The Morality of Abortion: wiploc and thatguysnephew

[thatguysnephew]

I am planning to reply! Sorry for the delay. I just sat down to read your replies. I had time about three weeks ago to read them, but they’ve faded from memory. Hope to reply this evening, or in the next week!

 

[Wiploc]

Cool. No rush.

 

[thatguysnephew]

I write up a reply last Friday, and then it disappeared. I believe you advised me to write up replies in word and then to post. I’ll take that advice now. Will reply in the next week or two.

 

[Wiploc]

Sorry about that.

I mostly compose here, but if I lost a big one one I'd compose elsewhere.

One thing I try to do is copy my post to the clipboard just before posting. Especially if I took a long time or walked away for awhile, to have dinner or something. That way, if the post disapears, I've got it on the clipboard. If I have to go out, running errands, while a post is half finished, then I definitely past a copy of what I have to Word.

I've lost some posts over the years, just not lately.

 

[Wiploc]

Oh, another way of coping with the disappearing-post phenomenon:

After you've typed awhile, and you realize you have enough material that you'd hate to lose it, you go ahead (after copying it to your clipboard) and post what you've got, possibly putting something like "To be continued ..." at the bottom.

 

[thatguysnephew]

Hello Uncle,

It’s been three months since a proper reply. I need to take your advice, but I keep hoping for a two hour chunk of time in which to write an entire coherent response. Hope all is well.

 

[Wiploc]

All is well, yes. We're spending a few days at home, waiting for a generator to be repaired. Then we'll be back on the road. Hope all is well with you.

 

[thatguysnephew]

It is a comfort to me to know that I can speak with my Uncle with whom I disagree so profoundly while not disagreeing bitterly. Thank you for your kindness in engaging with me, Uncle.

Many of my patients are desperate for this kind of dialogue, but most of them don't have friends with whom they disagree that they can engage with beyond the molotov one-liner level. And so they have no outlet...except their soft-spoken physical therapist. Even he is shy to let those conversations start.

I had one patient today say something like, "I don't really know anyone I can talk to who believes things that are so skewed."


I don't know if I replied to everything that you replied to. Feel free to bring things back up, but I created enough confusion in some of my previous posts that I wanted to streamline what I could.

"Objective" is often a weasel word. The "moral argument" gets its plausibility by switching back and forth between two different meanings of "objective," just as the first cause argument switches between meanings of "begin." So I mostly ignore the word. If you said, "Is X objectively true?" I would hear, "Is X true?"

But in this case you define it:

(something that doesn't change)?

So you're asking whether happiness changes.

Like, does the amount of happiness change? Yes, it does.

Does what makes people happy change? Yes, it does.

Does the nature of happiness change? I might have to refer you to neuroscience.

I see the confusion I may have created in this poor set up in a search for a definition of happiness, or at least the multiple strands of potential discussion if not confusion.

In hindsight I think my intent in defining happiness was two-fold:

1) To illuminate where we differ in defining happiness
2) To illuminate that happiness is not a strong enough idea/construct to effectively determine what is right and wrong

I think that happiness/contentment comes from knowing the person of Jesus Christ--God in human flesh.

In which case I have never been happy. Since I have been happy, that doesn't work for me.

Plus, it would mean that nobody was ever happy back in B.C., and that nobody is happy in Heaven.

Basically, I'm saying that I don't see the utility of this linguistic move.

So number “1)” above has been well served by the discussion so far. I believe that Jesus rose from the dead and is very much alive. You believe Jesus is dead. I’ll stop there. Our worldviews divorce even further from there. I imagine what I’ve said so far is unintelligible within your worldview. Not that you can’t understand it, but that our worldviews assume presuppositions that are contrary.

That's my objective definition of happiness.

Again, I don't know what you mean by "objective" in that context. Are you saying that your definition never changes?

If that's a definition, then we can't argue about whether it is true, we can only look at implications to see if it is useful: On the assumption that Jesus really existed, we must conclude that some people were happy between roughly 1 A.D. and 36 A.D., but then nobody has been happy since?

