labmath2
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Posts
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Everything posted by labmath2
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I sent a response, but i think it got lost in moderation. 1. You have to make the general case for voting. How many times have you voted in the past for candidates? If never, why is this election different? If you have voted for the candidates who were for greater freedom, why did we still end up in this situation? 2. You have to make the particular case for voting. Why is Donald Trump for max freedom? You have to go through his policies and show how they are for max freedom. I gave you the example how i would scrutinize any of his policies with the wall proposal in an earlier post. Use that as a standard for addressing his policies (starting with the wall proposal). If you manage to make a good case for voting in general and voting in this particular case, i will be willing to sign up and show up at the election come November.
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You have to address the two points I made in my original response. 1. How many time have you voted for candidates in the past? If you haven't, what changed? If you have, why did we still end up in the current situation despite your voting? 2. Go through Trump's policies and show how they are not just more government program to fix the negative effects of other government programs or an expansion of government. I gave you an example of how you should scrutinize those policies with the wall policy and how it's just an expansion of government.
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sure.
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I think your stem comment was an attempt to point out a difference between empiricists and others which is interesting. On that note, you made a lot of assertions in your post that need empirical data to be accepted. When you say Trump is max liberty what do you mean? If you mean trump is the most libertarian cadidate of all the current cadidates, i will push back in twi ways. One, how many times have you voted the most libertarian cadidate since you started down this path? If you haven't voted, tell me what has chanhed empirically. If you have voted, tell me why do you think we ended up in the current situation despote those votes. Two, what empirical evidence do you have that trump is actually max freedom. He has changed a lot of his positions since he announced his candidacy. I am not familiar with his policy proposals (due to my political apathy), but i assume you are and they are liberty oriented policies. When i say liberty oriented, i mean in practice. In the case of the wall (as an example of scrutinizing Trumps policy), how much would it cost every year to maintain and man the wall? While the wall prevents Mexican immigrants, wouldn't it shift the focus from the welfare state which is the fundamental problem? Isn't this a classic case of using government to solve a problem created by government which produces less liberty?
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There is a fundamental difference between the two, immediate threat of violence and no ambiguity about the nature of the threat. With taxes, the threat is immediate and you know what that threat looks like. Its easy to see what self defense would look like with taxes (shooting at state agents who want to kidnap you for refusing to hand over your money). With voting the threat is not immediate and there is ambiguity about the nature of the threat (3rd world immigrants coming here is an abstract threat). What would self defense look like with voting?
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The difference lies in your responsibility. When you hand over your property to defer negtive consequences, you are responsible for your cowardice (or self preservation). When you vote for/support a political candidate, you are responsible for their election. This goes beyond just personal negatives.
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This is an argument from effect. Allow me to play devils advocate. If Stefan believed his running for office in Canada would further the cause of freedom, would he do it? I am trying to understand if the process of getting to a free society matters or only the end does. If the process matters, then what reasons other than the effect he would produce should people support Trump? If you are going to vote for him because of the effect he will have on the nation, then how much of the effect do you have to own?
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You have to show the violation of NAP. No one can bind anyone to anything, at least not in anyway that violates the NAP. Merely passing a law or signing a bill cannot actually bind anyone to anything. What makes the bind real is people who would actually initiate violence against you because of someone else's bind. As long as the ruling class never personally rape, steal, assault or murder, nor personally threaten to do so, it will be hard to make the case that they have actually violated the NAP.
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You need to explicitly spell out why being a superior changes the nature of orders. Again, the person giving the order is not personally coercing you. The military commander says, "Attack that building or i will have you tried for insubordination." This is just another case similar to the judges. There is an institution that allows you to make such statements, which have coercive elements in them, without the speaker personally violating the NAP. The second aspect which you bring up is one of responsibility. Here is where thing get complicated. If by responsible you mean performing an action which helped create the outcome, then voting is hit. If by responsibility you mean violation of NAP, you need to point out where the violation exists.
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Many people here seem to take it for granted that voting is Amoral, but i want to challenge that position. Given the structure of the government, who can we actually point to as violating the non aggression principle? If asserting your preference (or giving an order) is not a violation of the NAP even if the thing you prefer (or order) requires the violation of NAP, then most government officials never actually violate the NAP. The two parts of government that actually engage in violence are law enforcement and military. Is it only law enforcement and military officials that are immoral? On orders. It is not immoral for me to order your to do something. You are free to disobey my order. Even in an institution where there is threat of force behind the order, as long as the person giving the order is not personally threatening you, he hasn't violated any moral principle. Example, a judge can order you to show for a hearing without violating the nonaggression principle. The order goes, "I order you show up on x day for a hearing or i will order police officers to find and detain you."
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Would you care to set up the standard for what counts as an argument? The presentation presented facts about not just the incidents, but the individuals involved in the incidents. Philando Castile's traffic record was presented along with some of his activities on his social media page. How many positive information did you find about him that you did not present? How long did you spend looking into the officers record (complaints filed against him on the force, his social media activity, possible traffic tickets)? Here is an interesting link about police misconduct. http://www.policemisconduct.net/statistics/2010-annual-report/ Read the section titled "prosecuting police misconduct."
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What has your votes accomplished in those cases where you did vote? If the left went unopposed, they would win every single vote. That doesn't mean the anarchists would not actually make any progress. It might even be easier if half the country were anarchists and half leftists, it would make the split much easier. If half of your citizens are openly opposed to government, i don't know to what extent you call that a democracy.
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It is interesting that you haven't voted in the past, would you care to answer why that is the case? BY the current situation, i mean the ever expansive government. Things like Obamacare and government bailout of banks and the ever expansive police state.
