Randomness

[Pumpfish]

Julius fans, exciting new entry in the OED......

mankini: (pl. mankinis) a brief one-piece bathing garment for men, with a T-back.

How far away the moobiestrap?

[Pumpfish]

More from the OED.

woot: (especially in electronic communication) used to express elation, enthusiasm, or triumph.

Any wooters in the house?

[laughed]

been a few months. major health probs. surgery tomorrow at 9am. for all the non believers wish me luck. all the believers say a little prayer.
if all goes well, i'll be back, here and the world outside of here better than EVER. if not, nice knowing you sz.

[Mail-Moth]

Same here ; good luck to you.

[Fade to Black]

hey laughed don't mean to be cloying but i was literally just thinking about you the other day and wondering why haven't seen you round these parts in a while. Hope everything turns out OK, man.

[syed]

Hope everything goes well laughed. Literally just got home from hospital myself actually.

WAYWT hospital edition...would have posted in the regular thread, but the gowns don't come in black

[curiouscharles]

sending well wishes for your operation laughed, i have no knowledge / have had no knowledge of your health problems, all the best for this life and/or the next, prayers on my behalf...

[Shucks]

1) obviously good luck to all about to have surgery.

2) glad to see copenhagen's youth protecting their turf:

[morsto]

These moronic kids also beat up Fairey the day after ruining his work. Sometimes it seems post-birth abortions should be a possibility. :/

Good luck to you, Laughed.

[HWith]

Damn left-wing radicals, I'm so tired of them. I used to life pretty near Jagtvej 69 (pictured in above posts), the site of mass riots similar to those recently seen in the UK. The far-left youth were unhappy that the building they had been using as a place to gather was being teared down, so they grabbed the opportunity to set the city on fire, rob and destroy stores as well as attack the police and other authorities. Contrary to the UK, they pretty much got away with it all, as Denmark is too damn soft to enforce any kind of law, order and punishment.

[Shucks]

i still think it's funny. he's a fucking sell-out.

[MetroBulotDodo]

MBD: do you really think the highly theoretical concept of social contract has any relevance to describe actual social mechanisms?

Hey BSR,

(And sorry to everyone for returning in a somewhat oblique manner to the marriage discussion.)

First I ask: is the concept of 'social contract' forever constrained to the realm of the "highly theoretical?" I think it's possible to make a convincing argument that the highly theoretical can structure social organization and therefore become an "instrumental" concept, that is to say, that it has actual effects on the ground, and not merely a theoretical one.

To give an example: most people who live in societies governed by laws have chosen to give up some bit of their free will in order to benefit from the sorts of "protections" and "order" a legal system attempts to put into place...in any case, I think that the 'social contract' is codified in societies in the form of laws and political organization.

To work through another example: Why do people go to jail instead of committing suicide? Some believe that prisoners who go to jail are paying a "debt" to society. The very idea that one can accrue a debt to a society at large and that this debt can be negated by a stint in jail -- and this is often noted by the prisoner himself (or at least I've seen on late night television jail exposés) -- demonstrates that the prisoner believes he is part of something larger. He goes to jail because he knows that he has acted against commonly (thought not exhaustively) held values and thus must endure the consequences.

Do you agree, or what do you think? It's a good question -- I wish I'd seen it earlier!

xoxo

MBD

[BSR]

Ha, I'm glad you answered

I'm not sure the following will be really a proper answer but maybe it will make my former comment clearer:

-i referred to the social contract classic theories, like those of Hobbes and Locke. According to them the society as a whole is a product of a social contract, which is to be understood as both its hypothetical origin (providing a possible historical starting point) and its foundation (providing a legitimacy for the social fact). I'm quite convinced by Hume's critic that points out that to pass a contract you need to already live in a social form. It's a circular argument very close to the one Rousseau uses about the origin of the language (to agree on the convention that the word 'dog' names a dog you need to speak in a language, thus there is no first overall convention about the meaning of words).

-i'm aware of recent attempts like Rawls's to use the social contract theory as a means to evaluate distributive justice models, but it is here only a theoretical tool or thought experiment, not a description of the way things happen in the real world.

-not sure i would give too much credit to the reality of the free will either btw , given the last developments of cognitive / neurobio research... see for instance works by Haim Sompolinsky if you're into that sort of stuff.

-i need to think of the examples you mention...

-...but maybe you're simply not endorsing the thesis that society is based on a social contract, and in that case we just do not speak of the same thing!

Hey BSR,

(And sorry to everyone for returning in a somewhat oblique manner to the marriage discussion.)

First I ask: is the concept of 'social contract' forever constrained to the realm of the "highly theoretical?" I think it's possible to make a convincing argument that the highly theoretical can structure social organization and therefore become an "instrumental" concept, that is to say, that it has actual effects on the ground, and not merely a theoretical one.

To give an example: most people who live in societies governed by laws have chosen to give up some bit of their free will in order to benefit from the sorts of "protections" and "order" a legal system attempts to put into place...in any case, I think that the 'social contract' is codified in societies in the form of laws and political organization.

To work through another example: Why do people go to jail instead of committing suicide? Some believe that prisoners who go to jail are paying a "debt" to society. The very idea that one can accrue a debt to a society at large and that this debt can be negated by a stint in jail -- and this is often noted by the prisoner himself (or at least I've seen on late night television jail exposés) -- demonstrates that the prisoner believes he is part of something larger. He goes to jail because he knows that he has acted against commonly (thought not exhaustively) held values and thus must endure the consequences.

Do you agree, or what do you think? It's a good question -- I wish I'd seen it earlier!

xoxo

MBD

[BSR]

We're supposed to pretend that we're a sophisticated forum by not questioning him, implying that we're knowledgeable about what he's talking about.

haha sorry it looks a bit too much indeed (i didn't read over)...

[interest1]

NYC just experienced an earthquake.

Everything in my apartment just swayed back & forth..

Holy shit!