User talk:Peter1c/Archives/1

Your recent additions

I just wanted to say that I have been reading your additions to Wikiquote and I have been deeply inspired and moved. Keep adding quotes, and thank you! ExistentialBliss 20:52, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ram Dass‎

Thanks MUCH for creation of the Ram Dass‎ page — had been intending to do one for him for ages — but never actually got around to it. ~ ♞☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 01:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Chronology vs Alphabetical listings in theme pages.

I wish to start by saying that I very much appreciate many of your contributions here, and thank you for these, but I have noticed you changing theme pages, which are normally simply sorted alphabetically by author or source into sortation by chronologies (such as they generally are presented on pages for individuals). I actually don’t agree with dividing up the quotes on theme pages into eras. Sometimes the era assigned to quotations can itself be very dubious or indefinite, and I believe it could often present more problems of arrangement and duplication than simple alphabetized listings, which have been the general preference here on theme pages. Blessings. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 00:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Appreciation

Your contributions I much approve of, and your collation of quotations at your User Page I do often browse.

Keep up the quality, I thank you for your work here; IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, I like reading your own writings. I especially liked this recent addition:

"The goal of the businesses that produce your entertainment isn't to help you strive for perfection in the way you and you alone can. Their goal is to make money. They distract your from your true tasks, the task of perfecting your intellect, the task of drawing ever closer to God."

Although I don't understand and politely request elaboration on this: "Shakespeare wrote his plays with an eye on profit."

Thanks, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 03:59, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi IOHANNVSVERVS. Thanks for your encouragement and your feedback. What I meant to say is, cynics insist that even Shakespeare was trying to make money from his plays. But even supposing they are right, he hadn't reduced the moneymaking aspect of art to a science as Hollywood has.

property rights questions

I would like to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind: 1) What is your take on the origins of property rights? (I ask this because I know of NO argument that successfully justifies private property, other than the utilitarian one—which is of a more pragmatic nature—or appeals to God (the kind that Locke resorts to in order to establish property as a "natural right", but that atheists can't accept...he then goes on to offer additional arguments, related to labor, but I find them equally unconvincing.) 2) When discussing the legitimacy of property rights or fairness of the free market, do you only focus on whether the starting line "distribution of wealth/resources" was just, or do you also consider that people are born (through no fault/choosing of their own) with different inherited abilities, IQs, and so on? Thanks ~ DanielTom (talk) 16:04, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi DanielTom. Thanks for your message. The short answer to (1) is, I haven't seen a good argument that justifies the existence of private property rights other than the utilitarian one either. Locke argues that since a human being owns herself, she also owns the results of her labor so long as the materials she uses leave "enough, and as good, for others." That means if I go into the wilderness and create a farm on unused land, the improvements, even if not the land itself, belong to me. But then what happens when there is no longer enough and as good for others? It seems like Locke's argument creates only a temporary property right, not a permanent one. Locke’s argument also doesn’t seem to demonstrate that the property right would be the sort of property right that the wilderness farmer could assign to others.

Once we get to pragmatic arguments, the question has to be, “practical for whom?” Maybe we could argue that if introducing a property right makes everyone, including the poorest person, better off, then it is practical. But it seems that this would also be a temporary property right. Once the property right stops making the poorest person better off, it is no longer valid. Raymond Geuss has a lot of good arguments against Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” method of deciding on political institutions. Once we’re making pragmatic rather than apodictic arguments, it seems strange to use thought experiments where we don’t take account of all the facts in the real world.

Libertarians make really good apodictic arguments about the implications of property rights. The implications sometimes seem contrary to intuition, but then the implications of Newton’s Laws seem counterintuitive too, so this is not a big objection. The problem, though, is that if property rights are justified solely by pragmatic considerations, then if any of consequences apodictically deduced from a property right begins to seem impractical, this implies that the property right itself might be impractical.

Regarding (2), I find Rawls’ idea that exceptional abilities are a “common asset” deeply disturbing. It implies that those with exceptional abilities should be forced to work for the common good even if they choose not to. Maybe here is a case where we can assert an apodictic property right based on a Lockean argument. A person owns her own exceptional abilities because she owns herself. (Some googling led me to an article by Andrew Kernohan called “Rawls and the Collective Ownership of Natural Abilities.” Kernohan argues that collective ownership of natural abilities contradicts Rawls’ own first principle of justice, the principle that guarantees basic liberties.)

The idea that exceptional intellects should place themselves in service to society even when they’re not inclined to is also, I think, self-defeating. If you let an exceptional mind do whatever it feels like doing, and just occasionally give it a nudge toward something useful, it will end up being very productive, and it will also improve and cultivate itself so it will be even more productive in the future. If you tell an exceptional intellect what to do, it will balk at the intrusion, withdraw into itself, and try to conceal its virtues for fear of being exploited.

I think the unfortunate tendency of libertarians to talk about property rights without carefully distinguishing between just and unjust property rights is a big part of the reason for the deep gulf of misunderstanding between libertarians and progressives. The property rights of the elite that owns our corporate-state apparatus are all deeply permeated with coercion. When corporations run the state, shares of ownership in corporations amount in effect to shares of ownership in the state. Libertarians and progressives really ought to be in an alliance to try to overcome the abuses of the corporate-state apparatus. After that, of course, the two camps will have to iron out the real and important theoretical and practical disagreements between them.

That's where my research so far leads me to. I'd also be very interested to hear your thoughts and reactions. ~ Peter1c (talk) 19:35, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Just a few observations. You write, "Maybe we could argue that if introducing a property right makes everyone, including the poorest person, better off, then it is practical. ... Once the property right stops making the poorest person better off, it is no longer valid." – here you're basically proposing the Rawlsian maximin criterion. You mention Raymond Geuss, so you must be much better acquainted with Rawls' critics than myself; still, I can't resist giving you what is in my opinion the most interesting objection to Rawls' "veil of ignorance" experiment: perfectly rational agents do not necessarily need to be risk-averse, and might even be gamblers! Re. "I find Rawls’ idea that exceptional abilities are a “common asset” deeply disturbing." – Rawls was actually only referring to the distribution of natural talents as a "common asset" (but... did you just unconsciously make a case against progressive taxation?)... When you start talking of "the elite that owns our corporate-state apparatus", you begin to lose me. You seem to be receptive to libertarian ideas so, although I am not a libertarian myself, I will gladly quote Ludwig von Mises:

"The people who think that the power of big business is enormous are mistaken also, since big business depends entirely on the patronage of those who buy its products: the biggest enterprise loses its power and its influence when it loses its customers." [1]

The "elites" have always done well, at all times, and in all countries. What's remarkable is that your own country has become so rich in the past few centuries, that the common American now is "the elite" (or "the 1%"), compared to the rest of the world. If you have 2 ½ minutes to spare, I would appreciate it if could watch this, and then tell me what you think. Dinesh basically talks about two powerful groups of people who "detest each other": the "wealth-creating class" (entrepreneurs), and the "knowledge class" (to which – I think it's fair to say – you belong). I could say much more on this, and on the need for all of us to balance the study of philosophy with that of economics, and of the history of economic thought until Schumpeter's entrepreneur in particular, but I'll simply close by thanking you for your addition to Wikiquote of one of my favorite quotes, by Adam Smith, a couple of years back, ending in: "It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind." What Dr. Smith wrote a few lines before is equally brilliant and an eternal truth: "Through the whole of his life he pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquility that is at all times in his power, and which, if in the extremity of old age he should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no respect preferable to that humble security and contentment which he had abandoned for it." Peace ~ DanielTom (talk) 02:46, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi DanielTom. Thanks for your message. You nailed the issue exactly by going to Adam Smith’s distinction between, on the one hand, the

splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low spirits ... entirely depreciates those great objects of human desire

and, on the other hand, the

deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.

