Cafe Philo in New York City meets this week on Thursday, 4/22: Is Happiness a Final State?

Cafe Philo in New York City will meet this week on Thursday, April 22, 2010 with a discussion on the topic of "Is Happiness a Final State?"

I have been acting as guest moderator lately. Bernard Roy has been attending recently as a participant.

I did have a couple of quick thoughts on the topic:

1) What exactly comprises "happiness"? Is it comfort, satisfaction, calm, peace, bliss, harmony, or what? Is happiness like cholesterol and there is "good" happiness and "bad" happiness? So what exactly comprises the "good" happiness?
2) Aristotle apparently considered happiness as an "end", but I'm not sure exactly what he meant.
3) Buddhists and the attainment of Nirvna - how does that relate to so-called happiness.
4) Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Self-actualization seems to be the end state. How does this relate to happiness?
5) By "final" state, do we mean "permanent" or "peak"? If one does achieve "true" happiness, is it a "happily everafter" state, or just transitory and are we just as likely to revert into unhappiness?
6) How does happiness relate to the concepts of "paradise", "Eden" (as in the Garden of Eden), and "heaven"?

Catch up with preparatory online discussions in the Yahoo! group for Cafe Philo NYC.

As usual, the meeting will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the back room at Bamiyan Restaurant (Afghan food) at the northwest corner of Third Avenue and 26th Street in New York City. In exchange for free meeting space, it is expected that each attendee will purchase a minimum of $5 of food or drink. A glass of red wine can be had for $6 (plus tax and tip.)

After winding down our discussion, we entertain and vote on proposals for the topic question for the next meeting.

There is also usually some number of attendees who go across the street to McCormack's Bar for drinks and food and extended discussion after Cafe Philo, but not limited to the scheduled discussion topic.

There are a number of small groups in the U.S. and Europe who meet regularly to discuss topics related to philosophy. Some of these groups go by the name "Cafe Philo." There is one here in New York City that meets every two weeks, every other Thursday. It is organized and moderated by Bernard Roy, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Each meeting focuses on a specific topic which was suggested and voted on by the participants at the last meeting.

Also, there is an online discussion forum for the NYC Cafe Philo at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nycafephilo/

There is also a new web site for NYC Cafe Philo:  www.nycafephilo.org.

I have been attending the NYC Cafe Philo off and on since 2004. Previously I had attended the Cafe Philo in Washington, D.C. starting in 2001.

-- Jack Krupansky

48 hours into my hiatus from Twitter

Two days ago I decided to take an indefinite hiatus from Twitter. 48 hours later, it still feels like the right thing to do. No regrets, so far.

Sure, on occasion a thought pops into my head and I feel an urge to reach for Twitter, but it's only a momentary urge and quickly dissipates. Sure, Twittering can be fun, but it is also quite mindless, definitely unproductive, and usually a complete waste of my time and adds no value to my life.

Rather than twittering because I can, I find myself being more deliberate in thinking about how I spend my time.

I will post again in a week or so about how the de-twittering of my life has progressed.

-- Jack Krupansky

I'm taking a hiatus from Twitter

Twitter is certainly an interesting phenomenon, but it also has its annoyances. This morning I saw a brief mention of Twitter considering ads. No real surprise there, but it got me thinking. By writing tweets, I am providing Twitter with content for free. I am basically working for Twitter with zero compensation. So what do I really get out of the deal? Twitter does help to promote blog posts (but does not give any actual Google juice) and does provide an "outlet" for excess energy, but that is about it. Maybe once in a blue moon somebody actually connects with somebody in a valuable way, but that is the exception rather than the rule. In short, the answer to the question "What value do I get from Twitter?" is not much at all and certainly nothing comparable to the effort invested.

Twitter is still a young phenomenon and evolving over time, so maybe a few months or a few years from now Twitter will actually, finally have some features that deliver significant value to me. But for new, Twitter is, well, I hate to say this, but, a complete waste of my time. I would not say that all of my time in Twitter has been wasted since it has been an interesting experiment with a new technology, but I have definitely reached well beyond the point of diminishing returns.

So, to be clear, I do not consider my time spent with Twitter a complete waste of time, but simply that the marginal value has been too small, for me, personally.

Twitter may have great value for some people, but I am not one of them.

Besides, I now have some real, billable work to do, so Twitter really is an unnecessary and unproductive distraction, for me.

And, there have been any number of times where I could have posted a more valuable blog post, but took the lazy route of a simple tweet instead. My loss.

BTW, I have over 3,000 tweets, so it is not as if I haven't given Twitter a chance to prove itself.

