Gosh.
Have you never heard of Irvine Berlin?
I forget a lot of the stuff I’ve heard about, but I did a quick Google and got a little bit caught up, and yes I have heard some of the music.
Nah, not the original ST2 but the ST2 released in 2013… which is not the last cinema-released film I then saw, because that happened in 2019, so making it Hellboy 3… which wasn’t all that, at all. 
Well… us audiencees where I live have been known to laugh clap and gasp, in unison, due to the nature of the films that I go see… but yea, no noisy-eating nor loud-chatter, there.
Dungeons & Dragons is out soon, so might go see that… but dunno.
John Wick… maybe.
Back in the day whe I lived in Hollywood used to play D&D every weekend, brought parents and young adults together.
We used to drive up to The Valley where an actor friend of my Dad lived with his son , same age as me, and a couple of others usually got between 6 and 9 people for a weekender, with food and beer. Great times.
THere was much in the news about kids taking it too seriously and doing dirty deeds. The same scare stories were later appended to “video nasties” then “video games”, “Multiuser internet role playing games” now its the dangers of “internet porn”.
We just had fun.
THe film is only going to be a disappointment.
I wonder if the estate of Gary Gygaz is going to get a royalty
Gaming and food gatherings… you can’t go wrong, with those. 
90s games, Indian pizza or shish kebab, and bottled beer… I kinda miss that era, but not that I dwell on it.
…a toxic world, creates toxic/sick people… the current state of the majority of the world.
So much for any ‘moral ecology’ being employed by polluting/mass-profiteering conglomerates…
I might not see the film… because what I plan and what I do, don’t often coincide, when it comes to getting out amongst others.
Royalties used to be a thing, but there’s no honour amongst [mafia-media] thieves and dodgy buy-outs… do royalties even exist anymore?
Well yes, that is what I was saying. Everything is inter-connected and cross-interacting. There are reciprocal “controls” build into the system going both directions. This is what allows the system to spontaneously adjust itself to changes without breaking completely. But I think you missed my original point, let me remind you the context here:
Carleas wrote:
One takeaway from the study of ecology is that the interdependence of species in an ecosystem can lead to counterintuitive outcomes from changes in populations. For example, we might intuitively expect a fall in predator populations to entail an increase in the population of their prey. And while this may be true in the short term, in the longer term the story is more complicated, and often includes a fall in prey populations as well. The outdated idea of a food chain can lead us to believe that predators sit atop a hierarchy, and all effects flow downward. In fact, predator and prey are both nodes in a more complicated food web, so that changes in the population of any species will have rippling effects across other species.
I responded:
True, but it’s both at the same time. There is a predator/prey hierarchy and a food chain, and there is also a larger network “food web” insofar as everything is connected in multiple ways. Polluting the ecology might kill a different percentage of predators vs their prey. If too many prey die then the predators can’t sustain themselves and will adapt or move elsewhere. But it would be a mistake to throw out the notion of food chains and hierarchies of predation. The more accurate conception would seem to be that the overall food web is composed of multiple and cross-interacting food chains.
…The context here is that I was making the point about how the idea of a food chain isn’t outdated. It’s quite accurate. And as with any chain (assuming it doesn’t break) when you exert force by pulling on it there is an equal force pulling in the opposite direction. I see no reason to throw out the idea of food chains. Keep in mind too that the idea is focused on FOOD, who eats whom. If wolves eat rabbits, then the FOOD chain is constructed in that way: rabbits → wolves (rabbits feed wolves). Just because this isn’t on its own a sufficient description of the entirety of the eccological system itself with regard to complex relationships between predators and prey doesn’t mean it is inaccurate with regard to describing who is food for whom.
There is no such thing as moral pluralism. Things are either right or wrong (or the issue is a non-moral one).
Yes this is often the case. But even then, eventually the system will adjust to the presence of the new species. Evolution has no preferences which species or individuals live or die. In the long run it’s all basically the same, at least with regards to the perspective of nature/the planet ‘itself’.
I’m not familiar with your use of the word “creole” in this context. I’ll assume you mean something like a single group composed of heterogeneous aspects. In that case, yes certainly if you look at the invasion of outside moral systems/ideas into an existing group you will end up with some kind of hodge-podge combination where each ‘side’ influences the other somewhat and both/all manage to coexist somehow in the same space, at least for a while. If the different moral systems are TOO different then conflict will end up driving one of them out, or modifying one or both moral systems so much that they contribute to a “synthesis” producing an entirely new moral system as the outcome. Of course even when this occurs remnants of the old systems will still linger.
Keeping this on point to the original discussion, your point was about how diversity is good for ecologies and also (I think?) for moral systems. I don’t understand this point. Diversity is going to occur, whether in ecologies or moral systems. It will occur up to a point, and then it will not occur beyond that point. The logic of these complex systems will cause elements of the systems to stabilize at a maximum level of expansion, difference and inter-relation. That stabilization point will vary depending on what system we are talking about, and the overall context in which that system exists, and changes to that context and to the composition of the system itself over time. Diversity is certainly good for some reasons, but it is also bad for other reasons. It can be bad in ecologies and it can be bad in moral systems. This is why I don’t understand the point you seem to be making that diversity itself is somehow INHERENTLY good (more so than it could be said to also be inherently bad).
Yes, but I was using the example of pacifism or extreme passivism. This doesn’t work as either a short term or long term solution. Even Christianity, which is primarily in itself a pacifist religion, had to re-interpret itself into forms of violence and conquest expansion in order to survive and thrive in the world. At least that is what happened, whether or not that re-interpretation was necessary would be another question.