Smith concedes the “splenetic philosophy” is closer to the truth and the industry of mankind is based fundamentally on self-deception. My questions are: (1) If abundance demands self-deception, and therefore doesn’t include an abundance of truth, then is it really abundant enough? and (2) If I have to deceive myself to pursue abundance, how do I know I’m not also deceiving myself about what constitutes abundance?

Personally, I prefer the splenetic philosophy. I prefer truth to comfort and convenience. I grew up in an environment of material abundance and intellectual desolation and was very glad to leave it behind.

Another important turning point in the enlightenment is Francis Bacon’s 1603 essay Interpretation of Nature, where Bacon disparages the aloofness of his fellow philosophers, and demands they begin using their knowledge to master nature and alleviate human want and misery:

It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech … that are the true ends of knowledge … but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them. ...

Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation. ...

For I find that even those that have sought knowledge for itself and not for benefit, or ostentation, or any practical enablement in the course of their life, have nevertheless propounded to themselves a wrong mark, namely, satisfaction, which men call truth, and not operation.

The question I have about Bacon’s program is: If we devote all our intellectual effort to putting truth into “operation,” how will we know if our operations are accomplishing something good? The modern mind is confident it knows what is valuable and need only exert itself to find the necessary operations to bring it into existence. But where does this confidence that we already know what is valuable come from?

Economists are fond of saying interpersonal comparisons of “utility” or “use value” are impossible. They measure the prosperity of a society by adding up exchange value. The problem is, many of the most valuable things in life have zero exchange value because they can’t be bought and sold. If talk about wisdom, virtue, piety and love sounds sentimental and flaky to us moderns, perhaps this is precisely because wisdom, virtue, piety and love have no value in the market, and therefore have no value in a society that has made the market the arbiter of value.

If prosperity is defined as the sum of all exchanges, there is a certain circularity to the argument that free trade produces prosperity. It really boils down to the tautology “free trade produces the maximum amount of trade.”

My question about D’Souza’s idea that there is a “knowledge class” and a “wealth creating class” is: If the wealth creating class lacks knowledge, how does it know what wealth is?

The Mises quote you cited states an accurate truth about an ideal libertarian society. But in present-day society, where big business controls the state, it is only partially true. Big business lobbies congress to create colossal barriers to entry for small business. It’s not only a corporation’s ability to deliver the goods to customers that keeps it in business, but sometimes also the barriers to entry it has lobbied congress to put in place. Whether a firm can exact monopoly rent when there are no state-imposed barriers to entry is debatable. But a firm that lobbies legislators to create a regulatory environment with huge barriers to entry will certainly exact prices far above the market level.

Returning to the question of rights-based and utility-based arguments, I think rights-based arguments have a lot of potential to produce a just society. But utility-based arguments don’t. Utility-based arguments assume the metric of utility is already settled, when in fact it is precisely here where the most fundamental political debate rages. A free society allows a plurality of conceptions of the good to simultaneously flourish. It doesn’t favor one over another.

When a utility-based argument concludes we must accept social institutions because they are efficient, I ask, “Efficient for what end? Who decides that end?” As Ayn Rand says, “What is practical depends on what you want to practice.”

If we allow people who want to trade the freedom to trade, that is one thing. But if we say that society should be organized to optimize the volume of trade, this is something completely different. It makes trade not one among several forms of social life but the one approved, preferred form of social life. The idea that social institutions must be optimized to produce the largest volume of trade implies those who would prefer to work and trade only enough for bare subsistence, and devote the greater part of their lives to meditation and prayer, should be put into forced work camps, since that would be, according to its metric of utility, more practical and efficient.

It really made my day that you honed in directly on the Adam Smith quote, which, for me, is precisely the most relevant to the question we’re talking about. It really defines something essential about modernity, and something essential we have lost from an earlier age. ~ Peter1c (talk) 16:12, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Peter. Just a few brief comments:

"Smith concedes the “splenetic philosophy” is closer to the truth and the industry of mankind is based fundamentally on self-deception. My questions are: (1) If abundance demands self-deception, and therefore doesn’t include an abundance of truth, then is it really abundant enough? and (2) If I have to deceive myself to pursue abundance, how do I know I’m not also deceiving myself about what constitutes abundance?"

(1) "Truth" is a problematic term here, because we are dealing with personal contentment, which varies from person to person. You and I may agree, that he is rich who is contented with very little, and that the proper way to get rich is to diminish our desires – but one could argue that this too is a form of "self-deception" (or a "mental trick" at best). (2) One could be deceived about what constitutes abundance even if deception were not required to pursue it.

"Personally, I prefer the splenetic philosophy. I prefer truth to comfort and convenience. I grew up in an environment of material abundance and intellectual desolation and was very glad to leave it behind."

But the splenetic philosophy is comfort – immediate psychological comfort; remember Adam Smith talks of "a real tranquility that is at all times in [our] power" – and as Cicero says, "a happy life consists in tranquility of mind".

Philosophy brings you enjoyment ("very glad") and fulfillment, but to many people it does not. I personally have spent countless afternoons studying Go, or memorizing Camões, but am aware that most people would consider such enterprises the very definition of hell. And while they might love to "party", you and I may not: different strokes for different folks. This is not to say that we are not justified in valuing certain things over others – for instance, even I don't like to see people ever more concerned with their outward appearance (say, dressing provocatively just to get more "likes" on Facebook) rather than with what's inside their heads – but it is to say that we have to be careful not to project our own preferences onto others, or (worse) onto the universe itself – pretending them to be universal laws that everyone should follow, when in fact they are not.

In any case, at present most people have to work to make a living. Not everybody can dedicate their lives to the study of philosophy. But this might change in the future, thanks to the very scientific advances Francis Bacon (and others) advocated for, and which you seem to deprecate(?).

"The question I have about Bacon’s program is: If we devote all our intellectual effort to putting truth into “operation,” how will we know if our operations are accomplishing something good? The modern mind is confident it knows what is valuable and need only exert itself to find the necessary operations to bring it into existence. But where does this confidence that we already know what is valuable come from?

How is "alleviat[ing] human want and misery" not good?

(To go back to Adam Smith: "It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth." — Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.)

"Economists are fond of saying interpersonal comparisons of “utility” or “use value” are impossible."

Not necessarily impossible. I actually remember seeing, when I was studying for a second-year microeconomics class at the University of Porto, old exams from the 1990s in which "utils" were used as a measure of cardinal utility, but this seem to have gone out of fashion. It just makes more sense to work with preferences, that can be ordered, than to pretend that we can determine exactly by how much one person is happier than another.

"They measure the prosperity of a society by adding up exchange value."

I'm not sure what you mean by "adding up exchange value". GDP (or GDP per capita) is often used as a proxy for well-being. More complex indicators (composite indices such as the Human Development Index) can also be used.

"The problem is, many of the most valuable things in life have zero exchange value because they can’t be bought and sold. If talk about wisdom, virtue, piety and love sounds sentimental and flaky to us moderns, perhaps this is precisely because wisdom, virtue, piety and love have no value in the market, and therefore have no value in a society that has made the market the arbiter of value."