I am not sure how long my hiatus will last. Could be a few months, or maybe a year or more, or maybe just a few weeks. Three to six months would be my preliminary estimate. I may check in on occasion just to see if I have been missing anything. The bottom line is that I'll stay away from Twitter as long as it continues to show very little promise of adding any significant value to my life. So, my hiatus could in fact be extended to infinity.

My hiatus will also give me some extra time to contemplate my experiences with Tweeter and maybe even distill them down to realize what value, if any, they have for me.

If anybody really does see a true breakthrough in Twitter that really would add dramatic value to my life, please send me an email message about it.

Now, it is time for my to go tweet my final tweet and then get back to real work.

-- Jack Krupansky

I am continuing to pay down the public debt of the U.S. government

I just made my fourth monthly payment to pay down the public debt of the U.S. government. Not much, just another $25, but it is a matter of principle. It may take me another 502 billion years to pay it all down all by myself at this rate, but, as I said, it is matter of principle.

According to the U.S. Treasury web site, the total public debt outstanding was $12,826,031,306,447.93, as of April 8, 2010. It was $12,544,703,929,352.50 a month ago, for an increase of about $262 billion.

What I wrote back in January when I made my first donation/gift/payment:

Everybody is whining and complaining about the ballooning debt of the U.S. government, but who is actually doing anything about it? Well, for starters, ME! Yes, that's right, I, Jack Krupansky, just did something to reduce the U.S. government debt. Really. No kidding. I actually paid down a small slice of this debt. Granted, it was a rather small slice, but a slice nonetheless. Okay, sure, it was only $20, but the point is that at least I am one of the very few people willing to stand up and DO something about the problem, rather than be one of the whiners and complainers who refuse to acknowledge that it is their debt and their problem, not just the fault of mindless politicians in Washington, D.C. After all, every politician ultimately answers to voters and most of the so-called wasteful spending of the U.S. government is simply politicians responding to the demands of their consistituents (voters.) Maybe my one small contribution to paying down the debt won't really make any difference to any of those whiners and complainers, but for me it is a matter of principle. I consciously choose action rather than the inaction of the whiners and complainers.

If you have any sense of principle, you too can pay down a slice of the U.S. government debt yourself at Pay.gov. You can pay via credit card or debit transfer from a bank account.

So do the right thing and show all those whiners and complainers (including so-called "tax protesters") how mindless and spineless they really are. PAY DOWN THE DEBT! And that has to start at the grass roots with us individuals before politicians will ever pick up the lead.

For the record, the only real way out of the deficit is not to merely cut expenditures or raise taxes or some combination of the two, but through economic growth. Sure, we need to manage the federal budget more carefully as well, but the big focus has to be on achieving economic growth.

-- Jack Krupansky

Cafe Philo in New York City meets this week on Thursday, 4/8: Does Philosophy Bake Bread?

Cafe Philo in New York City will meet this week on Thursday, April 8, 2010 with a discussion on the topic of "Does Philosophy Bake Bread?"

I was not in attendance at the last Cafe Philo NYC session which discussed "Does our Perception of the World Correspond with our Knowledge of the World?" before choosing the latest topic, but the chosen topic is a variant of the old adage "Philosophy bakes no bread", implying that philosophy has no practical value.

I wrote up my own thoughts on the topic in a blog post entitled "Does philosophy bake bread?"

I have been acting as guest moderator lately. Bernard Roy has been attending recently as a participant.

Catch up with preparatory online discussions in the Yahoo! group for Cafe Philo NYC.

As usual, the meeting will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the back room at Bamiyan Restaurant (Afghan food) at the northwest corner of Third Avenue and 26th Street in New York City. In exchange for free meeting space, it is expected that each attendee will purchase a minimum of $5 of food or drink. A glass of red wine can be had for $6 (plus tax and tip.)

After winding down our discussion, we entertain and vote on proposals for the topic question for the next meeting.

There is also usually some number of attendees who go across the street to McCormack's Bar for drinks and food and extended discussion after Cafe Philo, but not limited to the scheduled discussion topic.

There are a number of small groups in the U.S. and Europe who meet regularly to discuss topics related to philosophy. Some of these groups go by the name "Cafe Philo." There is one here in New York City that meets every two weeks, every other Thursday. It is organized and moderated by Bernard Roy, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Each meeting focuses on a specific topic which was suggested and voted on by the participants at the last meeting.

Also, there is an online discussion forum for the NYC Cafe Philo at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nycafephilo/

There is also a new web site for NYC Cafe Philo:  www.nycafephilo.org.

I have been attending the NYC Cafe Philo off and on since 2004. Previously I had attended the Cafe Philo in Washington, D.C. starting in 2001.

-- Jack Krupansky