It's a weird definition--possibly unique to you--that clearly doesn't refer to what other people mean by the word "happiness." I don't see the point of it.

Number “2)” (To illuminate that happiness is not a strong enough idea/construct to effectively determine what is right and wrong) was my purpose for defining happiness in this way. That said, I don’t know how to build a moral framework on that and I’ll leave that to someone smarter than me.

My concern is that happiness can’t uphold a moral framework. You never said that it should, but I don’t see what else can do it better without something other than human’s creating that morality. I believe that the Bible within relationship to Jesus Christ provides an effective and attractive morality. But I think you’re addressing that in another thread now, and I’m content to leave the discussion there:

https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=911384#911384

Thank you for the pushback. Quite helpful…not comfortable, but I bet Ginsberg and Scalia had several uncomfortable conversations within their friendship.

2b) Does a 40 week old gestation fetus have as much personality as a one day old newborn?

So let's posit twins: One has just been born, and the other as yet not. How can it be wrong to kill one but okay to kill the other?

That's a stumper…. Let me at least admit that your question is uncomfortable.

Thank you for the admission!

It's nice to have a brightline: Killing is okay after birth but not before. You think that conception and/or ensoulment is a brightline, but I could pick at that one as easily as you can pick at mine.

…

Would that soulless person be fair game for murderers? "No soul, no foul?"

I feel like I'm cheating here. Instead of answering your question, I'm asking another question in hopes that you'll find mine as awkward as I find yours.

If we weren't in a society where churches try to use the abortion issue to usurp power over people who aren't in those churches, then I might possibly be willing to entertain arguments for prohibiting abortions somewhere before birth--but after the development of a working brain. Before the PoC (zygote/embryo/fetus) develops a brain, it cannot have a personality. Personhood cannot exist before a working brain.

I don’t think you’re cheating! I think your question is helpful, and, yes, awkward.

An aside: I wish for the people in the United States to be so unthreatened by one another that they can disagree this intensely, corner one another with their questions, and still manage to be friends. And then elect politicians who can do the same.

Digression aside, I would posit the belief that personhood starts before a working brain. At the heart of the God of the Bible is a loving Father. My daughters are valuable to me merely because they’re my daughters. I’d die for them. I work hard for them. I try to tenderly strengthen their hearts, souls, and minds.

Which brings me to…what if they had been born brainless? Two reactions. One emotional, one…a dodge/vulnerability/weakness/admission.

1) I feel incredibly sad thinking about my wife giving birth to a brainless baby. Perhaps he or she is a still born. Perhaps he or she is breathing, but that’s it. I don’t want to suffer. But if I do I want to suffer with a worldview that sustains immense levels of suffering. Because suffering is likely to happen no matter the buffers I may construct. Abortion touches on immense levels of human suffering. I imagine that’s why it matters to so many people so much.

2) Brains. Are we talking the reticular formation? The pons? The cerebrum? Hypothalamus? I’m out. I’ll now also refer you to neuroscience…and myself.

We have at least established that this topic is complicated. Not so complicated that it can’t be talked about. And not so complicated that something couldn’t be decided upon to protect women and to at least agree with european nations that post mid-second trimester abortions should be illegal.

Back to your definition: If a working brain (however we’re defining it) is present upon fertilization (…unlikely?) then I’ll agree with your definition.

I understand your concern. That certainly seems to contain the tension in which we all find ourselves in the U.S. The Bible teaches that stealing is wrong. The state enforces laws that forbid stealing. The state is enforcing a Biblical principle.

And Sharia law, right? And, for all I know, the law of devil worshipers.

Yes, precisely. There are probably endless ways to establish a moral framework (I mean a way of defining what is right and wrong when I say that).
But I’ll refer you to your other thread that I posted above on this point.

"Is happiness, as the best (from my perspective) secularism has to offer as a standard of morality, able to allow for human flourishing in the U.S.?

Two answers:

First, yes, I think that utilitarianism is the highest and best standard of morality, the best promoter of flourishing.