But they do have value in the market. In this very discussion, we have both given up some of our time to exchange ideas that we consider to be of value (hopefully); money doesn't necessarily need to be exchanged – fortunately so, because it would corrupt philosophy. "Talk" (as opposed to writing) of virtues today takes place mainly in religious institutions (like the church or the mosque), but there is demand for it in academic institutions (think philosophy classes) as well.

"The market" is simply a place where supply and demand meet. When you say, "made the market the arbiter of value", you are actually saying "made people the arbiter of value". If you think about it, it's very democratic. Better than having any one person decide what is valuable for everybody else.

"If prosperity is defined as the sum of all exchanges, there is a certain circularity to the argument that free trade produces prosperity. It really boils down to the tautology “free trade produces the maximum amount of trade.”"

Again, this is a straw man.

"Big business lobbies congress to create colossal barriers to entry for small business."

"Colossal barriers"? Over 500,000 small businesses are started in the US, every month.

"The idea that social institutions must be optimized to produce the largest volume of trade implies those who would prefer to work and trade only enough for bare subsistence, and devote the greater part of their lives to meditation and prayer, should be put into forced work camps, since that would be, according to its metric of utility, more practical and efficient."

Utilitarians would argue, that "social institutions must be optimized to produce the largest volume of trades greatest possible happiness". And people generally don't like to be put into forced work camps. You could say, that their misery would still be justified, if such slavery could somehow bring increased happiness to society as a whole – just as in the classic example, where a terrorist has escaped, and the people are frightened: it would seem, that the police would be justified in arresting an innocent man, whom the public believes to be guilty of the terrorist attack, if doing so made the people relieved, and the overall happiness of society increase. But people in a society that adopted this principle would rightly feel afraid, that they too could be made slaves, or arrested when innocent, etc., for the "greater good" – and this leads us to "indirect Utilitarianism", which in my opinion is the real basis for personal rights (not counting God).

"It really made my day that you honed in directly on the Adam Smith quote, which, for me, is precisely the most relevant to the question we’re talking about. It really defines something essential about modernity, and something essential we have lost from an earlier age."

Well, Adam Smith was writing in 1759, so you may be looking at the past through rose-colored glasses... :) Cheers ~ DanielTom (talk) 05:11, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

You make a number of excellent arguments, DanielTom. In particular I have been thinking a lot about your idea that individuals might not be risk-averse, and might even be gamblers. This seems to have profound implications. The gambler deliberately seeks an element of unreason in the outcome of his games. He craves the irrational outcome so much that he is even willing to bet when the expected value of the game is negative. The implications for political theory are very significant. When a soul unfortunate enough to be born into a poor family asks for a rational account of his situation, the answer he will hear is, “That was the luck of the draw.” For a non-gambling mind like mine, this points to irrationality and injustice. But for the gambling mind, it poses no problem. In fact, the gambling mind might prefer a world with irrational institutions that introduce a small chance of being born wealthy, even if their expected value is negative and he must therefore resign himself in the average case to being poorer.

(Eliminating irrationality costs money, as the expected negative return on an insurance policy attests, so accepting irrationality may even have a net positive effect on overall economic output. Or it might have a negative effect, as people withdraw from what they perceive to be an irrational system. I’m not sure which effect predominates.)

An economic system contrived in accordance with the gambler’s wishes should deliberately introduce irrational institutions whose outcome is more a matter of chance than of logic, just as a casino uses cards and dice to create unpredictable, irrational outcomes. The idea of seeking rational and just outcomes is not in the intellectual repertoire of the mind of the gambler, who is accustomed not only to accepting irrational outcomes with equanimity, but even to seeking out irrational outcomes deliberately. If the majority of citizens are gamblers, then it would be undemocratic for an intellectual elite to impose a rational economic system on a populace that would prefer a casino. It’s unfortunate for uptight minds like mine that prefer reason to blind chance that we happened to be born into a society with the opposite preference. But I suppose that’s the luck of the draw!

These conclusions about non-risk-averse economic actors are exaggerated and only partly serious, but seriously I do think the gambler mindset might explain a great deal about U. S. politics, where the economically underprivileged are more interested in gawking at the wealthy on celebrity channels than in politically organizing to fight for economic justice. I think many of the underprivileged actually like the fact that there is a vast wealth disparity, no matter how irrational and arbitrary its origins, because they imagine, I suppose, that in some future life the luck of the draw might be in their favor and they might be born wealthy. In any case they can fantasize about the life of the wealthy and live it vicariously.

Personally, I think I really do owe a rational account to the soul unfortunate enough to be born poor. And if I can’t give him a rational account, he is perfectly justified in robbing me. An economic system that has abandoned its claim to rationality and accepted that it will be ruled by chance can’t exactly complain when it has the bad luck to be robbed. The tendency of libertarians like Walter Williams to gloss over the distinction between de facto property rights and legitimate property rights is symptomatic of a generally optimistic outlook toward power, which Hegel notoriously expressed as “The real is the rational and the rational is the real.” As an antidote to what Kevin Carson aptly calls “vulgar libertarianism,” I strongly recommend checking out some of the more level-headed, rational libertarians. The one I most admire is Roderick Long.

Could you please review the graffiti page?

You are my senior here, so I was wondering if you would please demonstrate what the page for graffiti should look like; it seems ironic you clean up so much vandalism but don't have an opinion on that page. Clearly I could use your help, so by showing me that one page as an example; you would be doing the wiki and me a lot of good. CensoredScribe (talk) 16:52, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

• Hi CensoredScribe. Thanks for your message. I like the graffiti article. I added some more detailed source information to some quotes and made a few formatting fixes. Maybe some quotes should be shorter, but otherwise it looks good. ~ Peter1c (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Would you be interested in reviewing moe (slang)?

Moe (slang) seems even more niche than crowdfunding at the moment, so I thought you might like to nominate it for deletion for lacking evidence of notability. I wasn't sure if you knew about it. CensoredScribe (talk) 17:12, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

• Sorry about the VFD on crowdfunding, that was a mistake on my part. I found wikipedia articles for most of the sources you cited, so that was just my ignorance for not recognizing them.

Regarding Moe (slang), the only I issue I see so far is length of quotes. The fact that there's an article on Wikipedia means it is definitely notable (as long as Wikipedia article doesn't get a VFD), and you have at least one source with a Wikipedia article, so there's definitely no notability issue there. That's my opinion, for whatever it's worth. ~ Peter1c (talk) 17:35, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I was toldthat dialogue on theme pages is acceptable.

I've been told previously, (either by User:BD2412 or User:UDScott), that dialogue on theme pages is acceptable; though my formatting a the the time was not I was still thanked for several of these quots, like at the war page. The power page was even given its own section for dialogue quotes. I've even been thanked for some of those edits; so I was wondering if you could show me where does it say that it dialogue isn't acceptable for theme sections? I'm also a bit confused why the evidence of notability seems to differ for the graffiti page as I've looked at the notability guidelines recently. Thanks again. CensoredScribe (talk) 14:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

• Hi CensoredScribe. Thanks for your message. I wasn't sure about dialog quotes. I've had some of mine removed, so I thought it was not in WQ scope. I stand corrected on that.

The main concern I have with the quotes I removed is that, although they contain the title word of the theme page, they do not, as far as I can understand, convey any viewpoint on the theme that is interesting, coherent, and different from the viewpoints already presented. Many of them are essentially unintelligible outside the context of the work from which they are taken, referring to characters with which the audience can't be assumed to be familiar. Many of them are also long by WQ standards, particularly given that they do not make an intricate argument that requires some length to reach its conclusion. The quotes seem to convey far more information about the characters and plotlines of the story than about the theme of the article.

