The Deception of the Thrush

1) When we were cheated out of compensation for the damages to our truck.

2) --short of the point that it represents ostentation, or conspicuous consumption, or it's corrupting to one's soul or another's integrity. If one is basically happy, healthy, and financially secure, and has enough money to insure that will not change in the foreseeable future, then wealth acquired beyond that point is excessive if it's not being directed in the service of others--providing jobs, scholarships, opportunities, charitable contributions, etc.

2a) Yes

3) Given the qualifier "ridiculously," I'd say none. Drop that adjective and, oh . . . it might help delay ALZHEIMERS--seriously. It's good mental exercise.

a) only if it's a means of escape that's employed on a less than recreational basis. If you define an abstraction (and you may) as an "unrealistic or impractical notion," or mental withdrawal; absent mindedness (#4 & #5 in Websters Dictionary) that, perhaps, answers your last question.

1.) Every time the President of the United States says an *outright* falsehood. This happens more often than I would like but less often than you might think.

2a.) To the fullest extent.

2b.) When said wealth comes at the expense of others.

2c.) Yes.

3a.) Any question can be abstracted - even abstracted ridiculously - it's called theory. Application of said abstractions to a "real world" problematic framework used to be called practice, but now it is usually called method or methodology for the folks who like -ology on the end of words.

3b.) Say you're riding your bike, pondering some ridiculously abstract question, and fail to notice that a car ahead of you has opened their passenger door, effectively blocking your safe passage. Given your aforementioned pondering state, this might cause serious impairment to your physical reality. That said, can you really blame abstract thought processes in the, ahem, *abstract* for this?

So, the angle I think I was getting at there with the trouble of 'ridiculously abstract questions'--Consider folks who get too wound up in theory to realize that theories are necessarily the product of abstraction and generalization, and when they go back to the real world and try to apply their theories to it, they forget to adjust their theoretical ideas as necessary in light of the nuances of concrete reality. But it's not the greatest starter question ever, a little too broad. My head's a little too clogged with psychology these days to think of good discussion topics.