who enforces gravity? who enforces 1+1=2?
The USA is not a permanent state. It doesn’t have to be eternal to be. Are you not you because you weren’t alive 400 years ago?
I don’t know the answer to that one. Maybe it’s God. Or the universe itself.
- the point is whilst there is a territorial, geographical entity, of north america. the USA is an abstract concept that began to be associated with the territory around about when your history books say it did. Your proof of the USA’s ‘actual’ or ‘concrete’ existance that you could ‘see it from your window’ does not advance any connection between what you are actually seeing (things in north america) and what you claim exists (the USA).
So if I could see you from my window, you wouldn’t exist? O so basically…the human ego known as nirgrahamUK is imaginary, but the physical vessel he inhabits is real? Well, what about when you die?
If the USA is an abstract concept and the state is only an illusion…then…all the people who imagine its existence are all part of the same delusion and as such nothing we see is real. Because the land was here before the USA was here. But you weren’t always here. How comes there’s a nirgrahamUK now but there wasn’t before? Are you real?
You’re incapable of comprehensen. Nirgraham was pointing out to you that when you look outside your window you do not see “the USA”. You see trees, rocks, cars, buildings, people.
Learn the difference between illusion and abstract, this is just sad.
my point was about Methodoligical Individualism. asking me whether I am real completely misses the point. i am an individual.my family is real, qua my mother is real, and my father is real, and our relationship is 'familial. hence our family exists. yet our family does not exist concretely. my family is an abstract concept, my family has no meaning outside of the relationships it describes between real particular individuals. the political state that governs the north american territory is the same.
maybe you are confused because you have a confused definition of USA. (and have not accepted the importance of Methodological Individualism in discource concerning ‘Action’)
And you’re incapable of spelling comprehension. What I’m trying to figure out is what has more power to influence: your abstract ideas or my “collective illusion?” Seems to me, most people think there is such a thing as the USA, which means that in some sense it exists. It also means that your abstracts aren’t politically applicable because they aren’t convincing and no one is going to enforce them.
So if you don’t exist except as an abstract and the USA only exists as an illusion, why don’t get all this protection under your Natural Law if it’s an abstract and so are you and abstracts matter more than illusions?
i do exist
(duh)
Haha. Well, first you said that ‘your country’ is whatever material things you see through your window. Now you’re saying it’s some sort of idea that people believe in…just like “the earth is flat” - another idea people believe in.
Here’s the thing, the abstraction ‘country’ is a nonsensical abstraction so it doesn’t exist. Just like square circles don’t exist.
Too bad for them.
But you weren’t around 400 years ago, how is this possible?? My brain is exploding, NirgrahamUK is clearly magical. Because the USA wasn’t around 400 years ago, but it is now, but it isn’t.
I’m just trying to relate to you guys. You said the USA is a collective illusion and then you said abstracts take precedent over illusions but then people still believe in the USA. How is this possible??
It’s too bad for you because they keep stealing your hard earned money and spending it on the military! Shame on those imaginary people and this imaginary country!
way to miss the point. pointmisser.
But your whole argument revolves around the individual. The magical NirgrahamUK. But you say something has to be around forever for it to exist. So then maybe individuals don’t exist? Maybe the individual is as illusory as the state? Except for NirgrahamUK, who is magical, like Jesus, and isn’t constrained by these laws? Additionally, am I real?
no i didnt.
I said people can believe in wrong abstractions - abstractions which don’t really make sense. Is that controversial ?
If you told me that every single inhabitant of the US wanted war X to be fought then you could say that by fighting you ‘served’ your country. But if 70% of the inhabitants DON’T want war, the idea that you’re serving your country by fighting is nonsense.
Unless you use ‘country’ to mean ALL voluntary members of a CLUB, then your concept of ‘country’ is logically flawed.
You have yet to directly address, or show that you even understand, my analysis of the distinctive roles of the passions and of reason in human action, in spite of me wording it in a number of different ways. I’ve concluded that you are either too lazy or too restless to read carefully enough to do so. My advice to you is to slow down, stop shooting from the hip in debate, and be more deliberative and thoughtful about opposing ideas. That kind of approach will aid you greatly in your future studies.
What you are saying is controversial because 1. you assume that markets are efficient and that people are self optimizing but then you argue that when it comes to deciding public policy they’re total fools and have been choosing the wrong things forever because they aren’t anarchists. And 2. You’re trying to take your ideas and make them into a system that clearly not many people are interested in. If you guys were in business, you’d be going bankrupt right now. When you talk about markets, you think that popular opinion matters in weeding out good companies from bad. But when it comes to government systems you say people are idiots and make bad choices. It’s just not a consistent theory and it’s totally impracticable! I’m spent right now, I need a smoothie or something.
Maybe, I don’t know. What I DO know is that you’re trying to build a foundation for morality where one doesn’t stand. Because reason (cause and effect) rule the universe and not moral precepts. So you’re ignoring empirical evidence in favor of academic theory. All because you want an anarchist region. I don’t get it.