Will Torbald

The only tried and true way out of poverty is capitalism and industrialization. They propose teaching poor people in the jungles how to farm. I'm not seeing how that's going to fix anything in the long run. The only reason countries have enough food for anyone is because they either import it or have modern technology. I think it's irresponsible to have children at all in countries where you know there is no food. Instead of teaching people how to make rice in a swamp, teach some birth control.

Here lies the entire root of the socialist idea. That value is created through labor, also known as the labor theory of value. In order to convince anyone into socialism or Marxism or any other similar ism one must first swallow the dry apple core of the magic known as labor equals value. If I took a lump of clay and shaped it and molded it for three days straight it and added labor on it the whole time it would still be a worthless lump of clay. A worker who takes two days to make a vase will earn as much as a worker who took two hours to make a vase of equal quality because the value is not in the labor, but in the demand for a product.

The state only categorizes guilt and innocence in regards to its own laws. In this simple way, yes, these categories are only state created fictions. If by some random quantum accident the law of the state matches any objective theory of morality, then we would say that in that particular case the law was not acting on the basis of fiction. I think the first part of the argument deals with tribalism and otherization. Very primitive and basic instincts inherited from prehistoric times when savegery and cannibalism wasn't unheard of and meeting a competing tribe could have very well been lethal. And so people became highly entrenched in their own in-groups while demonizing others. Now everyone wants to be part of a clique, a tribe, a religion, a forum, a movement, an "ism" and so on. It satisfies that instinct without having to use it in negative ways.

That sounds a lot like wikipedia, but it also sounds like a forum (perhaps even this one), or reddit. I would argue, however, that any form of non lethal force has been well considered before. From Aikido to Judo there's plenty of martil arts that promote the least amount of harm while protecting people.

I'm not interested in interjecting the argument about morality, but this is scientifically inaccurate. The Higgs mechanism has nothing to do with gravity, nor does gravity require it. To begin with, gravity isn't detailed in the standard model of particle physics, which is where the Higgs boson works in, so I don't know where you're getting your science here. If this was purposefully a wrong argument to make a point, I retract my previous statement.

People already know how to recognize shills from a mile away. You don't need to pay anyone to knock them down.

Welcome, jnabors. I used to have a similar idea of how a theist theory and evolution wouldn't be at odds, but the more I learned about science and evolution, I had to give up the position as it just doesn't work when both are examined carefully. Here's a short video that explains ideas of evolution that make the case that it doesn't have any intelligent design at all:

Robert Downey Jr. makes millions off the Marvel movies while his other male co-stars earn fractions of what he makes. There is blatant inequality of a salaries in Hollywood, but it is not driven by a desire to keem womyn down and subservient. The disparity comes from good contract negotiations, the ability to draw the masses towards a cinema, the legacy of an actor given his awards and fame, and what people want to see.

We have personal and scientific evidence that consciouness comes from brains. No evidence that non brains do it. If we had proof that chairs and flan can think and feel, that would be great. Though I'd feel a bit bad after sitting down to eat a slice for it. I don't have a comment about the second paragraph because I didn't understand it.

1 - I made that point to follow into the argument. It doesn't deserve examination on its own. 2 - Consciousness emerges from brains, not just matter. A lump of coal doesn't have consciousness. If my consciousness emerges from my brain, the I would actually be the property of my body, not the way around. Do you understand that? If my brain makes my consciousness it is my brain who owns me. I would be a servant, not the master. But then you want me, the consciousness, to own the brain, the creator of my consciousness, back at it. That can't be true at the same time. Someone's got to own something, and the other to be the servant. 2,1 - But I reject that notion on the contradictions and paradoxes it creates. I would also cease to exist when I fall asleep, when I'm unconscious, when I'm in a coma, or when I'm under anesthesia. Since I no longer exist, it would be fair game to plunder my body since there is no consciousness to own it. And I doubt you would support that. But that's what follows from your reasoning. 3 - When I die, no, my brain and the rest of my body is not the same as it was when it was living. Life is a metabolic process, in constant motion and chemical reactions, respiration, synapses, action. A dead brain is incapable of all that. It is broken. It is not the same as a living brain. Otherwise it would be alive. 4 - Since I am my body then I am responsible for the actions done with it. This doesn't contradict owning actions, or owning the effects of actions. It simply refines the theory to something material and real, not rationalistic. 5 - The chair, the lumber, and so on is important as an example of how rationalizations of property rights do not matter in the material world. Therefore a material theory of property is more appropriate. 6 - I am a colony of trillions of differentiated cells of the same genome all working together to survive as one meta-organism. That meta organism forms a brain that manifests a consciousness at certain times of the day to create a state of awareness. When it doesn't, it's asleep or unconscious. I am that colony of cells, that body. The consciousness is like the sound I make with my vocal chords, just an effect of my brain. I am the hands, not the clap. I am the stomach, not the burp. I am the butt, not the fart. I am the brain, not the thought. Nothing wrong with that. No one is under the obligation to save anyone's life. The man could have been committing suicide, and you would have interrupted his voluntary desire and right to end his life.

But this happens all the time in the world. People keep money they find on the street and say it's "theirs" now. Nobody will question it when you use the five dollars to buy something. If you leave a house abandoned eventually hobos are going to move in. Which is why you need security. Imagine that I leave the lumber alone, and a scheming man sees it, takes it, and sells it to you on the premise that it was his property. You'd be convinced it is your lumber now. Later on I see you with the lumber I made, and immediately assault you in a fit of justified anger through the property rights theory. However since you believe it is your lumber as well you react in defense of your believed property rights and stab me, and kill me. All from rationalizations of property of no empirical nature. If there were such a thing there would be no confusion in who owns what. The only thing I'd say is non transferable is authorship of goods and services. If I make a painting that's something I authored. Selling the painting would transfer ownership, not authorship. It still is nonetheless an unproved claim without evidence, which is why artists sign their work and strive for unique styles to make it clear that they made it.

