smarterthanone

Straw man. I said they all eat the pizza. That would make it determinable. But lets go with yours. Even if some did not eat the pizza, all we would do is find out why. So if 5% of people did not eat the pizza and they said it was because they were on a diet then we could determine... Drug A will cause all people to eat pizza unless they are on a diet. This would be determinable. The reason why we like the concept of "free will" is because there are so many different aspects and hard to measure circumstances that go into making a decision that in real life, it appears there is no cause that makes us choose any particular action. When really there are about 10,000 causes that make us choose any particular action. So if I poison you but put the antidote right in front of you, you have the "choice" to not take the antidote. Unless you prove it, I don't think you have the choice. (No M. Night Shyamalan twists, exactly what I said to the scenario). Determinists don't claim to be capable of determining any outcome for you like a trained monkey performing a trick. SMH. Determinists claim that with perfect knowledge, one would have the ability to determine any event. And where is the proof of free will? It feels like I have it thus free will? Based on what? A feeling? Feelings are not evidence for anything other than feelings. You are also very hung up on the word "illusion". It seems as if we have free will, its not like a magic illusion or a mirage or anything like that. Determinists would be speculative. Uh huh. and....? Try this. Think about what therapists do in psychotherapy and medication. They provide external stimulus in order to change your behaviors in a way such that they determine. Now their knowledge is not perfect, but obviously they can get results or there would be no benefit of ever seeing a therapist for psychotherapy. Jane resorts to cutting when she gets overwhelmed at work. She cannot control the cutting so she sees a therapist. Jane is a person but she is what I said above (Body + Chemicals + Memory) and when exposed to the stress of her job, she cannot help but to engage in cutting. So a therapist will talk to her in order to change her memory, when she thinks of work she thinks of feelings of stress, he will use cognitive behavioral therapy to change her thoughts to feelings of control and success when she thinks of work. Alternatively, he may prescribe medication to interfere with her normal chemical balance in order to change her behavior. Either way, once it is done, Jane has no choice but to act differently. Will it successfully stop her cutting? Maybe. That is irrelevant because the therapist does not have perfect knowledge, he will never know EXACTLY what to say or prescribe to make the person have a specific outcome but he can make educated guesses based on his experience and skill at identifying the causes of her behavior.

If he creates weapons for a private company which the military buys, I consider this moral. In ancap society, it is not wrong to design weapons. The demand for things such as tanks and air craft carriers would be less but a weapon in and of itself is not morally wrong. It isn't really his moral obligation who buys it and what they do with it. Just like Beretta is not responsible for some idiot shooting up a gas station with one of their guns. Taxation is theft, the civilian does not want to pay the taxes. If you break into my house and steal $10,000 worth of stuff and use it to buy some guns and hire 3 other guys and rob a bank, its not my moral responsibility. You are about as morally responsible as if the Mafia hired you to scope in their guns. Or if you were a Nazi in charge of running supplies to the Nazi troops. Just because its your military I think you are still giving it some warm fuzzy feelings. Like its just the military. That being said, I think you should do it. If I was you I would do it. I think its immoral but most people make lots of immoral decisions.

