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Echarmion

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Acquiring herd immunity by being infected by the actual virus (as opposed to a vaccine) does not save people from dying. I have no idea how you think ...
January 20, 2021 at 21:17
One problem open political discourse might face is that there is some evidence that humans have some kind of "political bias", which is to say that as...
January 20, 2021 at 21:12
People without strong immune systems are still people, are they not?
January 20, 2021 at 20:18
Everyone is aiming for eventual herd immunity. You just somehow seem to be of the opinion that it is better to have a few million people die to the vi...
January 20, 2021 at 20:13
A virus is barely a living thing. Without new hosts, it'd die out. But as I said, it's basically impossible to do because someone needs to keep the li...
January 20, 2021 at 19:30
I think you'll find most people here are perfectly capable to recognise who has the better argument regardless of the tone. For example, you conspicuo...
January 20, 2021 at 19:03
I literally just explained to you, and you agreed. So I am confused why you're now turning around and telling me that, no, we don't need a comparison ...
January 20, 2021 at 18:51
If literally everyone stayed in their house for two weeks, the virus would die out. Obviously, this isn't very practical. So we're left with less effe...
January 20, 2021 at 18:44
I don't know what you're referring to here, can you quote it? I have already explained that I think suffering is only relevant insofar as it affects p...
January 20, 2021 at 18:16
It was an analogy, to explain the principle. Does the universe do that, in your opinion? What's so hard to understand about the fact that I just don't...
January 20, 2021 at 09:57
But it is interesting to ask why that is, isn't it? People have extremely varying attitudes to different animals depending on culture, and almost no-o...
January 20, 2021 at 08:15
The comparison is hard to notice, because it's such a natural thing to do. But when you say "I wish this didn't happen to me", you're not wishing for ...
January 20, 2021 at 08:07
Yes. And it's predictable, too. But the responsibility for that harm doesn't lie with just anyone who causes it. It only attaches to specific acts, in...
January 20, 2021 at 07:05
I think the conclusion is somewhat similar, but the OP seems to be arguing from an utilitarian perspective that accepts the idea of objective, measura...
January 19, 2021 at 21:43
Given your definition of harm, yes.
January 19, 2021 at 20:57
You're not reading it properly. I am not saying nested causation doesn't count. I am saying causation doesn't count, period. It's not enough to be mer...
January 19, 2021 at 20:49
What I am saying is "harm", in a moral sense, isn't simply you having a negative emotional response to something. If you trip over your own feet and f...
January 19, 2021 at 20:45
I'm disputing your definition of "harm", so I am not sure what to do with that question.
January 19, 2021 at 20:29
No, it won't. Or, more specifically, there is no capacity to harm people by making them exist. That's not harm. No moral subject is limited in it's ab...
January 19, 2021 at 19:56
But then, as I said, if the focus is on protecting people's ability to make their own decisions, there is no reason to have a rule that no-one benefit...
January 19, 2021 at 19:25
Are you living in a parallel reality? Can you give me a list of all states taken over in the 21st century by right-wing and left-wing extremists respe...
January 19, 2021 at 19:07
The first question that would need answering is just what kind of moral weight does a dog have? It's not self aware in any way we can recognise, so do...
January 19, 2021 at 18:52
That's actually a good analogy. The problem in the "falling tree" thought experiment is also one of communication, namely that it's unclear what "a so...
January 19, 2021 at 17:54
In line with what I have already written, I don't see how you could expect a sentence like "don't cause unnecessary suffering" (shortened for emphasis...
January 19, 2021 at 08:45
I don't really want to rehash all the same arguments again. It's just the disconnect that I find kinda fascinating. I believe you that you're honestly...
January 18, 2021 at 21:10
Kant is fine to just read directly if you're used to long and compex sentences and if you're fine with getting the gist of the philosophy rather than ...
January 18, 2021 at 18:52
Do you realize that you make equally, if not more sweeping assumptions about the people you interact with on this forum - their worldview, their hones...
January 18, 2021 at 18:31
I recognise this is your position, I just wanted to point out that it is, in my estimation, the source of the fundamental disagreement between natalis...
January 18, 2021 at 18:09
Are we? What is being "traded" exactly? This is at the core of the disagreement here, that one side views life as an option, like a game or some other...
January 18, 2021 at 11:28
In: Bannings  — view comment
Randall Munroe, the author of the xkcd webcomic did a calculation on how many unique english language tweets there are. According to the calculation t...
January 18, 2021 at 00:29
Is there a who? It seems unfounded to assume there is a personal intelligence behind the properties of the human mind. It's possible that there is, bu...
January 18, 2021 at 00:20
Is there a who? It seems unfounded to assume there is a personal intelligence behind the properties of the human mind. It's possible that there is, bu...
January 18, 2021 at 00:20
And here you have the answer why noone will seriously engage with your ideas: it's because you already think anyone who disagrees with you is either a...
January 17, 2021 at 16:55
It's kinda weird to assume a bunch of things about my opinions after I just asked you why you think everyone on the left is alike, or why you think th...
January 17, 2021 at 15:55
And you think the right wants that, and the left does not, because? I consider myself "on the left", and I don't want authoritarian eco-communism. So ...
January 17, 2021 at 14:12
It'd help if you didn't frame your views in ideological terms. You don't seem so much interested in creating a coalition to further your goal as you a...
January 17, 2021 at 13:42
Sounds like an application of the representativeness heuristic. We guess probabilities based on how easy we can come up of an example of a case. Remin...
January 17, 2021 at 12:36
Of course this comes up all the time, not least in court. I someone tells me that they genuinely thought the passport they bought from the guy at the ...
January 17, 2021 at 09:51
Why would we say that?
January 17, 2021 at 09:02
Do you mean temporarily? Otherwise not sure what you mean. How does Dr. Skeptic know that? What methods does he have access to that medical science do...
January 17, 2021 at 08:59
He's way too much of a pussy (heh) to take such a risk. So I'll vote self-preservation.
January 16, 2021 at 21:04
Fair enough, as far as a metaphysical explanation goes. Though I think it's important to not mix physical and metaphysical perspectives on this. On a ...
January 16, 2021 at 20:56
Well, it's going to require communication (I suppose you could stalk them, figure out where they live and quietly gather information, but that's rathe...
January 16, 2021 at 19:20
I think what @"Isaac" is trying to say is that you are very unlikely to change someone's mind in a non-professional conversation (like an internet for...
January 16, 2021 at 19:09
Oh? Now I am interested. Is there a less primitive tool out there? I am not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you not believe that, say, atoms ar...
January 16, 2021 at 19:05
Noone knows how common they are with any certainty, which is part of the reason why we should be pessimistic about them. The force of the overall argu...
January 16, 2021 at 18:27
I guess we have either a full-on lunatic or a troll on our hands here.
January 16, 2021 at 16:10
Says who? Not true either in theory or in practice. The original left-right distinction was precisely between republicans and monarchists. Not accordi...
January 16, 2021 at 15:53
If only that were the case. Unfortunately it seems more like the response to covid is all about preserving the GDP. What's your definition of "a threa...
January 16, 2021 at 15:01
A public election fund would help. Doesn't at all eliminate the problem of lobbying and post-political careers, but it at least makes the actual elect...
January 16, 2021 at 13:11