Second, when Conan the Barbarian was asked "What is the best in life," and he answered, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women," he wasn't answering for theism as a whole, even as I'm not answering for the whole of secularism.

Utilitarianism is compatible with both theism and secularism, and secularists aren't all utilitarians.

Good distinctions. I apologize if I used ten dollar words too casually. I don’t intend to confuse (as I did with my attempt at defining happiness).

….

...
I really am fumbling to pour all the tension into a question. But the issue seems worth deliberating. Stealing was a ho-hum example too. Maybe you can kick me a better one.

Theft is wrong anyway. We don't need gods to tell us theft is wrong. Maybe we should discuss things that are only wrong if Jehovah exists? Wearing cloth made of two different fibers, for instance, eating shellfish, suffering witches to live, or failing to honor the sabbath, those would be sins if Jehovah were real, but there isn't anything wrong with doing them.

I’m not convinced that theft is wrong because it is wrong. I’ll have to follow your thread regarding whether or not God/gods are necessary to define something like theft as wrong. As for the things that Christians no longer believe Jehovah requires, I can’t explain why “Do not steal” remained, and shellfish and blood eating became fair game, but I know there are people who can.
I don’t intend to dodge, I just don’t have time to give a concentrated effort toward answering that question (it’s a really good one) right now. Until I have an answer I am content to let the changes I’ve seen in my own life and the lives of others following Jesus sustain me until I have a more thorough understanding.

I've mentioned "sin," and you're new here, so let me go off on a tangent:

…

Sin consists of doubting or disobeying gods. Doubt is the bigger part of that. Eve's first sin, then, wasn't when she tasted the apple; it was when she entertained the serpent's argument (the argument that Jehovah hadn't had her best interests in mind when he forbade eating the apple).

That was sin. Evil is different. Many people conflate evil and sin, but evil (the sources of unhappiness) is the punishment for sin. There are categories of evil listed in Genesis. I remember pain in childbirth, having to earn our living by the sweat of our brows, having to cope with the misbehavior of weeds. (As Abbie Normal would say in Christopher Moore's [FONT=&]Bite Me[/FONT], "I'm paraphrasing.”)

Thanks for clarifying. I think we’re on the same page here.

When I was a kid, women's clothing was perverse, made for left-handers. One theory I don't particularly believe was that this dated back to when ladies had servants to dress them. So, there's this joke--or there used to be, back when it didn't need this much introduction: We're quoting Jehovah chastising the kids in the garden, telling them the terrible punishments they must suffer, and we get to the part where he's saying they have to cover their nakedness with raiment. "And [FONT=&]you[/FONT]," he says, turning to Eve, "gots to button yours backwards!"

Haha!

"Aborted baby" strikes me as oxymoronic. It makes as much sense as "aborted professor" or "aborted mechanic." I'm not correcting you; I'm sure your terminology works well for many people. I'm just explaining why it doesn't work for me. Babies start at birth. Before that you have zygotes, embryos, fetuses.

If the souls aren't damaged, then there's no harm done, it seems to me. Why would you be concerned for the life of an aborted embryo if you aren't concerned for the life of an unfertilized egg?

A..an?…a human embryo has been given the image of God to bear. The unfertilized egg hasn’t been given that to bear.

I think this is where our worldviews divorce. When I use the word baby there’s no difference for me between embryo/fetus/infant/toddler.

In your definition the word baby refers to a human being. So it doesn’t apply to an embryo or fetus. Is that why “Aborted baby” strikes you as oxymoronic? I’m not trying to corner you. I really want to know how to communicate with other people who disagree with me on this issue. No sense in accidentally arguing with someone you agree with.

I'm concerned for the souls of those who allow them to be murdered, or who do the murdering.

From my point of view, if abortion is murder then so is chastity.

If people who get abortions aren't harming souls, then I don't see the problem.

This has come up a couple of times…if not in this thread, then maybe when we were face to face. Can’t recall.