The reasons nobody is really on board with determinism is that many of you don't understand the argument for determinism. The example of you can decide to reply or not reply to this post is not a test for determinism at all, has nothing to do with it actually. A test for determinism might be more like, Drug A causes a person to experience extreme hunger, specifically for pepperoni pizza. So we can place 1000 people in a room with a pepperoni pizza, one at a time, some who are not hungry, and some who don't like pepperoni pizza and other variations. We inject them all and they all eat the pepperoni pizza. This is evidence that their behavior is primarily controlled by feeling of hunger which is provided by the external stimulus of the drug A. Drug A literally causes them to eat the pizza. Now of course if you tell them in advance dont eat the pizza (will power) some may not eat the pizza. But that still is not free will as I would hypothesize you will find those that are extra sensitive to Drug A will never not eat the pizza. And those with backgrounds that did not develop will power will also never not eat the pizza. If this doesn't make sense to you, try to objectify the people more. Like if you put a ball at the top of the hill, it has no choice but to roll down the hill. If you inject a weak willed person with Drug A they have no choice but to eat the pepperoni pizza. The choice is the illusion, each person THINKS they could not eat the pizza if they wanted but none of them will ever not eat the pizza and prove they actually had the choice. In regards to moral ramifications of this, I don't see any as a practical matter. People like to argue things like "If there is no free will, we ought not lock people up for crimes because they had no choice". Well no. Free will and determinism will both give you the same exact reasons for locking up or otherwise punishing a criminal. If you are a machine that electrocutes people to death if they come near you, it is your predetermined nature (at least up to this point) to behave that way. A machine like this should be kept away from people. If you are a person who tends to kill people who get in your way, it is your nature as well (at least up to this point) to behave this way. A person like this should be kept away from people. I think one of the biggest issues keeping people from going with determinism is they just cannot objectify people. When I think of a person I think of organic mass. When I think about what a person is that makes them behave in seemingly unique ways (which they don't really) its their Body (ie do they have a full functioning body are they tall/short etc) + Brain makeup (do they have proper serotonin level and other receptors etc) + Memory patterns (what memories do they draw on to influence future behaviors) and you take these three things and see how they interact from external environmental stimulus = determined acts.

I share a similar background to Steph and I would be glad to tell you whatever you want to know. I took a risky job at a startup I found by networking and handshaking for the position. I took on as much responsibility as possible such that as we grew into a normal sized and organized company I had a much higher position that I ever could have applied for. I was exposed to web development and self taught myself programming in conjunction with the position so that I could be even more valuable at the company. After 2 years of learning to code, I wrote a bunch of software on my own and sold it for under $1mm to a large top tech company that you've definitely heard about before. Then I took 100% of that money and invested it in real estate. I then took 100% of all the income from that real estate and bought more real estate. I then took 100% of all that income and bought more real estate. ... and continues. I worked about 60-80hrs per week to get and maintain my top role at that first business, which I worked at for about 5 years and included occasionally sleeping at the office, and the same amount of hours while writing my software. I now work about 10 hours per week managing my investments.

Try this: Arguments that appeal to the emotions of other people are valid arguments useful. Why? Because they CAN be used to convince people, which is the purpose of an argument. I think you are on to something.

Judeo christian is a problem here. I would argue very differently both for and against when going by new testament (Christians) vs old testament (Jews). You do know a large portion of Christians think the old testament is completely irrelevant other than as historical facts. That is why they don't believe almost anything in there and think god is nice and friendly and forgiving and love.

Don't study something you want. Think about what you want to do and then decide if you should study at all, and if so, what for. I have two degrees. Finance and Marketing. Neither was really necessary in any way for me. I would have been better auditing maybe 3 classes and spending the rest on investing. If you end up wanting to be a biologist, you are wasting your time getting a degree in economics. Time > Money. Just because its free doesn't mean you should do it.

Skipped the weird comments but this is what I do. Celebrate christmas or any holiday I want, but no no no religious stuff. Like christmas tree... cool. Presents... cool. Nativity... nope. Mass... nope. A tree and presents and model trains and snow globes and lights and egg nog are not religious in any way. We also did dreidels and latkes and a menorah too but with no religious part either. Why not? Anything goes when you don't have to follow any specific rules.

So I just had this conversation the other day. Girl usually sleeps with guys right away, unless she really likes a guy she makes him wait. I was like, damn, I wouldn't date you if you did that to me and she seemed surprised. Personally if I know a girl often has sex the first date, I will not call her back if she doesn't have sex the first date because either 1. She is not interested. OR 2. Its disrespectful, no matter how good the intentions and I don't like to be disrespected. Another girl I am dating now has only been with one guy, he had proposed and she accepted and they had sex. Long story short he had and has crazy bad medical issues come up and he withdrew his proposal because he would have sucked her into lifelong caring for him, she was involved in the decision. Fast forward now, she says she regrets having sex before marriage and we are just casually dating and my first gut instinct is I wouldn't marry her if she didn't have sex after proposal but before marriage. I just feel like if someone is good enough to break the rules for, I better also be just as good or better, ya know if I am going to commit to you forever. If not, I think the girl should hold out for someone else, because its obviously not me. What do you guys think?

