As you have proven time and again, @anon50609448, yes it does. Your critiques and effortless analysis make my eyes water with rhetorical goodness.
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Drinking less of belief and drunking more of drinkingness.
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The piano is drinking inside the house! The piano is drinking INSIDE the house!!
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It might sound horribly utilitarian, but to me, many matters can be characterized not as “belief”, but “using the right tool for the job”. Whether that tool might be a food, a tool, or even a social structure.
People I consider to be agents rather than tools or utilities. So I try to offer to them this same respect of establishing goals, and choosing the right tools to do their job. I assume that all individuals and groups have their own work/play to do, so I just try to help facilitate this, to whatever extent I can.
Obligatory “Housu” reference
A) Shouldn’t it be the other way around? He’s had more time to practice.
B) How do you know he’s older than you?
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Some people are Horsemen. Others must settle for being squires of the Apocalypse.
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How do I know there is a badger in your house?
(We’re close, intimate friends (not the badger, he’s an asshole))
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Honey badger don’t…oh hell, you know…
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I’m coming to the discussion a little late; I was avoiding arcane philosophical discussions that could go into hundreds of comments until after Christmas.
This seems to be the origin of a lot of the discussion, and I have to admit to being on @popobawa4u’s side (if I understand his point correctly). There are behaviours that I can consider probable or possible in a certain context - if I break into an American’s house, I might have to contend with an angry American with a gun. On the other hand, I’ve lived in places where I’d expect confusion and a polite request for an explanation rather than aggression. If somebody did produce a gun in that context, many people wouldn’t see this as a reality as much as a needless escalation. If I see someone I don’t recognise in my house (which I do every month or so) I usually think that one of the other occupants has invited a friend, so I reach for the teapot. I may have to live with other people’s behaviour as a sort of reality, but our behaviour is conditioned by our culture and choices and is not immutable. The same applies with @anon50609448’s example:
It’s real in the sense that it has real effects that you have to take into account, but it’s only real because people are acting out a policy. A much fairer option is possible and you don’t have to accept injustices as “real”. People carrying guns are real, but not real like gravity. They could also be carrying grain. There’s nothing inherently real about people shooting you for being in a certain place - it’s their choice and not an essential part of their nature.
Likewise with money - while I use money all the time and recognise its importance to our lives, it’s good to remember that it’s a social construct that isn’t necessarily the only way to do things. I participate in the sharing economy and have had people staying in my home long term without charging them anything on a number of occasions (generally when it was clear that they couldn’t afford it or would benefit from a few months to pick themselves up again). I also travel and stay at people’s houses for free, and at times this was necessary to avoid being in serious financial difficulty. Someone had to pay the rent in both cases, but we have the choice not to see money as necessary to our transactions. Conversation, good feeling, seeing material benefit to the other person etc. are rewards in themselves. My landlords don’t charge us the market rate for our house, because having good neighbours has real value to them and we would go somewhere cheaper otherwise. All of this is both possible and beneficial to societal cohesion.
On the other hand, scavenging is dependent on the rest of the economy - if you’re working on an electronics project and want a new part, you need to wait until someone else has bought the part you want, finished with it and thrown it away - a scavenging economy can’t get too big compared to its host.
Very few people here will get offended by calls to be resourceful and to improve your life in creative ways. However, this is the kind of argument that is often used by Republicans to oppose social programs, and I’d say that’s what people are attacking. It’s great that the dispossessed farmers are finding extra protein by eating the rats, but they need social justice more than rat recipes (even if some people like eating rats).
I don’t think so, it’s just referencing this post. TBH, part of @popobawa4u’s schtick is not to answer direct questions about themselves, so I wasn’t expecting this tactic to go very far.
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Perfectly valid when you are living with a group of people and there’s lots of activity. I’m in a single family home, some distance away. So for the hypothetical person to show up unannounced from a great distance would have indicated intent to harass, which was the context for my rather aggressive comment. That’s not to say I would point the thing at him or even be intending to shoot, but to get ready to protect family and self, absolutely yes unequivocally.
As I would be “ready” if I were in a group situation; but the way that “protecting” would play out would be different. It would be, as you say, more akin to reaching for the teapot and then if they are truly making their intent known, time to go into more protective activity.
I don’t greet every stranger this way. I’m usually friendly. But it’s context. If it were some person off the 'net stalking me, I would be instantly on guard. I have had a few crazy SO’s showing up uninvited in the past. I was able to deal with them and get them to back off. I haven’t had a 'net stalker show up, but I’m imagining it is within the realm of possibility.
So, whatever, these are hypotheticals and I was using them for boundary explanations. The point of the thread was one person was consistently not recognizing boundaries, saying they are a “negotiation” etc. And I was calling bullshit on that; my personal boundaries require NO negotiation, step on one and find out just how non-negotiable they are.
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Noted. Incidentally, are there any good hotels, guest houses, dry bridges etc. in your area for someone whose accommodation plans have changed suddenly? I’m asking for a friend.
In a sense, I agree with you. In another way, our boundaries and what we are willing to do to protect them are built up culturally, and there are cultures where the idea of personal property is very different. Ad hoc negotiation of the parameters of personal possession (say, while standing at someone’s door wanting to stay for a week or six) may not be acceptable, but we don’t create our own systems without any input from society and a different system is possible with negotiation. For example, the hierarchy of men over women is/was a reality that is very much open for negotiation (both at the individual and societal levels, and “negotiation” in this context doesn’t have to mean that all men willingly give up their former position in society). Certain ideas may be accepted by the majority of society, but that doesn’t mean that I have to accept them as an individual. I may have to confront the reality of other people’s beliefs, but I don’t have to accept their universality or prescriptive nature for myself.
(in case it’s not clear from this, I agree that it wouldn’t be acceptable to find the address of someone online and turn up at their house unexpectedly 
).
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This is the crux of it. Other people may not have to “accept them” or do anything with them, but my personal boundaries are my personal boundaries: non-negotiable and not requiring explanation or debate. Some people might understand, other people might not, but doesn’t matter. These are my personal boundaries. Now, on a personal level, it is up to me to deal with the consequences of those personal boundaries and feelings associated with them.
For example, say I had a personal lebensraum of 100 nautical miles. Anyone stepping within 100 nautical miles whom I don’t approve of gets blasted with my poison dart blower. PERIOD. NO EXCEPTIONS. Well, the onus is on me to 1. enforce that and 2. deal with the consequences of enforcing such a preposterous personal boundary. The consequences would be many and I would be swiftly removed from society. Unless I managed to escape to Antarctica or the moon and could easily enforce them there without consequences.
But the point being that yes, personal boundaries need to complement society’s sense of justice and harmonize within a larger sense of reality.
That’s not to say that society is always right. FARRRRrrrrr from it. Right now we are witnessing a backlash, at long last, of people vs. the militarized, racist police in the USA. They are killing unarmed people left and right, and kids and not having to pay any price. They are clearing themselves of wrongdoing as a matter of routine. That formerly acceptable “boundary” of what is right vs. wrong is eroding, and will come to a head soon. That’s GOOD. Society’s acceptance of what is a good personal boundary to have is always up for revision, and should be. Just as it is on the individual level, too. But that’s not negotiating. That’s introspection, which is different.
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scribble scribble scribble
Ironically, I can think of about five ways to get the IP address (and therefore some location data) of anyone here…not that I’ve ever done that.
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I’m sure. But keep in mind that my IP address is booby trapped.
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“It’s my job to ask questions after dark!”
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