I want to flesh out my confusion with how you see chastity as murder in my view of human life. I believe that once a sperm and egg unite and form an embryo a human bearing the image of God has been formed.

How does chastity…the prevention of the making of a human life (as defined above) constitute murder in my view? I’m willing to believe it does, but I’m guessing this is a matter of mixing worldviews inadvertently. I think you addressed this more with your discussion on the word "being". I'd like to f

Can I grant that they may do some good work, but still look askance at them because I suspect their motives?

Yeah, that’s fair.

I skipped some stuff from the posts above. If there’s anything you want to bring back up you may. I got confused and it looked like you were too…so I dropped it to avoid the confusion. Perhaps it will gain better clarity later.

In a way, that's kind of cool; it means we agree on this: The line should be drawn somewhere in the conception-to-birth area.

-

In this context and all others, I argue against the oxymoronic phrase "inherently valuable." You can't have value without a valuer. If something is valuable, it is valuable for something or to someone. To call something "inherently valuable" is to say that it would be good even if it wasn't good for anything or to anyone. That's a logical contradiction.

Note that I'm not claiming that zygotes aren't valuable. I'm just saying that, in my view, the phrase "inherently valuable" doesn't make sense.

I like it. We agree!

I will fully yield to your argument on the use of oxymoronic phrases like "inherently valuable". Those adverbs are just too tempting sometimes! I see the confusion they birth.

Let me try my sentence again: Once a Homo Sapien is created (egg and sperm make a little embryo) then it's assumed to be valuable as a human.

Is that better?


Thanks again.
Generator fixed?

Would you be opposed to me posting a link to this on facebook? I imagine other people would be encouraged by seeing a model for civil familial discourse.

 

[Wiploc]

I tried to reply a couple of days ago, and this time I'm the one who lost his post.

It is a comfort to me to know that I can speak with my Uncle with whom I disagree so profoundly while not disagreeing bitterly. Thank you for your kindness in engaging with me, Uncle.

A pleasure for me too.

I don't know if I replied to everything that you replied to. Feel free to bring things back up, but I created enough confusion in some of my previous posts that I wanted to streamline what I could.

Likewise, if I leave out something you want addressed, raise the issue again.

And now, having lost my post last time, I'll post what I have here and then continue in a new post.

 

[Wiploc]

My left shoulder hurts. I've given the pain two or three months to go away, but it's getting worse. I have to sleep on my right side all night now, since I can't sleep on my left (I have no familiarity with sleeping on my back or front). I've been to a chiropractor a couple of times, no joy.

You can't diagnose anything from there, but maybe you can point me in a direction. Should I go to a doctor, a physical therapist, or what? My dentist suggests getting a personal trainer at a gym.

 

[Wiploc]

2) To illuminate that happiness is not a strong enough idea/construct to effectively determine what is right and wrong

I don't know whether I said this in an earlier post, but "happiness," when I use it in conversations like this is a kind of shorthand for an ill-defined larger notion.

For instance, reducing unhappiness is just as important as increasing happiness. Other people might talk about people growing, developing, having appropriate challenges. I just talk about happiness, because it's a simple familiar word that I know how to spell, not because it covers the entire area. I don't know what the entire area is.

But I don't know of anything else one could base a morality on. Suppose we were told that people are miserable in Heaven; would anyone want to go there? Suppose honesty caused sadness; would it still be good?

And what other test is there? We can say that honesty is good because it tends to increase happiness. What other test is significant and makes sense and would be at all useful?

I imagine what I’ve said so far is unintelligible within your worldview.

Talk about fertilized eggs bearing the image of god puzzles me. How can a fertilized egg look more like a god than an unfertilized egg?

There's an old joke:
Question: What does the "H" in "Jesus H Christ" stand for?
Answer: "Haploid."

Because Joseph didn't fertilize the egg, see? So, really, the unfertilized egg would have to be said to look more like Jesus. And Jehovah didn't come from an egg at all.

I'm torn about whether to leave this part of the post in, because I don't want to give offense, but it makes my point that the "image of god" language isn't coming across as meaningful.

