Terrapin Station

I didn't explain that I don't use a principle-based approach to ethics?

Who are you putting in an unusual situation by procreating?

As you hold up a sign announcing that you don't understand what not stating every nuance every time amounts to. Nice.

Here's what I mean by "selectively stupid," which suggests trolling. You apparently can remember some things I wrote 15-20 pages ago, but you can't re...

That's almost as funny as your reading comprehension abilities.

So re you being stupid, didn't I just write, "I'm not going to restate every single nuance in every single post"?

Imagine if people couldn't understand the difference between influence and causality. That would be funny, wouldn't it?

Exactly.

Speaking of being stupid, you're still bringing up the notion that you're "taking a risk for someone else" by procreating. There's no way you're not a...

But I'm not doing principle-based ethics. It is amusing to me that you can't understand this, which is probably why I keep responding to you, but on t...

I'm trying to get you to stop talking really. "What will make this guy finally stop responding to me?" basically. The reason why is because, for examp...

Because I'm not going to restate every single nuance in every single post--that's like having to write "in my opinion" for every sentence. All the way...

Actually, I explicitly told you, a number of times, that I do not do principle-based ethics.

It's what some part of the world is like at that spatio-temporal location, sure, including possibly their brain--if they're hallucinating, for example...

You know that rights are something we make up, right?

Right, and it's fun as something like a Woody Allen joke . . .

Ah, so you're not arguing that in general, "the forms that matter takes must (since both accounts posit a divine intellect) have existed prior to - an...

Because?

Yet another incoherent idea. Nothing exists aside from "things or stuff." "Imposed form" would refer to forces applied to something (that already has ...

I started learning martial arts when I was really young. Through a couple teachers with an interest in it, that led to an interest in Zen, which I sti...

Any idea why we tell students that you can't understand formal logic by plugging natural language into it?

Right, what always happens is that people want increasing restrictions. They keep pushing the envelope on what they think is okay speech to prohibit.

If it's the case that a fact in this case, "I want x," implies an ought, "I ought to do y," then he'd be getting "I ought not do y" wrong--his logic w...

People subjectively feel that way sure, and they feel that way about different things, for different reasons. There aren't right answers there, just w...

That's not a term I'd use because it's too vague--too many people use it to denote too many different things, with a lot of them being equally common....

Rationality doesn't have anything to do with preferences.

I don't think that any ethical stance is a rational conclusion. I'd say that's a category error.

When you brought up hallucinations the first time, I said, "So first, hallucinations and illusions are real hallucinations and illusions. (Where we're...

I'm a bit lost in most of that. I'm approaching this purely from a skeptical philosophical perspective, where I don't buy a claim that it's somehow a ...

Right. No. But we should try to make the world better.

It's a step in changing the culture. Okay, but I'll fight you (literally) to avoid that. ;-)

I explained this already above. Why am I having to repeat it? You're not prohibiting any speech. The issue is with someone promising to deliver someth...

Yes, of course. Sure. And I'd not only get myself executed in that situation, I'd get myself executed if I were ordered to torture a cat or something ...

Right. But it's what we need in my view. And we're not going to get it by keeping some speech illegal. We'll better have a world where people can't or...

Okay, but the issue is that they're deciding to do something that should be illegal in my view. It's the same thing with fraud. Contracting to deliver...

I'm not positing anyone "falling for" anything there. That implies it's out of their control. It's not out of their control. They can make a decision ...

It seems to me like you're not understanding something very simple, and I suppose it seems like that to you, too (that I'm not understanding something...

Yes. That's what the word "yes" is doing in this sentence: "Without getting into issues about truth, yes." It's hard to get into that without getting ...

Again, in my view, "The world we need is one in where people don't believe anything just because someone said it, don't automatically follow anyone's ...

Yes. I'm not saying that people who are murdered are responsible for their own murder because they "fell for it." Fraud is a crime not because of spee...

That's not a direct cause because I could just tell him to screw off. I have to decide to do what was asked (well, or "commanded")

Basically you're claiming that wanting something implies "a call to action." Well, on what grounds?

No it doesn't. Why ought someone do something if they want something?

No, not in my view. A number of times I've brought up the extreme case that people like to bring up (and I now see you did in the following post): to ...

No, I'm asking you about this part: How do we get to that part? Yes, if the means for getting Y are X, then in order to get Y, one must do X. How does...

In my view, yes. I'm a free speech absolutist. I don't agree that speech can actually cause violence. People deciding to be violent causes violence.

Without getting into issues about truth, yes. What's the case at reference point x might not be the case at reference point y. For example, at referen...

There's not much "poof" to it. That's simply the properties of the matter in question, from the frame of reference of being the matter in question. Bu...

You create risks for other people in every single thing you do. Some obvious ones are things like driving, being in public if you might have any sort ...

I don't think once you've ever really been able to understand what I was saying. Including at the start of this thread, where I still believe that you...