If there are quotes that you feel do succinctly convey a coherent and interesting position on the topic of the theme page, maybe we could discuss them individually and try to understand why our opinions differ (or why I made a mistake, as in Meditation). That could be a learning experience for me, which is the main reason I am volunteering here. ~ Peter1c (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Would you be interested in improving the page for Michael Badnarik?

The page for Michael Badnarik requires a lot of additional citations, I was wondering if you might be interested. Also; if you could please say at least the last names of the author of each quote you remove using the edit summaries. I noticed you left a non notable quote from science fiction author Orson Scott Card on Solitude from the book Ender's Shadow. Thank you. CensoredScribe (talk) 20:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Would you be interested in applying the quote length guidelines to the page for evolution?

I'm sure you can figure out the maximum acceptable length of a Clarence Darrow trial transcript, the exact maximum must be official policy somewhere on wikiquote and Kalki, ELApro and I are simply ignorant of it. I believe it is longer than 0 but am not sure the magic number. CensoredScribe (talk) 14:30, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Pedro Martinez

I am new i have no idea what I am doing, could you help me out with how to add sourced quotes? Pedro Martinez is what I am interested in for right now. thank you. --Quoter1989 (talk) 15:08, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Quoter1989, thank you for your interest in Wikiquote. You can find hints on how to create your first article at Help:Starting a new page. ~ Peter1c (talk) 15:13, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you but I have no properly sourced quotes i need to know where to find some then create the page. thank you. --Quoter1989 (talk) 15:15, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Try Google books, or your local public library. ~ Peter1c (talk) 15:26, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:New Pages

Are you aware of Template:New pages? If so, could you please add in pages you worked on into that template place? I've done so to your Sarah Fielding page. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 23:13, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi, again this is a reminder to add newly added pages to WQ to the template linked above. Please, as well, add categories to your articles, such as Democratic socialism. ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 21:58, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Could you please explain why quotes from Ender's Game, South Park and the Matrix have evidence of notability that other series seem to lack?

I'm confused why South Park quotes about the catholic church are notable, why the Matrix is quotable for reality and why you allowed Ender's Game for intelligence; when all of these lack "evidence for notability" which is a rather vague compared to stating what that evidence actually is; presumably either being from a book 100 year of age and quoted by someone with a wikipedia article; or apparently anything from the voice of god, Orson Scott Card. Did you somehow miss the Ender's Game quote while systematically removing the others from the page? Also why hasn't Pythagoras been deleted like the other passages from Lives of the Necromancers and why the Clarence Darrow trial transcript for Evolution hasn't been reverted for length? Thank you for clarifying some of these discrepancies; I disagree with many of your reversions to theme articles, based on policies which I have noted are ignored by multiple senior admins like ELApro. CensoredScribe (talk) 15:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi CensoredScribe. Thanks for your message. Could you include links to the specific pages you wanted to discuss? ~ Peter1c (talk) 16:00, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Do you mean adding brackets to the pages I have already listed pages or do you require specific page revisions for reasons of superfluous specificity to demonstrate mastery of these grammatical concepts? For Education you've evidently marked South Park as having the mythical evidence of notability; the likewise for the Catholic Church Similarly for intelligence you have chosen Orson Scott card as being quotable. I'm confused why you have decided South Park is quoteable on all pages. Also why is Gargoyles quotable on war but not on other pages such as statue? I'm only noting things you didn't delete compared to what you did delete? I conclusion mybquestion is this, why is South Park the only television program and Ender's Game the only quotable fiction book; what exactly is there "evidence of notability"?

A thousand prostrations if I am not clear enough. CensoredScribe (talk) 20:47, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi CensoredScribe. Thanks for the additional info. I'm putting the quotes here so we can discuss them.

1. Gargoyles (TV series) quote from War

• Demona: Aside from Xanatos, we have no human friends, nor should we. Humanity is our enemy, Goliath. I thought you learned that a millennium ago.

Goliath: I cannot make war upon an entire world. Doesn't Xanatos prove that there are good humans as well as bad?

Demona: Can you forgive the humans for what they did to our kind?

Goliath: The ones responsible for that have been dead for a thousand years.

Demona: Then their descendants shall pay! I will have blood for blood!

Goliath: You said the centuries have changed me. They've changed you, too. You've become hard, unforgiving. You're not as I remember you. I'm going to see my friend now.

• Gargoyles (TV series) Awakening Part 5 written by Michael Reaves, story by: Michael Reaves & Eric Luke

The issue I have with this one is that it is difficult to understand it outside the context of the story. Who is Xanatos? The quote tells us more about the characters in the story than about war. I think quotes like this are great for author, film and book pages. But quotes that are hard to understand without context are problematic as candidates for theme pages. ~ Peter1c (talk) 21:35, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

What about shortening it to this:

• Demona: Can you forgive the humans for what they did to our kind?

Goliath: The ones responsible for that have been dead for a thousand years.

Demona: Then their descendants shall pay! I will have blood for blood!

Goliath: You said the centuries have changed me. They've changed you, too. You've become hard, unforgiving.

Good editing, 3 lines worked for South Park on Catholithism; though I believe I mentioned this quote in particular much earlier.

2. Orson Scott Card quote in Intelligence

• You seemed to be listening to me, not to find out useful information, but to try to catch me in a logical fallacy. This tells us all that you are used to being smarter than your teachers, and that you listen to them in order to catch them making mistakes and prove how smart you are to the other students. This is such a pointless, stupid way of listening to teachers that it is clear you are going to waste months of our time before you finally catch on that the only transaction that matters is a transfer of useful information from adults who possess it to children who do not, and that catching mistakes is a criminal misuse of time.
  • Orson Scott Card Ender's Shadow

This is a great example of a quote from fiction suitable for theme pages. The reader can understand it without knowing anything about the story or the characters. The quote says something important and interesting about the relationship of students and teachers. I see you removed it from Intelligence. Rather than restoring it in Intelligence, I restored it in Teachers, where I think it is more relevant. ~ Peter1c (talk) 21:35, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Alright here is we will have to disagree, because you say it is good quote without providing "evidence of notability"; you just say it is good. Evidence of notability is a term I have repeatedly asked you a to define, reference or ask others on the vilage pump to chime in with their opinions (I would prefer all three). UDSott certainly doesn't like the atmosphere of increased restrictiveness on who is notable that you have creating on certain pages; yet not others. Most of the quotes you have deleted in edited forms would concisely address these concepts. w:Dwayne McDuffie and [[w:Bruce Timm for example are excellent writers you've reverted en mass, and you must keep in mind that quotes needn't specifically mention the theme by name.

Myself and I believe others like UDScott would appreciate further education on your behalf in the edit summaries; which are quite brief and repeat the words evidence of notability and unquoteable rather than providing meaningful explanatios as to why the quote doesn't apply to the theme; like a conversation. Forgive me if I am wrong but you seem to single out Orson Scott card as the only notable book and the only television show I've added with quotes you haven't reverted is South Park. Also you seemed quite uninterested in better editing moving these quotes beforehand which shows a certain focus like only reverting certain forms of media like like video games cartoons and comics but every single obscure movie on the war page is acceptable. CensoredScribe (talk) 23:26, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Should I list all of your reversions; I figure any interested admin or party could simply review your edit history in 5 minutes and note that you really don't ever provide any explanations for why these quotes aren't acceptable the way Ender's Game is. Further more not being about the topic wasn't the justification you initially used; so why has that become the deciding factor instead of evidence of notability suddenly? You mean evidence of both Nebula or Hugo award right? CensoredScribe (talk) 23:35, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi CensoredScribe. Yes, please list all the reversions you disagree with. I'm happy to discuss them.