Here is the problem though. If I sign a contract stating I am willing to take the risks of boxing Mike Tyson and agreeing to the rules of boxing, then what gives you the right to judge ON MY BEHALF or intervene or punish Mike Tyson? If him beating me severely in this instance you deem to be aggression and immoral such that something ought to be done actively interferes with the whole point of the NAP. It the same principles of collectivism. That you an unrelated party are going to interfere with a negotiated agreement on their behalf because they are too stupid to do so on their own... because "you know better." I don't see any way you could justify stopping or afterwards punishing Mike Tyson in this instance without completely disregarding NAP. Why would you consider it bad form? I think it is its most traditional and viewed form of NAP. Aggression is defined, often in terms of NAP, as the initiation of violence. (Some will say initiation of force, however they then say force is that situation is a synonym for violence. If they did not, then simply paying someone to build your house would be using economic force and a violation of NAP, which I assume we can agree is obviously not what anyone means here.) If you think it covers more than the initiation of violence, then what exactly do you mean? I think you will have a very difficult time to determine a usable definition as you have changed something from an rule that requires no interpretation to one that requires subjective opinion to interpret. That I think is a big problem because the draw of the NAP is it is very simple and has no exceptions and could apply anywhere at any time. If you add subjective qualities to it, you can't simply just apply it in every circumstance any more. I doubt its psychological because not everyone has hang ups over money. See all prostitutes, drug dealers, blackmailers, etc and those that don't inherently think those things are immoral. Its simply a cultural learning, which is very strong. Its the whole, "its cool to make some art but if you do it for money you are a big corp man and its not cool anymore" kind of hippy vibe thing, "don't be a sellout, man". That is very ingrained into the culture. You are a wonderful person to build a house for someone for free but you are a terrible person if you build lots of houses for money because you destroy the environment and are a capitalist for profit person... meanwhile you are lowering costs of housings across a whole market for thousands of people and providing jobs for 50 others. Greed is the maximization of value. If nobody was greedy, we wouldn't be able to produce nearly as much total economic value. Capitalism as a means of providing increasing economic growth and advancement only functions because most people are mostly greedy. I could make widgets by hand and make 10 a day and sell them and provide a decent living to myself... but because I am greedy I stay up all night and work weekends and holidays and make now 20 widgets a day. But im actually super greedy so I take 10 widgets worth of money I make extra and build some machines that can make 100 widgets a day. I am even more greedy so I get 10 machines like that, now I make 1000 widgets a day. All because of my greed I now provide 1000 people a day with something they want and have 5 employees who now can make a living. GREED IS GOOD. So simply saying its greedy to blackmail someone, I don't accept that as a useful argument. In fact, here is an argument for the moral goodness of blackmail (and by blackmail I am meaning information, not threat of violence): If you do something you could be blackmailed for, you did something immoral. (ie. cheat on spouse) If you do something that punishes immoral behavior that is good. Blackmail punishes immoral behavior. Therefore, Blackmail is good. Further, if you dont incentivize a behavior, nobody will do it. Blackmail provides incentive for people to do it. Therefore people will blackmail.

You could always just give them a little shock value. My exgf would have this happen and she would just look at them dead serious and just be like "Men are better. What are you talking about?" and they would be like "Omg what!?" And she would say "Men are stronger and smarter and much more capable, its quite obvious. Are you stupid?". The feminists would go C R A Z Y. Me and her would just laugh hysterically at them. My other exgf, she actually was interviewed on the street by a news reporter and he started asking her dumb questions about having a career and could you have it all and stuff like that and she said something to the effect of "I know I am supposed to have a career but I don't have time, I am too busy cooking and cleaning and taking care of my boyfriend to do anything else." I was dying laughing. I love girls who aren't afraid to troll moron feminists.

1. Is it morally good or bad that people are not needed for specific businesses? If I run a grocery store and one day technology has changed such as it is in my best interest to use automated cashiers and stocking robots and drone delivery service, is it morally wrong for me to do so? 2. On the flip side, is it morally wrong to invent a robot or other automation technology when there is a demand for it? If so, then essentially all inventions would be immoral to invent because they decrease total labor needs for the same total output. 3. Do people have a right to be provided a job? I think whether low IQ people are able to find the next thing or not is irrelevant. It is not a moral issue. It is not even my business to worry about it.

