ControlsFreak
No bio...
User ID: 1422
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I don't disagree at all. I would be curious to see where the current balance lies if we actually just asked them, "Is there an objective morality?" We might be so far along that we'll get blank stares to that, too.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Not really. It's more that science is built with assumptions that make it only relevant for certain types of evidence, certain types of objects, certain types of physical theories, etc. Within those constraints, the tool is extremely useful. The problem is that many people casually mistake those constraints on a particular tool as being the same thing as a complete theory of everything.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
if you assume that operationalizes as a low initial credence in any metaphysical theory, until reasons to believe it over other metaphysical theories are offered
I don't think that assumption holds for the pithy Hitchens quote. I'm pretty confident we're supposed to interpret it in a different way. In any event, I agree with a lot of what you have to say.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Thanks! I have what I need to know about your position.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Oh honey, techdirt was embarrassing itself by constantly lying about tech/intelligence/surveillance law long before 2016.
ControlsFreak
5d ago
There is truly a Hlynka-sized hole in the moderation team. This kind of petty shit is getting worse and worse, and the King's court is really struggling to conceptualize their subjects as agents.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
Yeah, again, this is definitely why are there still monkeys territory.
I expect the typical reader of this forum to be able to understand, when presented with:
"What sin did a two year old child with ALL commit, such that she wasn't worthy of a miracle while your remission from UC was?"
That we are operating under the hypothesis that there is an All Knowing, All Powerful and All Loving Creator who loves his children equally.
Like, where exactly did this come from, and what is supposed to be the implied conclusion? Please speak plainly.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
Because i do.
Are you saying this in the vibes-based sense, or is there another reason?
ControlsFreak
3mo ago
At least with Am14S3, there is a requirement that an individual "engaged in" insurrection, yet even there, we have briefs by eminent Constitutional scholars submitted to the Supreme Court saying that it is sufficient for Trump to have simply done nothing to stop it. A4S4 doesn't speak to any individual engaging in the invasion, helping it along, or being passive to it. What people in the US are currently doing WRT a possible "invasion" simply has no bearing to the current question of whether it is, in fact, an "invasion" according to the Constitution. The conclusion of that question would have implications as to what certain folks are supposed to do, but that someone is or is not doing what they are supposed to do is not dispositive on the question of what the word means. For example, if we saw the government performing unconstitutional searches as a policy choice, we wouldn't say that it must be the case that those searches don't actually fall under the Constitutional definition of a search. We'd just say that they're doing a thing that they're not supposed to be doing. It would be similarly silly to say that Jan6 couldn't meet the definition of insurrection if Trump made it a policy of the gov't to let them into the Capitol.
To be clear, I'm not taking a position on whether it is or is not an "invasion". That would require different analysis.
ControlsFreak
3mo ago
Eh, I find that most atheists are extremely implicitly committed to the a metaphysical ontology that is just, "Oops, I have the methodological constraints of science, and I've mistaken them for an actual metaphysical ontology." When you poke them on this, they don't clarify, "No, actually, I'm not making this extremely boneheaded mistake." They're still committed to it. They just get angry that you pointed it out.
ControlsFreak
4mo ago
I mean, your comment was imagining a completely fictitious interlocutor and concluding bad faith for all of them. Literally zero "evidence" for any bad faith to be "evident", except the type of evidence you have conjured up in your mind for your fictitious interlocutor. Glad to know both what your standard of evidence is (literally imaginary) and what your interpretation of the spirit and rules of this forum is.
ControlsFreak
5mo ago
Phenomenal, pun intended. Where in this nomenclature does atheism fall?
ControlsFreak
6mo ago
Because the above commenters said "cannot". They made a claim. An impossibility theorem. Only, they actually didn't say anything about how it's supposed to work. How's this impossibility theorem supposed to work?
ControlsFreak
7mo ago
Please answer my questions rather than trying to change the topic. We're actually getting very close to a crux here. We can move to a different topic afterward, and I promise I'll be responsive, but let's not avoid the first topic.
ControlsFreak
9mo ago
I remember you, too.
My version brought data.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Many mothers who aren't particularly nice people end up greatly disliking their children when they turn out to be, surprise, not very nice people either. They just realize something about the fruit of their labor after the deed has already been done.
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
I have nothing but respect for your posts. That's a great read. Thanks!
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Whether they're being "paid to have kids" is a claim that is not reflected in the legislation
So wait, you don't get
a maximum annual benefit of $6,833 per child to help with the cost of raising a family.
$6,833 per year ($569.41 per month) for each eligible child under the age of 6
$5,765 per year ($480.41 per month) for each eligible child aged 6 to 17
?? I thought you had a citation and everything!