I stand corrected on the issue of notability. Seeing that the other editors do not share my distinction between the notability of high culture and non-notability of mass culture, I will not use that as a criterion for justifying reversions and deletions. I'm pretty sure we can all agree that there must be a criterion of relevance, however.

In many cases, I object to quotes because material that isn't relevant to the topic is included along with material that is relevant. In such cases, I wouldn't object to shortened versions of the quotes being added back in. I explain this in more detail in a few examples, below. ~ Peter1c (talk) 11:04, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Detailed justification for reversions and deletions

At the request of CensoredScribe, I am including detailed justifications for some reversions and deletions.

Breaking Bad quote in Science

• Skinny Pete: What do you think all those sparkles and shit are? Transporters are breaking you apart right down to your molecules and bones. They're makin' a copy. That dude who comes out on the other side? He's not you. He's a color Xerox.

Badger: So you're telling me every time Kirk went into the transport he was killing himself? So over the whole series, there was, like, 147 Kirks?

Skinny Pete: At least. Dude, no, why do you think McCoy never liked to beam nowhere? 'Cause he's a doctor, bitch! Look it up, it's science!

• Breaking Bad Blood Money written by Peter Gould

This a great w:reductio ad absurdum for the science fiction idea of the transporter, but it's only tangentially related to the article topic. It would be far more relevant in science fiction. ~ Peter1c (talk) 11:09, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Watchmen quote in Randomness

• Rorshach: Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor?

• Alan Moore, Watchmen

Proposed shortened version:

• Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.

• Alan Moore, Watchmen

I restored a shortened version of this quote. The first three or four sentences are relevant to the article topic. How are the rest relevant? Reducing quotes to only those portions that are clearly relevant to the article topic will make for better articles.

The quote also requires a more detailed citation. If this is a comic book series, why doesn't the citation specify which issue from the series? What about a page number? ~ Peter1c (talk) 11:07, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

X-Men: First Class quote from Pride

• Mystique: Hey, Beast! Never forget - mutant and proud!
  • X-Men: First Class, screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn

To justify its inclusion in a theme page, a quote should tell the reader something new and interesting about the article topic. Merely having the article topic mentioned in the quote isn't sufficient. What does this tell us about pride? Perhaps that it should be more inclusive? What was the justification for including "Hey Beast!" in the quote? What does this tell us about Pride? ~ Peter1c (talk) 11:09, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposed shortened version:

• Mutant and proud!
  • X-Men: First Class, screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn

Doctor Who quote in Torture

• They were tortured. My mom. My dad. My sister. It wasn’t the Doctor’s fault, but ... you need to be careful. Cos you know the Doctor. He’s wonderful. He’s brilliant. But he’s like fire. Stand too close and people get burnt.
  • Doctor Who The Sontaran Stratagem written by Helen Raynor

To justify its inclusion in a theme page, a quote should tell the reader something new and interesting about the article topic. Merely having the article topic mentioned in the quote isn't sufficient.

This quote tells us about the story and its characters, but what does it tell us about torture? It tells us that a case of torture occurred in this particular story. It tells us about who was at fault in the story. It tells us about the virtues of one of the story's characters. But what new and interesting information does it convey about torture? ~ Peter1c (talk) 11:09, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Appreciation II

Thanks for these: The Zürau Aphorisms, Athenaeum Fragments, & On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. -IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:18, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

+ De remediis utriusque fortunae! -IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:52, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Know My Name: A Gay Liberation Theology

I have added a "{{prod}}" template to the article Know My Name: A Gay Liberation Theology, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but it may not satisfy Wikiquote's criteria for inclusion, for the reasons given in the deletion notice (see also "What Wikiquote is not" and Wikiquote's deletion policy).

You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Votes for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:25, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

You forgot empathy and paranormal

I'm confused why you've cleansed some of the X-Men quotes but not all of them. Also your revision of the Ressler quote for LGBT is uncalled for as he is indeed using sexual profiling as a psychological explanation for the murderers motives; similar to racial profiling, though less common and done after the fact rather than before. CensoredScribe (talk) 17:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Wandervogel

A page that you have been involved in editing, Wandervogel, has been listed for deletion. All contributions are appreciated, but it may not satisfy Wikiquote's criteria for inclusion, for the reasons given in the nomination for deletion (see also what Wikiquote is and is not). If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Wandervogel. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Thank you. Jergen (talk) 08:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Would you be kind enough to explain to me your reasoning behind Lesbian sex acts when there isn't even a lesbain page peter?

You kind of...showed your hand there in terms of personal biases; I'm aware inference and inductive reasoning are a dying art partiallyin thanks to the CSI effect. Also I'm confused why you haven't applied your logic of exclcuding "pop" or "low" culture edits of others on the war page like the Gargoyles quote I was publicly thanked for. You and I are the top two contributors of fluctuating months based off edit counts; there's plenty of room at the top, there's no need to exclude every quote your deem inferior based off criteria you have never once explained despite my asking multiple times for a concise checklist of what maes a quote acceptable to you. I don't mean a 5 page manifesto that never gets around to actually listing any criteria, n offense but there are 18th century horse laws I have a better understanding of than the criteria you have chosen for notability. I'm going to revert you on the LGBT page and leave you to live up to implementing your own standards for the war page; unlike Kalki I do not expect you to actually list your criteria though I and others would love if if you told us what evidence of notability means without a circular definition. Thanks; most of your work is an improvement, although it it's self needs improvement, as you gloss over categories and seem to have a western historical focus as evidenced by the evil speaking page. Not exactly the worst problems to have though still an issue if you consider things like bare urls a problem or culturally biased POV a problem. CensoredScribe (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi CensoredScribe. Thanks for your message. I really liked this part of the quote you added to the Masculinity page:

• Men are about hierarchy. They walk into a room, figure out who the top dog is, and then see where they stand in relation to everyone else.

• Lynda Carter, interviewed by Esquire

I have worked for some companies where this kind of attitude was in force, but I didn't last long there. It's unfortunate how prevalent this attitude is.

Anyway, I am glad you're back working on Wikiquote, and I'm confident we can work out our differences. The problem I have with the discussion of Lesbian sexual practices on the LGBT page is that it exemplifies an unfortunate tendency to equate LGBT love with a physical act. I am not saying you have this tendency. But I do think the inclusion of the quote on the LGBT page would condone it. As an analogy, if we were to put descriptions of the sex acts of married couples on a page about marriage, this would reduce marriage to a merely physical sexual tie, which it is not.

Regarding notability, as you have observed, my concern isn't so much with the sources (you found some exquisite quotes from unlikely sources) so much as with the notability of the quotes themselves. Here are some ideas that might help distinguish high quality, highly notable quotes, not by any means set in stone or absolute:

• A good quote must be comprehensible outside of its context. For fiction, that means the quote must be comprehensible to someone who knows absolutely nothing about the story or its characters.

• A good quote must not have any text (or only a minimal fraction of the text) that provides information that is of interest only inside the story. For example: text that tells us about the plot or characters of the story must be excluded or kept to a minimum. A good quote for a theme page should tell readers something new and relevant about the theme topic itself, or about how it relates to something the audience already knows. Again, the principle is that the quote should stand on its own and not rely on anything else from the story to make it comprehensible and interesting.