Why would you want to help your enemies save their energy? That would be counterproductive for yourself, assuming we are talking about a game of actual competition which is more or less a winner take all sort of situation. What you are talking about seems to be a strategy for winding down the level, intensity or scope of the ‘game’ (conflict). Nothing wrong with that, but it’s also not what we are discussing here. We are talking about the logic and strategies of the game itself, of actual conflict. What works or doesn’t work when it comes to two or more group in conflict with one another, where one stands to gain at the other’s expense
And so is competition. I can’t see how it could be claimed that one is more niche for humanity than the other. No other species on earth cooperates like humans do, and no other species on earth competes like humans do. Cooperation is often a means to higher-level competition (alliances that allow larger-scale war efforts, for example) just as competition is often a means to higher-level cooperations (competing in the marketplace for goods/services resulting in the emergence of a larger-scale cooperative economy (we agree to cooperate with regard to things like not murdering each another because of the existence of lesser-scale competition in the marketplace. This is also why, when economies break down, increased violence is one of the results.)).
Cooperation is also a weakness that can be exploited, and is exploited, by more ethnocentric groups of humans. For example the pathological altruism of European-descended (“white”) people and how this is exploited to the detriment of those same white people themselves. Prof. Kevin MacDonald has great explanations of this point. One society or nation might cooperate so much with outsiders that this leads to their own replacement. In any other nation or place on earth this would be called colonialism and ethnic cleansing (imagine if tens of millions of white, hispanic and asian people migrated to Somalia, to the point that black people in Somalia became a minority in their own country. This would be effectively considered a war crime or a crime against humanity). But somehow when this occurs in white nations it’s seen as not only not problematic but a good thing.
Yes evolution selects for the fact that humans tend to develop moral systems, simply because a “moral system” is nothing more than a natural and basic reflection of the fact that humans have intelligence and operate in the world via our ideas and concepts. Structuring and developing these ideas and concepts is what a moral system is all about. It is simply the aspect of this process which is involved in those areas having to do with good and evil. The fact that we have souls means we “feel” and intuit good and evil on a basic level, and the fact we have thinking symbolic-linguistic capable minds means that we understand this on at least a rudimentary level. This basic intuition and basic understanding pushes naturally to be expanded, codified, refined and stabilized logically to as to exist in a state with less error and excess. Furthermore it also means that we understand the fact of our own responsibility, because the consequences of things are already build into those things themselves and this is part of that same basic knowledge that is innate to (most of) us.
I was thinking specifically of money-lending when I wrote it, but it could also apply to abortion, midwifery and other medical practices, alcohol/drugs, consumption/production of certain foods – there are a lot of examples where one moral community relies on another moral community to do things that it cannot.
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Speaking strictly of the morality here, yes it is the case that people will outsource the morally unpalatable things to others while enjoying the benefits of that. Eating meat is an example, so is abortion. Most women would not want to be the one to actually kill their own child by their own hands, if they had to somehow reach inside themselves and strangle the child or push the scissors into the base of its skull. They don’t want to think about what they are doing, just like meat eaters don’t want to think about the animal that was tortured and slaughtered and butchered to produce their piece of meat to eat. War would be another example.
But when you frame this as “one moral community relies on another moral community” that obscures the truth here. The truth is that one group is relying on another group to do immoral things, so the first group can enjoy the benefits of that without needing to do the immorality themselves directly.
This involves a simplification of the notion of pluralism vs monism. Even two people who share “the same” moral system will still in fact be operating in slightly different moral systems. No two people are identical in their moral actions or moral inclinations or moral understandings. It’s simply a question of the degree of difference internal to these “same” or otherwise “singular” systems. And even an individual person doesn’t embody one single moral system or idea, we as individuals are highly varied even within ourselves.
The best moral system is the one that is… best. That is a truism. What is “best” in this context? Whatever IN FACT produces the most good outcomes and the least bad outcomes (optimization of goods over bads). Morality doesn’t need to be made any more complex than this. It is really only about the understanding of goods and bads and the attempt to optimize for goods and against bads IN SO FAR AS those goods are actually good and those bads are actually bad. Obviously.
Ok, so your understanding of what a moral system is means something more like a social contract, set of laws, and existence of cultural norms and mores. Whereas for me, I am understanding a “moral system” as literally the understanding and reflection of moral truths themselves, the embodiment and instantiation of these truths-facts directly into/through/as human thought and the operations of human individuals and societies.
Yes, certainly.
No problem at all.
To add to my last two replies to this, and zeroing in on the part I put in bold above:
Don’t criticize people, and you will not be criticized. For you will be judged by the way you criticize others, and the measure you give will be the measure you receive. Make allowances for others and people will make allowances for you.
Parable of the Speck and Log
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and fail to notice the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye” when you cannot see the plank in your own? You fraud, take the plank out of your own eye first and then you can see clearly enough to remove your brother’s speck.
— Jesus (The Real, Ideal)
And instead of having a “Them” double standard, we have a role-specific application of the Golden Rule. For example, restricting information TO a privileged group of life savers and FROM an enemy group of life takers is not a double standard, but an even enforcement of saving life instead of taking it. The individual chooses the information they receive by the role they adopt. Which they can change…as far as they are aware.
Even if their role is biologically parent to a child. They could have killed the child and rejected their role, choosing the role of a life taker, necessitating the restriction of information. They are no longer privy to the child’s confidential information protected by privacy laws.
@Sculptor, you have a pattern of capitalizing TH at the beginning of words which begin with th and also begin sentences. Did Timmy fall into the well?
It’s called lazy little finger syndrome. NIce people do not take the piss, OUt of this sort of mistake.