ControlsFreak
1yr ago
Would you be in favor of removing taboos on infanticide for these reasons? Many parents go through quite stressful times when raising a small child. This stress causes a not insignificant fraction of those parents to desire no longer having said child. Some fraction of those parents consider the possibility of killing/abandoning their child to remove such concerns. Some fraction of those parents actually do the deed, regardless of the current social pressure against it.
You may feel comfortable believing that you were actively wanted in some period between approximately -9mo and -3mo. After that time, say, between -3mo and +2yr, perhaps a very substantial portion of that time, you could have been very unwanted. Perhaps you were very barely marginally merely tolerated, and that only due to the extreme quantities of social pressure exerted on your parents.
Do you think the world would be a better place if we removed all that social pressure, so you could make sure that you were, like, actually actually wanted?
I rather like being playfully jocular or humorous. It really makes it plain and clear what's going on. Let me see if I can understand what you're saying. One can just pull some unprincipled definition of what counts as "evil" (or good)... any definition, literally does not matter. Like, your entire moral system could just be, "Ponzi schemes are good, actually," and that's it. That's all you've got. Then, we don't even need the bad old methods of calculation that required quaternions or elliptic curves; we can just add, subtract, and multiply. I'm not actually sure what to do in the next step. Is there another form of Bayes' rule that I can use to make progress? Maybe an inscrutable matrix form of it? I can't find one on Wikipedia. Maybe there's a NeurIPS paper you can link me to?
I'm not opposed to shutting up and multiplying, and I'm pretty good at coding. I just need to know what expression I'm supposed to use in my code. I'm tryna get to some way of commenting on the problem of evil.
This question is, in a strange way, sort of related to my own work that is squarely within my domain of expertise. There is a long history in the literature of a theoretical construct that is sort of related, in a way, to the actual thing we want to know. I observed that there are basically zero, AFAICT, papers out there that actually use the theoretical thing to go on and compute the thing that we actually want to know. It just doesn't seem to be a thing that you can actually do. So decades of papers just get to the point of the theoretical construct, and then stop. There is no actual coding of the thing we actually want - the thing that is actually useful - the thing that was the entire point of the investigation in the first place. It seems to be basically not possible to actually just shut up and compute it. And so the best paper of my career came at the problem from a completely different direction, saying that if we go a different route, we can have the thing that we want, with most of the properties that we were hoping to have. It has spawned a mini-literature of folks building on it now, since they're actually able to shut up and multiply now. So, by all means, let's figure out how to shut up and multiply our way from, "Ponzi schemes are good, actually," to a problem of evil. But it needs to be something that I can code, since that is the premise we're starting with.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
I've noticed him weaseling out of his own words, refusing to acknowledge clear evidence disproving his point, and in general engaging in convenient forgetfulness about the dozen times his claims were substantially rebutted.
Straight talk - is this grounds for banning now? ...because you're going to have a lot more work to do. Do you just need people to document it?
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
I clearly understand more than the basics of your position... I just had to drag it out of you. The only thing left in question is the clarity of your exposition. If you would like to continue having people misunderstand you, that is a problem of your own making. If you'd like to see if there are ways that you can be more clear, I am willing to help. I can also jump in threads in the future and try to head off any misconceptions that other Mottizans might have about your comments. Whatever it takes to help everyone understand each other better.
ControlsFreak
1mo ago
Fair enough. I would only express to you that it might be of value to understand that your opponents have done more than their fair share of wrestling with the general problem you propose. Simply asking, "What sin did a two year old child with ALL commit, such that she wasn't worthy of a miracle while your remission from UC was?" as though it were a complete, coherent argument for a specific position is sort of on the same tier as, "If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Like, yes, Mr. Fundi, we have thought of that concern, but you'll need to step away from your Fundi Smugness for long enough to try to understand anything about how this tradition works.
I have been around long enough to know that 95% of the time, "It's holistic," means, "It's bullshit." Interestingly, I've even seen this attempted in peer review. Thankfully, the Editor in Chief didn't buy it and told the academic janny to do a better job. He needed something real, specific, and actionable.
You wrote:
Point me to one. Make it something specific. Something real. Something actionable. Something that can actually be put into practice to improve future posting. Without something, the most likely conclusion is, "Atheism is the sacred at The Motte."
Notice that last time, your complaint was that I didn't make it obvious enough that I was riffing off something. [EDIT for appropriate bold:] This time, that is exceedingly obvious. Last time, you complained about me responding to follow-on questions. This time, I have said nothing else up to this point. Give me something real. Something actual. Something actionable.
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