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I posited a number of questions for pro voting advocates and no one seems to be wiling to take them on. I will now ask you personally since you are one of the more outspoken pro voting members here. Do all the arguments in favor of voting apply to every election? If so, have you voted in every election you can? If you have, why do you think we still ended up in the current situation?
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The main argument for voting here is the idea that voting is not itself immoral and that you are doing it in self defense. Do you accept that voting is a valid way to resolve ideological/social disagreements? When people vote to have you rights taken away, is that also not immoral? In what way is this self defense? Do you often defend yourself from criminals by inviting the least violent criminal into your home? How long have you been in the business of voting for the lesser of the evils? Have you voted in every single election you can for the lesser of the evils? If you really have been voting, why do you think we still ended up in this situation? If voting works here, doesn't that support the notion that governments are only bad because there aren't enough people are voting for freedom?
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This is certainly such a case. The standard seems to be that you need hard evidence clearly showing the police shooting someone who poses no threat. I look forward to seeing if he actually gets convicted. I wonder if there were no hard evidence or it was not clear that his life was not in danger, would the jury have indicted? I wonder if this is the same standard for prosecuting civilians for crimes (hard evidence and clear violation of law)?
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This question instantiates the train problem. Many times when people have asked that problem they have been met with criticism of presenting absurd situations. Now you have it. The train is the government system that is rolling down the track. Do you vote (pull the lever) to change the outcome even if that means making others into victims? Do you abstain and let the train barrel down on its prospective victims (maybe even including you)? Is there any other course of action?
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Has a police officer ever shot someone who wasn't a threat to them? I will like a case to know what the standard is for proving the police officer in the wrong in a shooting.
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Stefan’s constant decay into outright conservatism
labmath2 replied to Natalia's topic in General Messages
What did you expect her to say? When Mike responds not an argument that is basically it. If she thought it was not an argument she would not have bothered with it, but the response doesn't help her see the problem either. The best option is to just let it go. Those who see the argument can consider it. -
Now that you have pointed out all the ways philando castille could have precipitated his own shooting, how about all the ways the officer could have screwed up? I am still waiting for Stef to put out the officers record as a police officer and all the laws he has ever broken. While the girlfriend has incentive to lie, so does the officer. When this shoiting is investigated, will the police department take part in it? Was the police officer innediately taken to the station and interrogated? In what way is the officer treated differently from a regular citizen? Does he get the benefit of the doubt from investigators (they don't have to give people benefit of the doubt)? Is the standard for prosecution of a police officer the same for a civilian?
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The assertion of self ownership is not enough to demonstrate the distinction between the obligation to nurture a child and the obligation to birth a fetus. The nurturing of the child requires the woman's properties which infringes on her self ownership. It is either the case that the obligation supersedes her self ownership (in which case the woman is obligated to nurture the child) or self ownership supersedes the obligation (in which case the woman can voluntarily abandon/relinquish said child). "As a rule, nobody that engages in coitus is unaware of the facts that it could be tantamount to the creation of a new life, that said life cannot survive on its own, and therefore needs the protection and nurturing for many years until it can." Why does sex which precedes both pregnancy and childbirth only create obligation in nurturing the child, but not in delivering the fetus?
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You are not answering the question sufficiently. Where and when does this obligation come into existence (what property of the mother or child gives rise to this obligation)? Why is there an obligation to take care of a child but no obligation to deliver the fetus?
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The one thing that many is the real time mental states of the persons involved. If i were approached by police officers who yells commands at me, my first instinct would not be compliance, it would be confusion (i would be trying to figure out what is going on). If they tackle me before i comply, i go from confusion to adrenaline fueled fight or flight. Any posibility of compliance is now out the window (at least until my system crashes). Take the police perspective. They are on a suspect they think might be danderous (for whatever reason). Their natural instinct is the longer it takes to go from approach to arrest, the more we put our lives i danger so they are jumpy. In the middle of trying to restrain him someone yells he has a gun. Depending on your state of mind, you either think there is a gun on his person or he is brandishing a gun. Here is my preliminary critique. There is at least incompetence on the cops part. If this is how police are trained to act, then all it takes to severely injure someone is minor misunderstanding or catching someone on bad day. It seems the police expect greater self control from the average person than they demontrate in each of these incidents. Even if soneone was trying to comply if the police do not have adequate knowledge if restraining suspects, people will try to adjust their bodies to minimize discomfort which would result in unecessary injury. I have seen to many videos of 3 or more police officers on one person to seriously question what they are teaching them. If there are three people on you who dont know how to properly position themselves to restrain you with minimal discomfort, i cant imagine the self control it would take to just lie there and take it. There has to be a better way. They could have stood with their guns pointed and ordered him and waited for compliance. Though i think its unfortunate that many cases of poor police practices are now just taken as the norm and instead the focus is on the shooting of blacks which is just a red herring.
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Sam Harris and Daniel Dennet debate free will. Sam argues there is no free will and Dennet argues the mainstream notion of free will is mistaken, but there is free will in another sense. Enjoy.
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There are two main main concerns. 1. People cannot change their minds. Every step of the way you have been arguing as if Kevin could change his own mind. What you should actually believe is that Kevin's mind could be changed and you should be looking for the right combination of phrases to do just that. Unless you know how to change another person's mind, particularly Kevin's, you are just typing symbols from a near infinite symbol combination and hoping to hit the right one that will change his mind. That is not a very rational action. 2. For the argument to be meaningful at least one of you has to have intentionality. See chinese room thought experiment for full argument. The basic idea is that if you are merely am entity that accepts inputs and produce outputs based on a set of predetermined rules, then there is no "meaning" in between input and output, its just all gears turning. There is no person with which the conversation is happening, its just a complex algorithm. Its analogous to two billiard balls colliding. How do you answer both those charges?
