A list of philosophical films:
http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/2/filmlist.htm

Addendum post: Addressing the specific subject of overzealousness in moderation (that was a bit of a joke there, did you spot it?).

It has been suggested that our new mod has been a tad overzealous. I'm not going to deny that I've seen a few (short) bans which were debatable, but I'd ask those whose complaint this is to please consider it in the context of the situation as a whole. This being /ph/, I'm sure we can be reasonable.

We appointed our shiny new mod specifically to deal with a problem and he made a judgement call that a short but hard campaign was the best way to resolve matters. I'm looking round the board and comparing it to a couple of weeks ago - he's dealt with the problem. Results do count for something and he did it for your benefit too, not just his own.

From an appointment point of view it can't have been easy - we figuratively threw him in at the deep end and instead of drowning, he's drowned the idiots - this is a remarkable result and one which deserves our thanks. Some of you good guys got gently splashed in the struggle, that's something he regrets, but it's not indicative of a new stalinist-era /ph/.

In any situation where it's necessary for one to be highly zealous, it's almost inevitable for one to cross the line occasionally and slightly into overzealousness, but that's not something unique to Marthur, it's a problem anyone can face when the circumstances dictate.

Finally, he is a new mod, and it's not realistic of us to expect perfection right out of the gates, especially in the middle of a flood of four big dicks up my assholeners. It's a learning curve, but he's not had a normal introduction to it, having started during turbulent and unreasonable times. Despite a couple of minor slip-ups, taking all the above into account I've got to say that on balance he's done an excellent job for us all and I'm confident that now things are settling down we'll be able to maintain a standard that everyone's happy with.

It makes sense for the most part, but why are these qualities limited to aesthetics? Surely people are often attracted to abstract qualities like confidence, and even biological attributes which are not immediately discernible (like an ability to bear children, for example).

that's sick braw!!!!

>>9103
>I do not believe that love is predicated on gender.

What is love?
Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.

Hardaway asked a valid question. What is love? I believe it is just sincere physical attachment. And if you're applying it to one of your own gender, there is something physiologically wrong with you. A mental defect. Humans evolved sexual organs for a reason. Men mate with women. Women mate with men. Men do not mate with men. Women do not mate with women. If homosexuality was invasively prevalent throughout the evolutionary process, perhaps we might have evolved processes to perform homosexual acts. Would that really be homosexual, though?

Thinking out loud... sorry.

I feel we should clarify whether or not OP was using the more precise mathematical jargon-isation of these otherwise vague words.

Define complexity, order, and chaos. And then get back to me. What constitutes "order"? Is it simply a state of things that follow internally consistent rules? What constitutes complexity? A large number of interrelated parts? I'd say that "chaos" doesn't really exist, it's only our lack of ability to understand the order inherent in everything.

Order and chaos are not opposites.

>>9091

>>You have to give blame where blame is due, and a lot of that blame is from the centralized structure of our education system, it's not all from soccer moms bitching about their kids' low self-esteem from being a dumbass.

Could you possibly elaborate on this?

>>9092
>The type of education system we have is part of what is perpetuating our social structures, the degree of stratification in our society is not necessarily inherent in any large group of people. Instead of preparing groups for the roles that already exist (perpetuating them) schools could provide information and a real education that would set everyone on an equal playing field as far as mindset goes. If society is to advance, a consciousness needs to arise that allows people to look for ways to eliminate cash register jobs rather than destining people to fill them, and the education system is a good place to start.

But that's still just wishful thinking. There has to be someone that's has a shit job, and it turns out that "someone" is "most people". You can't have everyone with high level jobs, that's not how the world works. It's better to prepare kids for jobs they're going to have anyways rather than prepare them for shit they're never going to achieve.

>>9117
This is true. However, there is a qualitative difference between being realistic about what children can achieve and forcing them into certain societal roles. This is what education does today. Just because everyone cannot have everything does not mean that inner city kids are allowed to have a shit education.
Even if you don't agree with the assertion that poor people should get a crappier education than rich people, that is what the current system is doing to society. There is already a more limited class mobility than people think in America, and with a public education system that is steadily worsening for the poor only, we are creating an unending cycle.
We are creating a system that keeps the poor uneducated and easily manipulated. I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it is what's happening.
And that's not even taking into account the racial angle.

>>9105
>I would say that meaning is subjective simply because (supposing there is no ultimate meaning) life would be shit without it.
Merely because life would suck without it being so does not mean that meaning must be subjective.

Fail logic is fail.

>>9106
Really?
If there is no ultimate meaning to existence, applying your own smaller, personal meanings to existence helps an awful lot (to me anyway).

How is that fail logic? Or did I just word it badly?

>>9107

The point is that there is no meaning. Humans can assign their own meaning, but that's about the same as an ant deciding that the universe revolves around it.
You were partially correct; it is up to us to take action for ourselves, but even if we do, that doesn't make us any less of a dust speck. We aren't trying to belittle human effort, that's just what the universe is; a really fucking huge place with microbes called humans in it, that can decide their own actions.

Link Highly Relevant although the relevance doesn't start until partway through http://academicearth.org/lectures/immortality-death

>>9008
Nuts for all eternity? That sounds like a BALL. I'd take it, no matter what the price is.

I would most certainly take it. Hopefully it wouldn't be biological immortality. If consciousness can be digitised though I think I could keep myself entertained, perhaps simply by giving myself amnesia every 70 years or so and starting a new life of sorts. For that matter, I could live out the lives of every other person ever to exist. That's worst case scenario, if I get bored of living in the manner to which I am currently accustomed.

Wealth, as it is the main controlling factor of the modern world.

