Oh, the individual exists absolutely! What doesn't exist is 'The Individual' as defined by a sort of global average. I reject the latter absolutely, since he absolutely doesn't exist.
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Gotta go now, suffice to say I believe human capacity for empathy, charity, and all the stuff that can trickle down to those less fortunate is scientifically rooted. But so are human traits such selfishness for ourselves and our own (e.g kin selection) which is (partly) why the world is so imperfect and unequal. But this imperfection and inequality does not any any way detract from the scientific basis behind my argument.
You are saying that Rich is well-bred?
If we ignore that the balance of probability suggests from his posts that he is a semi-fictional character at least, we have a man who has shown academic excellence, and worked hard to achieve a prestigious position from a prestigious institution, and yet we'd be hard pressed to find many posters here who would claim that his contributions reveal much intelligence, insight, originality, wit or erudition.
Executive summary: academic achievements can be over-rated.
This substantial detour came from comments that we should start to defend ourselves from Islamist terrorism by defending our social values, which implies a discussion of what those values are and why they are worth defending. This happened. wd AWIMB :thumbup: