that mine is not absolute but rather a high order reasonable probability. I very well might be wrong at any given moment but when I make an assertion of certainty I do so with probability based in evidence on my side. Monkeys very well might fly out of your butt. Or something else altogether might happen. Your absolutism (not just in certainty but in many areas of how you think) constrains your thought. It impairs your ability to use logic. It does so because you must force things into boxes that fit your preconceptions instead of taking things as they actually are. That is the fulcrum by which binary thinking cripples reason. It is why you very often reason backwards, i.e. from hypothesis/conjecture/posit to evidence instead of from evidence to hypothesis/conjecture/posit (the later of which is the correct order of operation under the scientific theory).
However, if you think I’m wrong, you are quite welcome to do what anyone is welcome to do: try to prove it to me to a reasonable high order probability so high it is effectively certain even though nothing (well, very very little) is absolutely certain. Binary thought is inherently extremist.
Based on your track record, all I can say is good luck with that.
And I’m certain Peter Lorre is dead. It’s not a Schodinger’s Cat scenario. His dead body was observed and that waveform collapsed. He has gone to sing with the choir invisible and the Norwegian Blue. He is ex-living.
He better be.
They cremated him.
Bob K.
Fight? They don’t have to fight. My cats are demon ninjas from the 8th dimension. You’ll never see them coming. Or going for that matter.
Enjoy the poop in your shoe.
Well. One of them is anyway. The other is a standard issue cat and ergo one giant ball of furry indifference.
Gene:
You are now making me laugh myself silly.
I am quite certain that a monkey will never fly out of my ass. It isnt in the nature of my colon to act as an incubator for monkeys.
You are talking BS and dont even know how bad it is. Seriously, you need a course in logic by a real logician. I recommend HWB Joseph.
It must be a real mess inside your head if you are wondering about the probability of the sun rising tomorrow.
“I am never plagued by certainty.” Indeed. Existence doesnt necessarily exist, does it? 🙂
Your inability to comprehend let alone understand the concept I’m relaying to you is entirely your own, B. I have no reasonable expectation at this point that you’ll ever overcome the crippling effects of binary thinking. I’m certain you won’t (read: reasonably assured by a high order probability that you won’t).
Let me break it down further.
You think absolute certainty is a real thing.
I know it isn’t.
Expressions of absolute certainty (with very few exceptions, mostly relating to mathematics or physics) are often hyperbolic and not actually literal, being statements of a reasoned assessment of probability.
The answer to your last question is “maybe not”.
You’d know that if you understood quantum mechanics or its implications to any substantive degree.
Gene:
OOOh, you cannot be certain.
Absolute 0 doesnt exist? Oh, the humanity.
http://www.livescience.com/25959-atoms-colder-than-absolute-zero.html
I think you are talking precision in measurements. I certainly dont know how much load is placed on a soldier pile by soil but I have a good idea based on experimental data. But I do know the pile will behave in a specific way, QM notwithstanding.
You sound like the nutty philosophy students wondering about how many universes are in the head of a pin. Shades of St. Thomas and his angelology. How many are there? I cant be certain.
If you want to believe in absolutes, you go right on ahead.
You are free to butt head with the reality of the analog world all you like.
I understand that your entire binary thought process is dependent upon absolutes.
Your mockery isn’t really having the effect you intended unless your intent was to illustrate just exactly how rigid your thought processes actually are.
Far be it from me to hinder an opponent in the process of making a mistake.
Gene,
I hate Lectroid cats from planet 10 by way of the 8th dimension, buckaroo.
I used to work with an Engineering professor. We’d plan an experiment. I’d say it was ‘likely’ to work the way we thought it would. He’d say, “It has to.”
Wrong.
In the actual universe, conditions aren’t set up like a thought experiment. Reliability varies, errors happen. Not all the circumstances are known.
Nothing is absolute. The universe isn’t aware of strict behavioral laws. Because there aren’t any.
Humans find patterns in how things usually work.
As in the well-known disclaimer, “Your results may vary.”
I’m content with, “This’ll probably work.”
That’s all you’ll ever get, even in the macro world.
The only absolute is the tendency of humans to try to comprehend their environment by believing there are absolutes. One of the grave dangers of taking LSD is that it presents a “reality” so at odds with our worldly perceptions.
I give up as I have no idea what you guys are talking about.