• If there is something shocking about a quote, the shock value should be directly relevant to the article topic. It should give the reader something that will shock him or her about the topic. Otherwise shock value is a distraction, and the quote should be abridged, if possible, to omit it.

Overall my issues are only with theme article quotes. What makes for a good quote on theme pages is different from what makes a good quote in book and film pages. These are just my opinions, not those of the community, and are all open to revision. I'm glad you're asking other editors for their take on it as well, and I am always happy to hear yours. ~ Peter1c (talk) 03:57, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm honestly not sure what the totality of our differences is as we've avoided any in depth discussion/edit wars on politics and religion and I can't tell your leanings based off the articles you create or snarky comments; unlike with User:Allixpeeke who I'm assuming identifies as a libertarian and DanielTom who I'm guessing is a repubican for calling Kalki a liberal in love with president Obama or something along those line. I didn't record the exact time DT said that but you can go looking if you really don't believe me, I don't particularly regret keeping obsessive tabs, unlike with Ryulongs magic talk page where a photo could have saved me a lot of grief maybe, because than I would have proof Wikipedia covers up bullying and the history tab is sort of bunk.

Other than the usual art and country pages I won't be adding anything contentious to themes in the future, perhaps I'll eventually go through the science of superhero's again as there's several books by physicists that would be fun, but I'm not really in the mood for it right now and have too much to do. When it comes to theme article, I figure that for non fiction my obscure sources tend to be a benefit while for fiction it is more frequently problematic, including much to my surprise most of the DC animated universe excepting Static Shock and Gargoyles; which I still object to as the Joker's logic is actually the same as Monsanto's when it comes to genetic pollution and copyright. There's more memorable thematically applicable lines from Silver Surfer cartoon than the Spiderman one, Static Shock just seems to have done teen angst better. My record with comic book quotes for theme articles was about an equal amount of yays and nays. I think the worst quotes I added were from animation, where in the absence of a wikipedia page for a specific episode like there is for Doctor Who, The Simpsons and South park it mostly comes down to whether the quote is any good on it's own for that particular theme, It's a skill I really need to work on. For film I think the only major problem was only ever those X-Men movies which was noticeably a problem this wiki had before me; I hope my X-Men related additions recently have been much more insightful than fairly interchangeable quotes from those superhero movies that half adapt the cheap, non period piece parts of 4 different story lines. I'm not sure whether I added more good or bad Star Trek quotes (not counting about sections), I disagree with several of those revisions as well.

Other than that I think we're good, you've been very polite and provide your rational more clearly than most; even if a lot of it I still don't agree with. Indeed sex and sexuality are different pages, so you are going by precedent; I just would have thought all the letters in LGBT would get their own unnecessary pages like if there were a sections for quotes about cigarettes in fiction. You have yet to add another or I argue any, quotes where in lesbian acts is differentiated from Lesbianism; it is like trying to distinguish between quotes pertaining to love, limerence, affection, platonic love, puppy love, young love, true love, and infatuation; love is hard enough to define without subdividing it and applying the definitions of recently coined psychological terms to writings composed long before them. Also a better place to start would be like adultery of extra marital affairs or something there's a lot of quotes specifically about, the actual term of the page doesn't have to show uo in every quote but it should show up in at least some of them where in Marston never uses the term lesbian sexual practices. It's one thing diagnosing someone in the past with diseases that had no name at the time that wasn't a demon; because most of the time their body is still around for tests, however doing that for less tangible concepts is much harder, it's like trying to determine who the first autistic person was and why only than? A lot of psychologists will back in time before the first diagnosis and maybe they are right in that approach, but that sure doesn't make any sense with AIDS and other diseases with a more definitely known chronology. (I'm not saying it's physically impossible there was't an unrecorded AIDS death before patient zero just that it obviously didn't make quite the impact or else history would be different.)

Intangible though still quite real concepts are harder to grasp the way Karl Marxs communist ideology is similar to Godwins anarchism, or some of Socrates/Plato/Diogenes ideas, though Godwins ideas are not similar enough to be given any official predecessor credit by any communist government. I'm not sure if Godwins books were even translated or legal in any communist countries, what with Lives of the Necromancers sounding like an episode of Doctor Who and the other half the more serious version of Scooby Doo. A list of banned books by country would greatly Wikipedia's understanding of the world.

So yeah, I hope that I've been showing a bit more discretion with pop culture quotes but I hope you might change your mind on the merits of Batman the Animated Series and Gargoyles in particular because the writing is pretty decent and the topics of concern. Other than that I think we've currently little contention over quotes outside of the lone lesbian sexual practices page I still deem exclusionary specific in scope. My apologies for not responding sooner I'm going to make saying hi to everyone and formalities more of a habit; contrary to poplar belief that every Trekker is an engineer on the autism spectrum that promotes the kind of magical thinking un-befitting a communist realist society, the ambassadorial and diplomatic aspects of Star Trek actually demonstrate a rather proficient use of social skills and conflict mediation that should warrant inclusion in theme pages. That said, Lithium power crystals is some pure and utter crap. CensoredScribe (talk) 22:25, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Heterosexuality is the sexual attraction between persons of opposite sex.  It has nothing intrinsically to do with love or with marriage.  It is a specifically sexual phenomenon.  No?

Lesbianism is the sexual attraction between women.  It, too, has nothing intrinsically to do with love or with marriage.  It, too, is a specifically sexual phenomenon.

That said, both heterosexuals and lesbians are capable of experiencing love.  Neither heterosexuals nor lesbians should be legally prohibited from marrying.  I agree with Peter1c that it is unfortunate when one reduces love between LGBT persons to simply a physical act.  Likewise, it is unfortunate when one reduces love between heterosexuals to simply a physical act.

Quotes about lesbians who are in love or who are married are appropriate for inclusion on a page dealing with lesbians, not because said page has anything intrinsically to do with love or with marriage, but rather because said quotes have something intrinsically to do with lesbians.

Likewise, a quote comparing the sexual practices of married persons to the sexual practices of unmarried people is appropriate for inclusion on a page dealing with marriage, not because said page has anything intrinsically to do with sex or sexual practices, but rather because said quote would have something intrinsically to do with marriage.

In any event, I have no problem with the creation of a page for lesbian sexual practices.  My only thought on the matter is the one I posted here.

Yours,
allixpeeke (talk) 12:31, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

dismissing entire fields of study

Peter1c, you do know that most books about business, finance and economics are written not by "greedy" people, but by academics, right? If you seek true knowledge and understanding, you are only hurting yourself by dismissing entire fields of study. When you go to a library and see the amount of books devoted to just a very specific sub-section of (say) management or finance, your reaction should be one not of dismissal, but of humbleness about how much you (we all) don't know. I don't see why – or how – ignoring disciplines related to "money" makes you any wiser. Wouldn't you at least agree that even though you personally might not be interested in running a business, or in learning how not to make ruinous investments, et cetera, the science or scholarship on these issues (think something more technical, like calculating internal rates of return) should still be considered part of humankind's wealth of knowledge?

I suggested to you before that the study of philosophy should be balanced with that of economics. For instance, you say "profit" as if it were a dirty word, but what's the alternative? Would you rather that financial institutions have profits or that they collapse? Is it a problem to you that if capital were not remunerated, savings would drop to zero, which would be the end of private investment? Why should I see modern financial systems as evil, and not as a great achievement of civilization? (Would you rather go back to "2 sets of clothing = 1 sheep = 2 bags of wheat"?) And you can talk about redistribution all you want, but we can only distribute what we produce – indeed, even if we were to expropriate all businesses and share their capital (or, if you prefer, all the wealth produced in the world [estimated to be $15,800 per capita (PPP) in 2015 by the CIA]) equally among everyone, that would give us very little per person (maybe a few months' salaries, at the cost of destroying the world economy).