I suspect that my greatest temptation is to use obsessive knowledge-gathering, justified as a prerequisite to ethical behaviour, as a substitute for it, because it is easier. I fear I will waste my life in strenuous idleness while others die because they are less profitable. I learnt something from this process OP, thankyou.

An extremely elaborate suicide, if for no other reason than that individual life is so insignificant.

Purely intellectual activities, like discussing philosophy and politics, are hard. It takes a lot of brainpower and knowledge to toss concepts and ideas back and forth without getting lost. Furthermore, most people take shit personally, and instead of accepting that their viewpoint may have a flaw, get all fired up at the person who pointed it out.

I stopped going to a young adult group at my church because no one there is at all interested in discussing Christian theology, they all want to discuss how to sin less. I'm an existentialist, which led to some arguments, and since the leader is fucking trollbait, I left. Instead of learning more about their faith, they all want to just backrub each other into heaven.

>>9065
I'm not sure politics can really be good or bad, since it is a term talking about a process of making policy decisions. Now, the current method of making those decisions is fucking retarded, and it's amazing how few people can actually discuss it without raging.

I thoroughly enjoy politics, since I view it to be something of a game, like chess. I'm not much good at chess, but I enjoy trying to figure out how to manipulate a person, so politics just fascinates me. It's like fighting a war as a general, I guess.

Good God do I hate politics. Whenever I turn on the radio/news channels I can't help but feel my normally sealed reservoir of outrage and jackassery begin to unlock. Occasionally I can even identify what it is I'm angry about. I don't know... maybe it's just the political climate in this country right now, maybe the ranting is contagious. What I ought to do is cut myself off for a couple weeks, clear my head; but then I deprive myself of useful knowledge, and when I try to inform myself the cycle begins again. God damn do I hate politics.

OP, have you tried slipping in stealthy examples of why the stuff you want to talk about relates to them personally? I find that people (including me) can only be interested in subjects when they have a reason. Fortunately for me these happen to be subjects that it is generally agreed make for a good education.

>>9094
#1 If humans are biological creatures, then their behaviour is, to an extent, governed by their nature as humans (which is most certainly unchangeable). Even outside biology, we don't get to choose the culture we are born in, and thus we don't get to choose the values we are brought up with.

#2 Humans are not rational beings. Our decisions and moralities are not result of anything born out of logic or so-called rationality. We make our decisions based on emotion, and rationality only enters when it coincides with those emotions. And even then, what seems rational to you is only what you feel is rational. There are no inherent rules governing such behaviour, outside natural ones.

That is to say, whatever rational reasons you come up with for the behaviour you deem "right" have no bearing on the reasons for that behaviour. People have had morality and values before their concepts, and still do, without ever hearing about such concepts. Morals laws and ethics are simply failed attempts to codify human behaviour into rational, logical terms, when it evidently is not.

Ethics is bullshit, is what I'm saying.

>>9095
>All values are pre-rational
I dare to disagree. You are born with a set of values determined by your feelings, but your conscious gives you the ability to to go against your feelings when they disagree with the rationality of your mind, and over time also change them.

>>9096
>Even outside biology, we don't get to choose the culture we are born in, and thus we don't get to choose the values we are brought up with.
You still have the choise to question and disagree with the values you are taught as you grow up or to accept them.

>We make our decisions based on emotion, and rationality only enters when it coincides with those emotions.
The theory isn't that humans are putting their rational mind above their feelings, but that they should.

>And even then, what seems rational to you is only what you feel is rational.
No. Your rationality lets you make you value-based assumptions that goes against how you feel. In a given situation your feelings may tell you do A, while your rational mind tells you to do B. Either a person acts solely on his feelings in which case he can't possibly judge wether they are good or not, or he thinks the situation over and what would be best course of action, in which case he can choose to either ignore what his mind is telling him or what his feelings are telling me.

For example I may feel uneasy when traveling by aircraft. My feelings are telling me that I shouldn't travel by aircraft. Meanwhile, my rational mind tells me that statistically it's much safer than driving a car, and it'd go much faster than travelling by car or train, and would probably be alot cheaper too. My rational mind is telling me that I should travel by aircraft.

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>>9096

The first argument of 1 doesn't follow, the second doesn't either. Where does culture even come from if not from chosen values? Biology? In that case you're being redundant and only the one claim has to be addressed to undermine your entire argument.

How do you get from biology, a mere positive fact, to determinism? It can't be done. In the first place you are deriving a metaphysical law from mere physical fact, which isn't that big a deal and is conceivably fine, but then the problem arises that your law is of an exclusive and not predictive form.

You're saying "This is the world and it is set up so that it precludes choice", which is a bald assertion and not any sort of well reasoned metaphysical argument. Effectively, you are denying metaphysics. This denial does not follow from an observation of any amount of positive detail, not just for the usual reasons but also because it is Metaphysics.

In 2, you similarly make an assertion without argumentation. What little appears to exist in the way of argument is also an unsubstantiated leap of faith in much the same way as the arguments in 1. Essentially you are claiming that since rationality is not a foundational structure of human consciousness, it doesn't exist in human consciousness. This is plainly absurd.

Rationality in ethics is simply internal consistency. If you think killing is wrong and you kill somebody, you're a hypocrite. There is a contradiction there in the same way there is between an all-powerful, loving God and a world filled with suffering, or between the Phlogiston theory of heat and empirical reality.

It's not that there is a metaphysical rule in place that says "Murder is wrong", or even an inherent structure of consciousness that provides for this moral sentiment. It's that subjective preferences can be informed by reason. Of course reason can be ignored, and in the long view this can actually be used as an argument against your determinism.

If morals, laws, and ethics are mer

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