My concern is that happiness can’t uphold a moral framework. You never said that it should, but I don’t see what else can do it better without something other than human’s creating that morality.

I don't get that at all.

I believe that the Bible within relationship to Jesus Christ provides an effective and attractive morality.

Isn't a world with Hellfire the worst of all possible worlds? I don't see how anybody could want that to be true.

Thank you for the pushback. Quite helpful…not comfortable, but I bet Ginsberg and Scalia had several uncomfortable conversations within their friendship.

Yes, I'll bet they did!

 

[Wiploc]

Personhood cannot exist before a working brain.

We have at least established that this topic is complicated. Not so complicated that it can’t be talked about. And not so complicated that something couldn’t be decided upon to protect women and to at least agree with european nations that post mid-second trimester abortions should be illegal.

I may have been unclear. I was saying that we don't get to forbid abortions before there is a working brain, not that we do get to forbid them after that point.

I want to flesh out my confusion with how you see chastity as murder in my view of human life. I believe that once a sperm and egg unite and form an embryo a human bearing the image of God has been formed.

How does chastity…the prevention of the making of a human life (as defined above) constitute murder in my view? I’m willing to believe it does, but I’m guessing this is a matter of mixing worldviews inadvertently.

If the argument is that killing a person is murder, and therefore preventing a person from coming into existence is murder, then chastity--because it prevents people from coming into existence--is as much murder as abortion is.

If, instead of the prevents-a-person-from-coming-into-being argument, we use the fertilized-eggs-have-the-image-of-god argument, then I'm just stumped. I don't know what you mean by "image of god"; I don't know why you say that fertilized eggs have it but unfertilized eggs don't; and I don't know why it's supposed to matter.

From here, the "distinction" (between things that do and don't have the image) seems arbitrary and meaningless. Some paintings have images of gods, but destroying paintings isn't murder. I'm just unable to understand your reasoning.

Let me try my sentence again: Once a Homo Sapien is created (egg and sperm make a little embryo) then it's assumed to be valuable as a human.

Is that better?

Well, it's not an oxymoron. But I don't share your assumption, and I don't know why you make it.

You can think of a fertilized egg as "a human" but you can also think of an unfertilized egg that way. You can think of a embryo as a reproductive organ. You aren't going to be either right or wrong if you do so, because how you think of something is a matter of viewpoint, not a matter of truth.

I think strawberry ice cream is better than chocolate. Many disagree. It would be a mistake for proponents of either flavor to criminalize the other.

Likewise it would be wrong to criminalize abortion because of how you like to think about fertilized eggs.

Generator fixed?

Yes. And the next day the slide broke. We tried to run the slide in in the morning, and one end came in but the other didn't.

Stopping here so I can walk dogs. Back shortly.

 

[Wiploc]

Generator fixed?

(Having recently lost a post, I was unwilling to walk away from an unposted draft, so I just posted what I had, and now I've come back to it.)

Yes. And the next day the slide broke. We tried to run the slide in in the morning, and one end came in but the other didn't.

A sheer bolt was missing, so I beat up on a piece of pegboard hardware with a hammer and two wrenches, until I had something I could put where the sheer bolt had been. Then, when Toni pushed the button, both ends of the slide came in. Yay!

I called the shop that had given the slide a clean bill of health the day before, and told them "I'm coming in." I didn't care whether I was on their schedule; I wanted service now.

Got there. They sent a guy out to look. I got down on the ground and pointed up at my jury-rigged fix. The guy said he couldn't see it, and he had bad knees; if he got down to where he could see it, he wouldn't be able to get back up. At some point he pointed out that he was a parts man, not a mechanic. I said, "But you have mechanics, right?" He said, "Not on weekends."

So I pulled the bolt from the other end of the slide. He said, "That's hardened steel. We don't have hardened steel."

He sent me to an Ace Hardware, which did have the right bolts. And I fixed the slide.

We ran it in and out, in and out. Both ends moved, and both arrived at their destination at the same time! It was cool. I didn't have to pull the bolt, give the shaft a half-turn, and put the bolt back in. It seems fixed.

That would be nothing to you, but I call a plumber to replace a flapper valve, so I feel like I got a merit badge.

Would you be opposed to me posting a link to this on facebook? I imagine other people would be encouraged by seeing a model for civil familial discourse.

Sure, that'll be fine.

I've been telling people we're on the shore of Lake Superior, but Toni tells me this is some lesser body of water. Some hot days, but presumably not as hot as you're getting. Records setting in Denver, 105 degrees one day. We've got a nice shady campsite.

We've rendezvoused with our daughter and granddaughter, who came from Africa. So, good times.

 

[Wiploc]

I don't know why I was talking about Moral Tribes. I mean, it's good and I like it and I tend to agree with most of it ... but I'm listening to The Righteous Mind again when we're on the highway, and it's just so good and amiable and illuminating. I agree with it less, but it's a better read and I learn more from it. It's awesome.

Within a couple of days of talking to you, my shoulder was 98% better. Every few days I may get a twinge to remind me that I used to have a problem, but that's all that remains.

New joke: "Humans are 90% water. Basically we're just cucumbers with anxiety." At least I think it's a joke.

 

[Wiploc]

Here's a bit of Jonathan Haidt on Youtube. Delightful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uogEbb0WOJE


Universities have "institutional disconfirmation." You as an individual argue for what you believe, and your confirmation bias blinds you to disconfirming arguments, but, at a university, people who disagree, and who have their own confirmation-bias-induced blindness, interact with you in such a way as to help each other see past their blind spots.

A university without this diversity would not be fit to give advice on public policy.

 

[thatguysnephew]

I don't know whether I said this in an earlier post, but "happiness," when I use it in conversations like this is a kind of shorthand for an ill-defined larger notion.

For instance, reducing unhappiness is just as important as increasing happiness. Other people might talk about people growing, developing, having appropriate challenges. I just talk about happiness, because it's a simple familiar word that I know how to spell, not because it covers the entire area. I don't know what the entire area is.

But I don't know of anything else one could base a morality on. Suppose we were told that people are miserable in Heaven; would anyone want to go there? Suppose honesty caused sadness; would it still be good?

And what other test is there? We can say that honesty is good because it tends to increase happiness. What other test is significant and makes sense and would be at all useful?

I think we are in agreement on happiness being a good test for morality, and that the construct of happiness is ill-defined. I'm not sure how to clear it up. We are both seeking happiness. Me as a Christian Hedonist, and you as an Atheist. On this we agree?

Talk about fertilized eggs bearing the image of god puzzles me. How can a fertilized egg look more like a god than an unfertilized egg?

There's an old joke:
Question: What does the "H" in "Jesus H Christ" stand for?
Answer: "Haploid."

Because Joseph didn't fertilize the egg, see? So, really, the unfertilized egg would have to be said to look more like Jesus. And Jehovah didn't come from an egg at all.

I'm torn about whether to leave this part of the post in, because I don't want to give offense, but it makes my point that the "image of god" language isn't coming across as meaningful.

I disagree with the assumptions made by the joke. But that doesn't make it less funny. I'm unoffended. And I understand and share your confusion on the concept of the "image of god". I don't know exactly what it means to be made in "...the image of God." But I am not confused by the implications of bearing that image. It places unremovable value on every human being. "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." Born and unborn.

I believe that the Bible within relationship to Jesus Christ provides an effective and attractive morality.

Isn't a world with Hellfire the worst of all possible worlds? I don't see how anybody could want that to be true.

No, I think a world without ultimate justice would be worse. I don't like living under the assumption of hell existing, but it is far better to be able to extend forgiveness now knowing that it is God's to avenge. Hell existing (God being a just god) frees me up to seek proximate justice in a way that makes for more happy now while I wait for ultimate justice.

That's a whole can of worms, Uncle. I'm happy to keep talking about it...if you're willing to keep waiting months for me to reply. :s

 

[thatguysnephew]

I may have been unclear. I was saying that we don't get to forbid abortions before there is a working brain, not that we do get to forbid them after that point.

