Echarmion

You realize this is contradictory, right? Americans decide for themselves, yet schools and media tell Americans what to decide. That didn't change bef...

But then would technology disappear if all humans either disappeared or stopped believing in technology? A spear would still be a spear, at least in t...

Yeah, so why did the media convince an isolationist populace? Idealism for democracy? Possible, but then why not enter earlier? A more likely rational...

Germany, in world war 1, didn't "swallow up one country after another". They didn't even get to Paris. America entered that war not to protect it's de...

Why? Lions don't care about the welfare of antelopes. Plenty of animals kill slowly with debilitating poison, or even divesting their prey alive. If w...

Are the statues of Confederate generals put up around 1900 important historical artifacts to you?

What is an idea? Is every name given to some category - tree, rock, cat, computer, an idea?

Technology is just a part of the outside world. I don't quite see the distinction. What does that even mean? It's not enough to call it a fiction. Wha...

I am not sure the thought experiment actually demonstrates anything about whether things apart from pleasure have intrinsic value. What it does demons...

Not sure how that follows from in anything written above. Even if the outside world is merely a collection of fictions that happens to fit together, t...

Kant's "groundwork" doesn't so much start with the question "what should I do" as it starts with the question "how can I be free". The categorical imp...

Well, first moral claims are prescriptive. They tell you what to do. But there are of course different kinds of prescriptions. Moral claims tell you w...

I think we should clarify first that not all deontological systems ignore consequences, nor do all consequentialist systems give free reign over the m...

Not sure I understand that. It seems more effective to do it in advance as a motivation to break the law if necessary.

That depends on how pessimistic you want to be. "Help me win by breaking the law, and I'll bail you out" is another possible subtext.

But everyone knows that views on morality are historically contingent. That's not news. Now we could go into an analysis of just how that process work...

I think the future of privacy is very much in question. Right now, for all then increasing legislation about privacy, people are voting privacy out wi...

Perhaps. But then studies indicate that happyness is actually not strongly connected to circumstance. People have a "happyness set point" which they w...

It's actually worse. A naturalistic fallacy is at least an argument, if an invalid one. The Op is simply a truism. Michael was correct when he said th...

Actually, it's the other way round. I am saying the world is how it is because we exist. Humans existing means that the world must allow for humans to...

I don't think the question was whether I believe what I said - whether I am arguing in good faith.

That question doesn't make sense to me. I don't "believe" in logic. Logic is fundamental to my thinking.

I realize you feel that way. I just feel you're fooling yourself, just like the con artist that offered you the wager would have fooled you.

Actually I meant that if any one, or multiple, of the 100. So in all cases except all 100 coming out 6, you get a million dollars. Of course all the d...

Let's try the thought experiment again: Imagine someone offers you the following wager: they will roll one hundred six-sided dice. They will accuratel...

Again, you're saying the number must be huge without any justification. That's not even an estimate, it's a naked claim. argh, I mistyped. Let's say w...

How about just not making stuff up? Not every question has an answer. It's okay to say "I don't know". Is that such a weird thought? Let's do a little...

Why should I agree to that? You admitted that you know nothing about the probabilities. You know nothing for any one of the parameters. And you know n...

Could it? And why would the chances be equally distributed? It could be 0.0001 for the first two. Those are wild guesses without substance. You'd have...

Oh I am aware. That's why I usually just ignore them. But sometimes something so exquisitely stupid comes out of the propaganda machine that I can't h...

Highlight a part of their post with your fingers, a little black "quote" button should appear on the top right of your screen

Why? Explain the logic behind this.

Now I don't usually reply to you, but this one just had me laughing out loud. Yes, rioting is so conformist . They just want everyone to conform to so...

You just pulled that number out of your ass. The chance could be anything. Because only in a universe with patterns would there be some patterns capab...

Throughout history, the norm was that real property, i.e. land, could not be privately held. It was always held by the Band, Tribe, King or state. Ind...

Apart from the council Devans has mentioned, there were probably several smaller, more local decisions about what texts were "good enough" to keep aro...

Well I was working on the assumption that he didn't really want the job, just the prestige that comes with it, and for that it kinda doesn't matter wh...

Why would my personal observation be privileged? That's an idiotic standard. Case in point: you're not even observing me in person. So you don't know ...

In that case, I'd assert that your epistemic standards are idiotic.

A positive claim is an assertion. Not sure what irrefutable has to do with it. Black holes and alien worlds are observable phenomena. God would be a m...

The word "universe" is indeed problematic. What it usually means in a scientific context is "everything in this timeline". So if you don't ascribe to ...

Making no positive claim is a valid epistemological position. Saying "we don't know yet" isn't the same as saying "and therefore, God".

Perhaps the most interesting factoid to come out of the Bolton book is that Trump actually wants to be re-elected. I had always assumed that Trump wou...

This nevertheless means that cause and effect isn't universal. I was really just pointing out that logical contradiction.

If it's outside of spacetime it's not physical. If it's outside of cause and effect it's not physical. If it's outside of time it's not "permanent" in...

But if it's outside the universe, then it could be anything - or nothing. If causality is not universal, it might be circular, or work in some other b...

But if cause and effect hold universally there cannot be a first cause, because that first cause would, by definition, be outside of cause an effect, ...

You can define terms whatever way you like, and that definition will in a fashion be "universally true". But I don't think very many people will agree...

Requiring several years of study might dissuade some people. But then the higher positions in politics tend to be taken up by older people anyways. Mo...

I feel there is a curious disconnect between your analysis and your suggestion. You wrote the following about the current problems: None of this seems...