Or following that misanthropic logic to its conclusion, perhaps we should do nothing at all, and let pollution run rampant. That way, humanity will eliminate itself, and the biosphere will return to normal within a few million years.
I think you're missing the point. The question isn't whether concepts refer to existing things or not, but whether they are valid and useful.
Nothing general ever exists - only the particular. The number two doesn't exist, although you can find twos in nature. Basic Aristotle. Similarly, race doesn't exist, but you can find instances of races in nature.
That's why arguing that a concept is invalid because it is "only" a social construct is disingenuous. Concepts are always constructs; they are never "natural" in themselves. What determines their validity is their usefulness, which is related to how closely they mirror the structure of human experience.
Let me give you an example. Here's a concept: countries. You've got the US and Mexico, and there is a border between them. You could probably find an infinite number of points right on the border, that can't be said with certainty to belong to either country. And based on those outliers, you could argue that the whole concept of country is invalid, and that countries and borders should be abolished. You see where I'm going with this?
"Opportunity is everywhere" is another way of saying that, starting from any situation, you can improve your lot by being creative and taking the initiative. It would be hard to prove either way, but in my experience there is some truth to it. Our limitations are largely self-imposed.
I don't understand your "moral sewer" comment. Opinions are just that, opinions. Morality only attaches to actions.
I live in southern Portugal, and over the years I've observed big differences in how natives and foreigners react to Portuguese drug laws.
The native Portuguese feel that it's not ok to consume drugs, but that for those that do, the law provides a path of rehabilitation before resorting to punishment. And this is in fact the intention behind the decriminalization of drug consumption.
On the other hand, younger foreigners often seem to take the laws as a license to consume, some becoming unable to work and spending their days smoking pot. And their older counterparts similarly fall into alcoholism, wine and beer being very cheap here.
My point is that Portuguese laws are made for Portuguese people, who tend to do things in moderation. There is no universal solution, and no guarantee that the Portuguese model would work anywhere else.
If you claim talent is everywhere, the onus is on you to prove it. Disproving a sweeping generalization requires a single instance. For instance, I'm looking out of my window, and I don't see any talent - ergo, talent is not everywhere. Facetious, but not entirely.
What are respected media outlets? Your personal favourites? That's a nonsensical category, considering most media conglomerates are in bed with their respective governments.
If that were the case, carjacking numbers would be up wherever Kias circulate, which is clearly not the case. Criminality is rampant not because there are opportunities to commit crime, but because there are people willing to commit them.
Depends how narrowly you define agitprop. If you consider everything that comes out of the American media/news conglomerates as propaganda, then it's orders of magnitude greater than the efforts of China or Russia.
Along those lines: instead of banning plastic bags, or bottles, or straws, or whatever, why not simply ban plastic altogether? People managed to do without until the 1950s. Is there any use case for which there are no alternatives?
With fountain pens, ink flows out steadily as long as the nib is in contact with the page, and stops flowing when the nib breaks contact. Whereas with ballpoint pens, pressure is required for the ink to flow, since the ballpoint is held in place by a small spring, and ink stops flowing as soon as pressure is removed, regardless of contact with the page.
Hence, ballpoints tend to cause wrist strain, and favour forms of handwriting which minimize contact with the page, whereas fountain pens work best with cursive. Needless to say, since the introduction of the ballpoint in schools, handwriting has gone into decline.
The title should be "ludus mortuus est", the game is dead. Ludus takes the nominative, since it's the subject of the sentence. And mortuus also takes the nominative, because it's a nominative complement. Google Translate will only take you so far.
As we're beginning to discover in our generation, censorship is largely down to the individual censor, and if you're looking for some kind of underlying rationale, you're wasting your time. Censors too are sad bastards, and the one ray of dark sunshine in their little lives is to make others miserable.
Nobody is privileged in absolute terms. Everybody has their own troubles. Groups (racial, social, whatever) are a useful abstraction, not a reality. And if anyone has to compensate anybody for anything, that's what the justice system is for.
Personal experience is useful. All kinds of groups were mistreated, historically speaking. If we keep pulling up old grievances, society remains perpetually divided. How many lynchings did you witness yourself? Or hear from first-hand witnesses?
The US is offering as much protection as the New York mafia offers local shopkeepers - protection from themselves. Sure, we need to pay tribute, but that's because we're vassal states, not because we get anything in return.
Green energies in general are heavily subsidized, whereas conventional fossil fuels are heavily taxed. Without these measures, there would be no transition to alternative power sources, because economically they are nonsensical.
Absolutely. Seemingly, creating hatred between races, between sexes, and between generations are all part of the same agenda. Class warfare, on the other hand, is conspicuously absent.