I know what you are saying with those definitions. Unfortunately it is a grey area. Look up 20 definitions in 20 places and you will see different ones on each. If you read enough, you will see, many draw the distinction between information vs violence. But either way. You equate a threat with violence. Or a threat with aggression. Such that is a violation of the NAP. Unfortunately the word aggression also has two meanings here and threat isn't necessarily a violation of the NAP. Would you say playing football aggressively is a violation of the NAP? I mean we are assuming everyone has agreed to the rules and is playing fairly. What about building your business aggressively instead of growing slower and safer? Is that a violation of the NAP? No. Threatening someone may or may not be aggressive and being aggressive may or may not be violation of NAP. What if you come to my business and are rude. What if I THREATEN to ban you from service? That is not a violation of the NAP. It is clearly a threat, and I could be aggressive about it. Aggressively threaten ban at a minor infraction of my business rules. The whole point I am saying is to threaten someone with violence is clearly against the NAP. No doubt about it. So no need to even talk about that any more. We agree there. But the problem I am having is that adding money to an acceptable act can never make it a violation of NAP. Is it NAP moral to mow your lawn? Yes. For money? Yes. Is it NAP moral to have sex? Yes. For money? Yes. Is it NAP moral to tell the truth, that you saw someones husband making out with someone else at a bar? Yes. For money? Yes. Is it NAP moral to not tell that you saw someones husband making out with someone else at the bar? Yes. For money? Yes. If you are saying that is not ok, realize you are making an exception to a big big big aspect of the NAP in general. Why is adding money to a moral act make it immoral under NAP? Money is not a moral factor under the NAP. People feel a bit icky about money though, its your intuition. Just like with the example about sex. As much as it is NAP moral, people intuitively still do not like to say prostitution is moral under NAP. Or they do but they don't like it. I think big picture, it means probably either: 1. We were raised with cultural norms that are not moral. (ie raised with such an aversion to blackmail that no matter how well it fits the framework, it always triggers your intuition as not moral because of money) 2. NAP is not a complete understanding of morals. (ie. NAP is pretty good but it is not 100% right)

I would highly recommend not using Googles definition. They also define fascism as right wing. So you are defining blackmail and extortion to be the same thing basically? There are obviously two distinct forms of this kind of thing. One where "I will kill you if you don't pay me" vs "I know you cheat on your wife, ill tell her if you don't pay me". So if you define them as the same thing, then we have no terms to talk about each type now do we? This is why I highly suggest we use the american legal definitions. Extortion being when threat of force is used and blackmail is only threat of releasing information. And I would say the onus is on you on why we ought to use a cripplingly basic definition from google instead of the accepted and nuanced legal definitions.

You are making them all aggression in your mind. See my post above about the definition of extortion. Extortion means specifically when you threaten violence. Like "Pay me or I will kill you.". None of my examples had any threat to violence and you still view them as extortion. I think you are just mixed up on the concepts and no useful discussion can be had until we accept the terms we are going to use. If you don't like the definition of extortion, that's fine, argue what you think it should be in the terms of our discussion and why. You also think asking him to pay to not say you saw him in a shirt and jeans is being a lunatic and intimidation. I fear you have been extorted before and are just assuming some 6'5" 300lb muscle guy with a gun and 2 other guys behind him is the one making the requested and giving you a little wink like im about to beat you. Nope, you are making your own embellishments. Pretend your 8 year old daughter is making the request. Do you find her intimidating? I hope not. The point was, most people would be like, "I dont care, tell whoever you want i wear a shirt and jeans, big whoop".

I agree but the more power an organization has the more value can be produce. This is why capitalism. It must perform acceptably to accumulate said power. If nobody had any real power, we would still be playing with sticks instead of even talking about AI. Google provides tons of value, thus lots of power, thus ability to invent, build and promote AI or something even if people don't like it.

Yes. But personally. Don't rely on some big organization if they are not doing the right things. I don't need the government or to band together with people to protect me from AI. I simply just don't buy it or use it in such a way I can't live without it.

