Yep, anxious ... doesn't comprehend "we".

Peter Hume,
just to clarify, your potted version of what you take to be my position (Monday, 21 March 2011 7:29:23 PM) is a creature entirely of your imagination. Elsewhere and in this thread I have consistently argued that capitalism is irredeemable, and that far from being able to address AGW, it can only exacerbate it. No matter how much it cleans up or "virtualises" commodity production, all production can be directly measured in oil and its combustion. What we have now is hyper-capitalism, and if it does come up with new environmentally-friendly technologies, via its profligate method of "creative destruction", they will not save the current order.
But of course you don't believe in AGW, do you? You think we can just go on endlessly degrading the biosphere and exploiting the world's finite natural resources?
BTW, where's your "proof" that the world is cooling?

My use of "we", above, of course represented "human" perception and cognition. It is uncontroversial that no absolute truth can be maintained or defended. But this is no excuse to rationalise our actions in the real world, nor should it stop "us" from preferring a responsible materialist perspective: which means accepting the evidence of our senses and our ability to extrapolate events, especially in as much as they indicate dire practical consequences.

Have a nice day.

Gee, I'm going to have to work hard on this one, Peter Hume.

>>Pericles There’s no need for you to second-guess whether others want to fund this kind of wasteful confused elitist nonsense, since if what you say is true, the revenue of sociology departments will be just as much even if people are free to choose not to fund them, won’t it?<<

First of all, I will need to guess which of my thoughts you are relying upon for your "if what you say is true".

Let's try "We all have to learn, you know. Not everyone springs like Athena - and, one has to assume, yourself - fully-formed from Zeus' brow."

Nope. Can't see how that would affect the "revenue of sociology departments." Incidentally, what do you consider to be drivers of the "revenue of sociology departments" today? Perhaps if I knew that, your point might become clearer.

Maybe you are referring to this view of mine: "youth is about learning from mistakes"? Nope. Can't see that being in any way revenue-related.

How about "Most that I have met would give their eye-teeth for their children to have the level of education required to produce this piece. One that they themselves were unable to experience."

Given that these are the people who are least likely to be able to fund an education system on a user-pays basis, you are perfectly correct to opine that their aspirations for their kids' education have no revenue impact. However, surely this is not a justification to deny them the opportunity.

Taking your position to what appears to be its logical end-point, you object to any education that is provided by the State, as opposed to private enterprise. Is this a correct conclusion?

That's pretty elitist, isn't it? But more importantly, it creates a situation where the already-rich have a massive advantage over the not-yet-rich.

To the point where the not-yet-rich will have ever-fewer opportunities to make their way successfully in the world.

Or have I missed something?

Squeers
Obviously it means humans. What else would you use “we” to mean? Ducks?

Please stop evading and answer: - *which* humans?

Pericles
No it’s you who are elitist for thinking that some people should be compelled to work against their will for the benefit others to indulge themselves in ineffectuality.

The fact that the victims might really want it for themselves is hardly any justification of forcing them to pay for someone else, is it?

Maybe if the government wasn’t taking income from some people to pay for others to saunter in the groves of academe, the first ones might be able to afford to pay for a bit of sauntering of their own – if they wanted it?

There is no reason to think it’s funded by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. The reason Labor, after introducing free tertiary education, later abandoned it was because they found the effect was overwhelmingly to rob the working poor to pay for the privileges of the middle class.

Besides, just because you want something, doesn’t mean you’re justified in taking it from someone else, but if that line of reasoning is valid, why stop at tertiary education?

"Haha. Yep Pete, it's all to do with the Humanism. The humanists speak for us all. There's nothing more useless than a personal existential crisis projected onto the world. 'we'!"

When people write "we" it is not about insisting but a way of talking. You are making too much of it.

If someone says "why don't we" it is not compulsion but an offering to discuss a topic further - to mull over ideas. The "we" implies inclusiveness even if the "we" implies an unspoken agreement to disagree; or an acknowledgment of the pros and cons of various alternatives.

Spending too much time on semantics or the way people express themselves is not contributing to the debate at all.

Humanists don't speak for "us all" (note your own words) they are offering a different point of view.

I tend to think one focusses too much on semantics when it is the other side promoting a particular view that does not marry with your own.

Basically this is an opinion site so words like "I", "we" and "us" will come up but it is nothing to fret yourselves over too much. It is just words, you can still remain your own person.

Sometimes I think too much time is spent on OLO fretting about the words used, similar to the numerous posts at times about how someone offended someone, and the rest of the thread becomes more about the alleged personal affronts, rather than the original topic.

PS: I am aware of the contradiction of my own post above in terms of topic diversion.