Since I am making materialistic arguments, I don't see how that follows. If I push a rock there is no question that I did that. If I were to chop down a tree and make lumber then I made that lumber. There is just no way to prove that I made that lumber by looking at the lumber. You would have to have seen me doing it, or other kind of indirect evidence to know. I could be typing this message from a stolen mobile phone, and you wouldn't be able to tell. As a materialist the only distinction from property and non property is either a social construct in the exchange of goods, or the direct evidence of authorship of an action or a thing. I could then take my lumber, give it to you and say "it's now yours" and we'd agree - but nothing has changed in the object, just our understanding of it - out rationalizations of it.

Property rights are not material. That is my argument. There is no material link between my body and the stuff I own. Therefore there are no empirically obserable signs that a chair is my chair just by studying the chair. Which is why property rights are only rationalizations, whether they are useful or not I don't really care. Strictly speaking I am my body. There is no ghost me that owns body me. I am responsible for the actions I do with my body, but I am not the master of a body and the body who is a slave at the same time. I = My body. Not I + My body.

Which is why Neil DeGrasse Tyson said that he wonders if aliens have already visited us, but decided there were no signs of intelligent life in this planet, and moved on.

Swap science for math, and the article sounds ridiculous. Trying to blame bad calculations on math itself instead of the slob who didn't add properly. It could all just be a bunch of propaganda for all this article's worth, but poorly made science is not a jab at science itself.

I'm sorry you were forced to live in a hell hole. What I've learned about my own anger is that I can't be angry at something without also having a "should" in my mind. When I take the should out, the anger also goes. That means to me that anger is the insistence of molding the world and others to our own will. Your parents should not have mocked you. Your school should not have bullied you. You should not have played videogames. At every point in time any of those things happened it was reasoned to be the choice they would make. They made you feel shame, fear, or fun at the moment they were happening. But it only becomes anger when you remember them and think of how it "should" have been. That's just my take on things. I'm no expert and I welcome any counterarguments, but that's how I deal with my own.

The MBR proves uniformity because it is a picture of the entire energy of the universe when it as small enough to see it all at once. Now the universe has expanded beyond what we can see today, but the MBR is the entire universe when it was indeed small enough to see. It proves it is isotropic and geometrically flat barring quantum fluctuations. Your argument, using an analogy, us like asking if a baby could have turned into a horse after growing up in Alaska where you haven't seen him in years. The fact that you can't see him in Alaska doesn't change the fact that babies don't grow into horses. Similarly, the MBR is a baby picture of the universe, and just because we can't see beyond a certain distance doesn't mean it has turned into a horse universe over there.

You're extrapolating my comments. I said no amount of logic will stop a criminal, because criminals reject logic in the first place. Since it is possible to have irrational behavior, rational theories won't affect those with no regard for rationality. I need a fence, alarms, and security outside my property - not a philosophical scroll of parchment in order to repel aggressors.

If the government is telling the scientists what the results of the research should be in advance (like with climate change research funded by the UN) then it's not science. Plain and simple. If the government just funds science blindly, like it is supposed to be, then it is proper science and it doesn't affect the outcome. It's lamentable that it is funded that way, but I don't think a genetic fallacy is necessary.

People want to help, but they don't want to get involved, and give advice that helped them - but could have no effect on the OP. I don't know, perhaps it comforts them more than it comforts the OP to feel as if they did something about it. I didn't give advice, but I didn't reach out either, so there's that too.

Only if we care. If we don't care, we just do it anyway. If a person cares, there's reason and judgement, and it will likely choose the moral path. In that way it only leaves two paths: You don't care and you do immoral things, and if you care you try not to (but you can still error or lose judgement emotionally). So morality is utterly ineffective at convincing people not to do bad things when they are bad, and only mildly effective at guiding people who care towards not messing up.

That's a good criticism of the way science has been funded, but not of its effectiveness at producing knowledge. Yeah, a lot of articles about how papers get published into journals without any scrutiny. Someone even sent a fake paper full of gibberish and it got publshed in a few of them. That only speaks at how lazy scientists are, not of the methods themselves. Peer review isn't the only check, too. There is also experimental reproducibility, where other teams have to be able to confirm your data independently. There's a long process before something becomes canon, so to speak. Although I hear the concerns, really. I too want better science.

It's a comment on the pragmatic use of having a theory of ethics vs a physical security system. I could argue with the thief that what he is doing is immoral all I can while he gives me strange looks, and he would still take my wallet. Ethics' only achievement is the ability to say "what you are doing is bad", but that never prevented anyone who doesn't care from doing something bad.

The importance of the microwave background cannot be overstated. It is a photograph of the entire universe as it was just hundreds of thousands of years after the big bang. That's it. That's the whole universe, a baby picture if you will. It is thoroughly uniform except some tiny quantum disturbances that alter its temperature by a few fractions of degrees. It is proof that the universe is consistent in space and time and in every part of it the same laws apply. The infinity of the universe is in its capacity to expand indefinitely, but not to the point where a point in space becomes so distant from another that the laws of the universe change in one side and not the other. Everywhere we look the universe is the same, and the MBR is definite empirical proof of it. The experiments of the LHC provide evidence of the consistency of matter and antimatter, which is another matter onto itself. It means that what we are made of is also consistent across space and time.

That is the "Scientists are jerks" objection. I won't deny that scientists can be neurotic, vindictive, self-righteous, and power-hungry. But scientists are not science. Science is a body of knowledge and the scientific method is the way to acquire it - and that makes it immune to criticisms of personality.