Plato & Aristotle: The Great Separation

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@Bluedoc Thank you. Now I know more than what I did when I woke up this morning.

I am 72,and old age brings less strength and the diminished ability to recover. At times I have discovered myself slouching over. But because of my athletic past and military training, I self-correct, tell myself to stand straight and hold my head up. The point is, check your posture, keep your head up and maintain a healthy posture.

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I doubt it to be honest, since you’re clearly proselytising, and appear to have little interest in the views of those who don’t share your beliefs.

There is zero valid evidence to support that a god exists. There is zero valid evidence to support that a “soul” exists.

If you desire for me to change my position, I require valid evidence.

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Why are dumbass kids setting their houses on fire on Fourth of July? :smiling_imp:

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When I was seven years old my twelve year old sister set fire to our apartment by running through the house with a sparkler. It rendered us temporarily homeless and us three kids had to stay with family and friends for a while. This was not long after my father had died and was another serious blow to our well-being. Mom never seemed to question how this fucking god she believed in had a “plan” that allowed for this. Perfect indeed…:roll_eyes:

Edit to look for leftover bottle rockets

That’s some fire starting talent, right there.

At twelve, my solution to lot of flies in the house was to go around with a lighter and hairspray, cooking them all in midair.

God planned for that big wooden plant stand to catch fire like your ex-apartment, I suppose. :grin:

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That’s hilarious…me and my best friend did that when we were about that age, but I did it outside for fear of an ass whipping for using Mom’s and my sister’s hair spray, and we were after wasps mostly. My best friend was a borderline pyromaniac and caused several small fires in the neighborhood.(of course I was completely innocent :innocent:)
Funny that neither you or I had anyone around responsible enough to prevent us from doing such shit as this.

Edit magnifying glass

IMO, both parents often being out of the house at tax paying jobs began in earnest with the baby boom generation, my folks included.

On top of that, in the 60s through 90s era of U.S. public housing, children were plentiful and ran riot over the places.

The only adults around until evening were retired individuals who had made the unfortunate decision to settle in the projects, who chose to remain inside most of the time.

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Well I may be a bit older that you and there were still a lot of kids I knew whose mothers were still “homemakers”. Since my father had died my mom had no choice but to do whatever she could to pay the bills. The situation you refer to started ramping up when I was in my teens, and it became nearly impossible for either parent to stay home.
I have fond memories of when moms were around to feed us little heathens.

Edit for homemade bread drool

Actually almost did that as kids, were lighting spinning jacks on the concrete floor in the basement watching them whizz around the room. Guess my perfect little child brain wasn’t smart enough to consider the odds of setting the house on fire. Lucky for us our parents came home and gave us unholy hell for being so dense lol.

I was only 5 when I burned my house to the ground. The babysitter was too fucking lazy to get off her ass and go into the bedroom to help me find a toy in the toybox in the closet. (It’s interesting that we could afford a babysitter but not the electric bill. I guess choices had to be made.) In the mean time, there I was digging through the toy box, holding the candle over my head, in and amongst all the clothes hanging in the closet. Can you guess what happened next?

Now, to be honest, I was only five at the time and when I saw the shirt on fire, I knew enough to swat it out. I thought I had extinguished it and everything was going to be okay. So I don’t really know if it was me who started the fire of my 4 year old little brother.

Yea, the dipshit babysitter let him use the candle tool. I just know that when I went back to get the next toy, he closet was ablaze. Honestly I think any moron with a pot of water could have put the fire out. It was contained in the closet at that point. But I recall being rushed out of the house and standing on the street while all my toys burned.

In the world today, we would have been able to sue the babysitter for being stupid. In the world of the Christians, I could have been taken to the edge of town and stoned to death. If my father was Islamic, I would have just had my hands chopped off. None of this has anything to do with Plato or Aristotle. At least I am not seeing the connection yet. Oh Wait! There were shadows on the bedroom walls. Hmm. Plato may have a point.

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Evolution isn’t a matter of “belief”, it’s an observed fact. An observed fact accompanied by possibly the best supported scientific theory of them all.

When we’re dealing with observed facts, “belief” is superfluous to requirements and irrelevant.

You don’t think this is happening?

Oh wait, have you heard of the Black Death? That instance of he bubonic plague that wiped out around 25% of the population of Europe between 1348 and 1351?

Only it turns out that survivors thereof possessed certain key genes, that were selected for by said pandemic. Here’s a nice article from a leading science journal covering this.

Likewise, you appear to be unaware that the genes for sickle cell anaemia and thalassaemia were an evolutionary response to malaria. Likewise, humans that adopted dairy farming acquired genes allowing them to tolerate lactose in cow’s milk. Individuals with Duffy negative blood antigen profiles are more common in places where malaria is present, because the Duffy negative genotype conferred some protection from malaria, though in some places, this is now changing as Plasmodium vivax itself evolves.

In the future, we may find that Covid-19 has left its mark upon human genetics, and that people with certain genes conferring some protection against the virus and its effects increase in number as they’re selected for, and produce more offspring than susceptible individuals.

As for better cognition, well, reliable measures thereof are somewhat hard to come by, but if reliable measures thereof do materialise in the near future, I suspect they’ll point to, for example, improved cognition being a feature of populations with both a well-developed education system, and a need for skilled workers that are scientifically and technologically astute. Indeed, social factors affecting cognition are already subject to significant research efforts.

So what? There are thousands of species that possess abilities we don’t have. Such as all those fish that can live underwater (33,000 species and climbing at the last count), or all those birds that can fly. But they occupy totally different niches to humans, the little fact you forgot about.

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