One last thing: if Bernie Sanders' supporters want to take money from the rich to redistribute it more "fairly" among themselves (other US citizens, and not give it to the world's real poor), aren't they too being greedy, the very thing you rail against? I thought material possessions weren't supposed to matter!? Thanks in advance (and sorry if this post comes across as negative – I actually enjoy reading your short essays). ~ DanielTom (talk) 20:58, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi DanielTom. Thanks for your comment and your frankness. I understand the objection to dismissing entire fields of study. I don't intend to come across as arrogant. But I do want to provoke the kind of discussion we're having by criticizing the assumptions of fields of study as forcefully and frankly as I can. I will try to think about ways to make criticism modest and forceful at the same time.

I would be very interested in an economic science that could include all externalities, but my impression is that this is impossible. The methodology of economics is to ignore everything that can't be quantified, label it an "externality," and then assure us future economists will find a way to deal with it someday. But how are you going to assign a dollar value to the extinction of a species? To the spiritual costs of idolatry? To the moral costs of work without enthusiasm?

The foundation of law is in the aphorism "Possession is nine tenths of the law." If reparations were never made for damages and the statute of limitations has expired, those to whom reparations are owed must forget about their claims. The law wants to exclude the study of history beyond four years. The exclusion of history is part of what defines it as a discipline.

Marcuse laments that in today's academic world, "The societal division of labor obtains the dignity of an ontological condition." The assumptions that define a field of study are not open to discussion. Economics assumes all dimensions of human flourishing are commensurable, so that courage, restraint, humility, patience, wisdom and wealth can all be assigned a utility value. It's as if each excellence is supposed to have an exchange value in some hypothetical currency exchange of virtue. Why do economists assume utility can be expressed as a single dimension? (You said before that we could assign a value based on the time devoted to these things, but that seems to fall into the same trap as Marx's labor theory of value. Why is the value of something proportional to the time I devote to it? Doesn't that also enforce a single-dimension model of utility, with the axes now just labeled "seconds" instead of "dollars"?)

A positivist economics that confined itself to collecting data about trade without making normative claims would be great, but somehow economists can't help but want to assert that when they can quantify something, a larger value of that something must be good. Economics, being a quantitative science, has no way to express "better" and "worse" other than as "more" and "less." The things that it doesn't attempt to quantify, or that can't be quantified, never enter into judgment. An economist that talks about the moral and spiritual costs of mammon worship is no longer acting as an economist.

It's clear from our talks and your contributions that you are definitely not the kind of economist I just caricatured. You clearly have a lot of knowledge about many different disciplines, including philosophy. You are the kind of economist I can relate to. My impression (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that most economists will just ignore questions about the assumptions of their field and go on deducing theorems from those assumptions.

Part of my impression comes from Kenneth Binmore, who handily dismisses all virtues that can't be incentivized in ways economists can understand. This is an economist who wants to dismiss entire fields of study because their motive forces are different from those economists can understand. (A mirror image of what I stand accused of.) Binmore has a very cynical view of human nature. He assumes human beings are utility-maximizing animals. Like Freud's claim that man is purely a pleasure-motivated animal, the speaker who makes this assertion is like the Cretan who says he is lying. If we believe Binmore that only economically incentivized behavior is possible to humans, he owes his readers an account of why telling the truth about economics is incentive compatible. Otherwise, if his theories are true, he is admitting he has no incentive to tell the truth, and we have a paradox.

I'm definitely not claiming philosophers don't have their own "professional deformation." I'm sure economists could go a long way in describing the incentive structures that produce academic careerism in philosophy as in other fields ("publish or perish" etc.). But I'm not quite cynical enough to give up on the idea that there are at least some researchers who are sincerely motivated to discover and bear witness to the truth. No one who has this sincere desire can pay any heed to the arbitrary assumptions that divide one discipline from another.

One other question for you: if a contract is produced by psychological manipulation, in such a way that it is not in any meaningful sense the rational part of the psyche that consents to the contract, can it rightly be considered enforceable? One of the criticisms of de-facto capitalism is that advertising appeals to the non-rational parts of the psyche, while law and economics devise their theories as though man were a rational animal. If desires and demands are artificially induced by psychologically manipulative advertising, why are economists so sanguine in assuming that fulfilling demand is always a good thing? Can psychological manipulation be considered a kind of trespass that violates the proper operation of the free market?

Thanks again for the feedback. ~ Peter1c (talk) 22:58, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello Peter1c, and thanks too for your reply. Re "correct me if I'm wrong" – models, as you know, are only simplified representations of reality. The first thing we learn about economic models (be they market, financial or econometric models) is actually their assumptions and limitations. And any good undergraduate course in economics includes not just a history of economic thought class (indistinguishable from philosophy, at least in its beginning) normally in the third year, but also an introduction to the social sciences in the very first year, precisely to give students greater sensibility/humility (which you think, and I agree, most economists lack). The fault is not in economics, but in economists...

Of course you are aware that some economists are working on the very problems you claim they don't have an answer to (see e.g. the page you created for William Nordhaus), but I concede that most of the harder questions you raise (which, it seems to me, are mostly philosophical in nature, if political in practice) can't be answered by economists – just as they can't be answered (definitively) by philosophers. I quote Bertrand Russell as an illustration:

"There is no impersonal reason for regarding the interests of human beings as more important than those of animals. We can destroy animals more easily than they can destroy us; that is the only solid basis of our claim to superiority. We value art and science and literature, because these are things in which we excel. But whales might value spouting, and donkeys might maintain that a good bray is more exquisite than the music of Bach. We cannot prove them wrong except by the exercise of arbitrary power. All ethical systems, in the last analysis, depend upon weapons of war." (B. Russell, If animals could talk (1932))

I'm not going to go into the differences between positive and normative economics, but I will say that the assumption that man is "a rational animal" is not as strong as you make it out to be (the hypothesis is not that the agent knows everything, only that he will make the best he can with the information that is available to him). I too subscribe to the view that we are "utility-maximizing animals" (ever since I read The Selfish Gene, my first contact with evolutionary biology). And we already discussed that we don't necessarily need to reduce "utility" to what you call "dollar value". I don't see any paradox, because as far as I know telling the truth may well be part of Binmore's utility function, just as leading a virtuous life is part of yours.

In real life, economists and lawmakers often have to provide practical solutions to very difficult philosophical problems (to which we don't actually know the answer), such as: what is the value of a life? Maybe you (philosopher) would say, «We can't put a "dollar value" on a human life!» But insurance companies have to do this all the time. Of course most people believe that the value of their own lives is "infinity". (An economist would probably suggest estimating that person's future income discounted to the present...) Cheers ~ DanielTom (talk) 02:32, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi DanielTom. I deleted my previous response since I see on rereading your text that I didn't address your points at all.

First, thank you for drawing my attention to this Bertrand Russell quote. The part about the interests of animals being on par with the interests of human beings I can absolutely relate to. But the broader claim that all ethical claims are power claims seems to demand more thought. It might be taken as an example of the postmodern narrative that seeks to reduce normative claims to claims of power. But I like to distinguish two forms of this narrative. There is a narrative that recognizes the enslavement of discourse to power and tries to resist it. And there is a narrative that recognizes this enslavement and acquiesces in it—or even celebrates it. These two narratives are often grouped under the heading "postmodern," but they are really poles apart.