I gotcha.

If the argument is that killing a person is murder, and therefore preventing a person from coming into existence is murder, then chastity--because it prevents people from coming into existence--is as much murder as abortion is.

I have trouble seeing that. Help me out. The uncreated human has never existed, and can't be made to not exist (can't be murdered). The human embryo exists, and so it can be made to not exist (murdered). But I think I'm confused about your point.

Let me try my sentence again: Once a Homo Sapien is created (egg and sperm make a little embryo) then it's assumed to be valuable as a human.

Is that better?

Well, it's not an oxymoron. But I don't share your assumption, and I don't know why you make it.

You can think of a fertilized egg as "a human" but you can also think of an unfertilized egg that way. You can think of a embryo as a reproductive organ. You aren't going to be either right or wrong if you do so, because how you think of something is a matter of viewpoint, not a matter of truth.

I think strawberry ice cream is better than chocolate. Many disagree. It would be a mistake for proponents of either flavor to criminalize the other.

Likewise it would be wrong to criminalize abortion because of how you like to think about fertilized eggs.

I make the assumption because of how my life has changed following Jesus. Because it's been changed I give all my doubts and confusion to the Bible. Meaning, I assume what it says is true. In this case that all humans are created in God's image. It's a pleasant truth. Regarding the killing of a human being, I think we only disagree about the pre-partum portion of a human's life.

Glad you got the generator fixed...I think we spoke on the phone about that. But, for the sake of the peanut gallery.

 

[thatguysnephew]

Generator fixed?

Yes.

We ran it in and out, in and out. Both ends moved, and both arrived at their destination at the same time! It was cool. I didn't have to pull the bolt, give the shaft a half-turn, and put the bolt back in. It seems fixed.

That would be nothing to you, but I call a plumber to replace a flapper valve, so I feel like I got a merit badge.

Oh, no, there are many good reasons I find myself drawn to you as a friend, Uncle. We share more than just our pre-30 year old beardlessness.

I've been telling people we're on the shore of Lake Superior, but Toni tells me this is some lesser body of water. Some hot days, but presumably not as hot as you're getting. Records setting in Denver, 105 degrees one day. We've got a nice shady campsite.

We've rendezvoused with our daughter and granddaughter, who came from Africa. So, good times.

I am still deliberating about whether or not to post this on facebook. I think I would if I could be sure that I would resist putting out fires or starting them. I've neglected my family before over a facebook tiff. May still follow through.

I imagine 105 would feel good right now? Or is it a pleasant day in Denver?

- - - Updated - - -

I don't know why I was talking about Moral Tribes. I mean, it's good and I like it and I tend to agree with most of it ... but I'm listening to The Righteous Mind again when we're on the highway, and it's just so good and amiable and illuminating. I agree with it less, but it's a better read and I learn more from it. It's awesome.

Within a couple of days of talking to you, my shoulder was 98% better. Every few days I may get a twinge to remind me that I used to have a problem, but that's all that remains.

New joke: "Humans are 90% water. Basically we're just cucumbers with anxiety." At least I think it's a joke.

Happy to hear your shoulder is better, er, that you forgot you had a shoulder problem as you put it.

I look forward to reading A Righteous Mind someday.

Haha! Good joke. I'm working up my dad-joke steam. So my daughters won't miss out once they can understand.

 

[thatguysnephew]

Here's a bit of Jonathan Haidt on Youtube. Delightful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uogEbb0WOJE


Universities have "institutional disconfirmation." You as an individual argue for what you believe, and your confirmation bias blinds you to disconfirming arguments, but, at a university, people who disagree, and who have their own confirmation-bias-induced blindness, interact with you in such a way as to help each other see past their blind spots.

A university without this diversity would not be fit to give advice on public policy.

That was really good. Thanks for sharing. And thanks for having this thread. It's certainly been beneficial for me.

 

[thatguysnephew]

What did the oyster say to her brother as he ate the last piece of cake?