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Sunday, May 28, 2023

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Bill,

Regarding your point that FB comments to carefully crafted posts are usually bad: in my experience, such comments are customarily unclear and/or irrelevant to the topic of the post. It's as if the responders are engaged in free association. If I had a dollar for every response that changed the subject, I could finance my own social media company.

It’s practically impossible to have a reasonable conversation with someone who changes the subject and has trouble following a line of discussion. I suspect most folks who use FB don’t do so for the sake of reasonable discussion. As you indicated, they use it to post pics, etc. Perhaps they also use it for therapeutic purposes.

Elliot,

I agree with all of that. On the bright side, the 'commentariat' here is a distinguished bunch: you, Brian, David Brightly, Oz, Hector, Vito, Bro Joe, et al.

Comment moderation eliminates the unserious. Hector C is an impressive young guy, around 30 I believe, on FB, who has been leaving some deep and erudite comments.

I saw on the news last night a big 'gator who knocked on some Floridian's door. It was not opened unto him. Any of those critters ever come up onto your property?

Memorial Day. Lest we forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omd9_FJnerY

Bill,

I'm glad to be part of a community interested in discussing the topics covered here.

I haven't had any gators on my property, but I have seen one on the sidewalk around the neighborhood, and I see them regularly in the ponds. Walks at night when the visibility is low are not advised.

Here's a story from April 2022.

https://www.wric.com/video/video-10-foot-alligator-spotted-strolling-through-florida-neighborhood/

Thanks for that praise, Bill, very kind of you!

I joined Facebook in 2006 not long after it first appeared and in those days it was only available to university students. Even then it was mostly just used for humorous purposes and for arranging parties and putting up silly photos, usually of said parties. Discussing anything serious there 'publicly' is pointless and always was; though I have had many serious discussions on the private 'chat' function with close friends. You were the very rare exception of a serious man in a most unserious place, somewhat like finding Schopenhauer at a bouncy castle!

Leftists are preponderant in academic philosophy generally, but are they preponderant within academic *political* philosophy? I doubt it - some of the major contemporary figures in that field are conservatives - e. g. Harvey Mansfield - and many of the biggest postwar thinkers were classical liberals or conservatives (Popper, Kolakowski, Oakeshott, Strauss, Schmitt, Voegelin, Hayek, Scruton, Aron and so on). Likewise, atheists are preponderant in academic philosophy generally but not within academic philosophy of religion (that one's a fact - I can't find data on political philosophy though). Philosophers should ask themselves why experts in these fields are far less likely to agree with them - or even the most likely people to disagree with them - and not just accept the default position without adequately analysing the alternatives. Is the same pattern found in any other branch of philosophy I wonder? Somehow I doubt it.

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