See you have taken precautions to protect yourself from blackmail. Even if its immoral/violation of NAP, its still ones responsibility to protect oneself. Just like you ought to be able to walk in the ghetto crime area with a bag of cash and no protection. But if you got robbed, nobody is really going to pity you, as a reasonable person would know better. So I think overall, 1. It isnt a violation of the NAP but 2. Even if it is, it would be such a minor transgression that the fault lies with the person being blackmailed. If you want to step out on your wife, any consequences are really your fault, not the person who simply is considering telling the TRUTH.

Here are four scenarios... which do you consider aggression? 1. I see Jim, who is married, kiss some woman at a bar, in public. It was Tuesday night and quiet, so nobody really saw. I tell Jim to give me $50 to pay my bar tab or else I will tell his wife, who will cause trouble and/or leave him. 2. I knock on Mark's door, he answers it wearing a red shirt and jeans. I tell Mark, if you don't give me $50, I will tell everyone you wore a red shirt and jeans. 3. Same as situation #1 except HOWEVER they happen to be in an open relationship but I do not know that. 4. Same as situation #1 except I just don't ask for the money. I simply tell his wife for the purpose of seeing him get in trouble. (Not because I think she deserves to know).

Who has power over me? I do not have an Alexa or Siri. I have an android but its been jailbroke and encrypted and I deleted a lot of the functionality besides basic phone usage. I realize I do not inherently have a right to a phone so if all phones become unacceptable I will have to do without. I do not need a phone to live.

I went and looked it up. I hope its true. It is a huge asset that provides tons of value that doesn't cost really anything (presumably it can run off a smart phone and will be available to people as most google stuff is). So I, Joe schmo, with the use of my computer and 10 phone lines can run a business all by myself selling products or providing customer support or disseminating information to the public via telephone. This will replace cashiers and all sorts of do nothing jobs for those who are unskilled, uneducated and unimaginative. But for entrepreneurs its one more tool to build a business. Awesome. I once had a business service that needed massive customer support and sales staff, if I had this, I could have run it with NO employees. Instead I sold it because I did not want to hire a massive amount of employees. I wish this was around then. BTW: I think its fake/setup and not nearly as good as they say. See Siri See Alexa.

Yes. Probably because you don't mention the company name or provide a link.

Talk to Alexa, she is freaking retarded. I am a developer. I don't believe this. Talking to an AI and not being able to distinguish if its a human is not one element. It is, Voice recognition, Sound quality, Databases like Vocabulary, memories of events and such, AI, Probably another thing or two. Voice recognition sucks, how many times does Alexa or siri or any of them not understand you because you coughed or some noise or even just because? All the time. But a human can still understand you if you say it, even if you say it weird. Our brain is FARRRRRR better than what a computer can do when it comes to pattern recognition/context etc. Sound Quality. Ive heard some that are pretty good. But for real. They are still never going to be perfect. I say my name differently when I make a phone call to a business vs a friend vs a romantic partner. Nobody has solved this sort of problem yet in terms of the actual voice. Databases. So say you have an AI pretend to be you and it calls me, I just have to ask, "when was the last time I saw you?" and it will be wrong, unless you type that info in every time you see me. And that is too simplistic because I could ask any question about some stupid detail that would not lend itself to database format easily. This one will never be solved. AI. If it really talks to you and you can't tell its a computer, it has passed the turing test. Which would be big news, as I don't think anything has.

I liquidated my 401k because it was worthless and bought real investments, like rental property and businesses. Why invest in crypto? It doesn't make you income. Would you rather have $5,000,000 in gold in a vault collecting dust OR $5,000,000 in income producing investments paying you $750,000 per year in income?

Why? It isn't self explanatory. Logical fallacy: Appeal to emotion. I feel bad. Does not change anything. If you don't want to be blackmailed simply do not do something you would kill yourself over and you will never kill yourself. Easy. This is not blackmail, it is extortion. ie if you have sex outside of marriage I will kill you. So how would sharing or not sharing the bosses email be moral or not moral? Its simply in front of your face. You have no obligation to anyone involved or not involved.