I don't think we should give up too easily on Plato's questions—What constitutes a good regime? Do we live in a good regime?—Of course the discourse that is subservient to power is useless in answering these questions. It will find any regime to be good. Greek Philosophy presents itself as a discourse (logos) that is not enslaved to power. Diogenes and Socrates make a show of asceticism to announce their indifference to power. This gives them some credibility when they allege a discourse not subservient to power is possible. (Whether a discourse not subservient to power is possible in today's universities is, of course, an altogether different question.)

I don't think the value of a life is infinite. But I do think it has incommensurate dimensions that would require more than one number to represent. We are utility-maximizing animals. But we are the animals that have the greatest share of the logos, and can therefore reprogram ourselves with the logos in addition to our genes. Greeks and Christians saw the logos as a kind of second genome that, if we could train our animal natures to make themselves subservient to it, would transform us into something different from an animal. Philosophers for the Greeks. Sons of God for the Christians. ~ Peter1c (talk) 16:43, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

"I'm a Loser"

You call Jesus a "loser", but one of the reasons He remains so popular among Christians to this day is that they actually believe Him to have "won" (having reportedly been resurrected, or "vindicated" by God) in the end. Ironic, isn't it? ~ DanielTom (talk) 17:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

DanielTom, you are so, so right. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted (Mt 23:12, Lk 14:11). Just not necessarily in one's own lifetime! Thanks again for the comments and encouragement. ~ Peter1c (talk) 17:43, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

(Reminds me of "Tolluntur in altum,/ Ut lapsu graviore ruant." Claud.) I made a comment above about how going to the library and contemplating how much we have still to learn should make us humble – now I tell you that seeing you work has that effect on me too. (ELApro is another editor who apparently reads more in a week than I do in several years.) And I got the sense that you were very Christ-like when you still tried to respond kindly and considerately to a troll even after being inconvenienced and flooded countless times with his incoherent and almost incomprehensible rants. I noticed you've recently been creating and working on articles related to early Christianity, so perhaps I can make two more quick points. The first is that Bart Ehrman (to whose blog I subscribe, and whose work you're probably familiar with) is currently writing a book on that very topic: the start of Christianity (or, "The Triumph of Christianity", as he might call it) which to me has been a happy coincidence. The second thing I should mention, after what I said at the beginning of this section, is that there actually are Christians who, while not believing in stories about Jesus's body walking out of a tomb, are still inspired and attempt to take lessons from His "loser" life of love and forgiveness – here I can mention Bishop Spong. But of course I'm not telling you anything new. Okay, once again, keep up the good work, and take care. ~ DanielTom (talk) 18:30, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi DanielTom. Thanks for your message. No, I hadn't heard of Bart Ehrman and John Shelby Spong. Thanks for making me aware of them. I'm also a huge fan of Allegorical interpretation of the Bible and Demythologization, so it seems like we are on the same page there. As you know Jesus interprets his own parables allegorically (Mt 13:18) and Paul interprets passages from the Torah allegorically (Gal 4:22), so allegorical reading has solid foundations within the text itself.

• Clement proposed a two-tiered system of understanding the Bible. Simple faith in the literal truth of scripture was good and required of all, but it was not sufficient for one who wanted to mature in the Christian faith. The Bible should also be interpreted allegorically, using reason to build on foundational truths, he said, for such interpretation allowed one to discover principles of Platonic philosophy hidden in the biblical text. ... God was the loving creator who revealed himself to humankind through the Logos.
  • Joseph Early, A History of Christianity: An Introductory Survey (2015), p. 52

This is a common view. But personally, I've never been persuaded that belief in the literal truth is a necessary or even helpful step toward understanding the allegorical meaning. For me belief in the literal was only ever a stumbling block that scared me away from the texts, and I think it is for many others as well. Maybe someone will prove me wrong, but at this point I think we might be better off without this two-tiered system, or maybe a different two-tiered system where the first tier is seeing the text as a story or a puzzle. Something to think about, anyway. ~ Peter1c (talk) 00:59, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Senselessness

I have added a "{{prod}}" template to the article Senselessness using to the proposed deletion process, because a quote saying something is senseless without saying anything about the nature of senselessness per se does not really address the topic. If you disagree you may remove the {{dated prod}} tag and we can discuss the issue or put it to a vote. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:14, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. I moved these from the page Senses, where they were even less relevant. ~ Peter1c (talk) 14:45, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Wow! That really was senseless. ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:23, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

LOL. It's all about autodidacticism, so never senseless.

• If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
  • William Blake

This is how I become wiser every day! ~ Peter1c (talk) 15:55, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Ningauble, I added some more relevant quotes. Let me know what you think. ~ Peter1c (talk) 18:23, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Which buildings do you think should have a page, (there's about 5 currently), the Temple in Jerusalem perhaps?

We could use quotes from the Cleansing of the Temple and Jerusalem. CensoredScribe (talk) 22:27, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi CensoredScribe. Welcome back, and thanks for your recent contributions. I hadn't really thought much about buildings. I'll be interested to see what you come up with. ~ Peter1c (talk) 22:41, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

You reminded me of the need for civility in deriding the term weird; would you kindly ask DanielTom to stop using the terms incompotent and lazy for describing single instances of typos and unmentioned formatting problems?

You seem quite cordial, and so, I ask you to care as much for the "incompotent and lazy" pointing out typos and formatting (or English Second Language students as they might be inferred to be), in much the way you said weird, was offensive to the LGBTQ community; if you would you please ask DanielTom to mind their choice of language a bit better, I would deeply appreciate it. Incompotent and lazy seems much harsher than weird. CensoredScribe (talk) 00:35, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Could I get your opinion as to whether my citation fixes are "subtle vandalism" or if is rather Daniel Toms uncivil and disruptive behavior warrants correction?

[2] I have a very long and sorted history with Daniel Tom, and although they normally have some basis for their reverts, this is a very clear cut matter of whether my recent citation fixes are correct or not, which I believe they are as every single style guide suggests ending citations with a period and my other grammatical fixes such as italicizing titles and using commas between entries (or periods in the case of the APA) are also near universally implemented. I've been copying their language substituting meat back for incompetent as I assume all editors are made out of meat, while incompetence is in fact a legal term.

Sorry for bothering you with this mess, I thought being a wiki gnome was welcomed, but I guess not. I wouldhave at least liked knowing what I did wrong from DT, but I guess I don't deserve that as "the most incompotent editor ever". CensoredScribe (talk) 18:05, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Incomplete VfD nominations

I assume you are not very familiar with the VfD process, because I noticed that your nominations of Category:Hermeticism and Category:Fraudsters are incomplete. Please review the instructions at Wikiquote:Votes for deletion#Requesting deletions.

In particular, the discussion page should be initiated with the appropriate template (which, among other things, will link to the page under discussion and include a signature) and the discussion should always be listed under Wikiquote:Votes for deletion#Deletion candidates so people who watchlist WQ:VFD will be aware of it.

Can you fix these two nominations yourself, or would you like some help? ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:47, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Fixed. ~ Peter1c (talk) 13:58, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:08, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Prod removal talk

I have expanded the page Abdul Sattar Edhi with reliable sources. Could you now kind enough to withdraw your "Prod" tag. Thanks Nannadeem (talk) 20:45, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

The page looks a lot better, Nannadeem; well done. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:16, 21 July 2016 (UTC)