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Felagund


				

				

				
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User ID: 2112

Felagund


				
				
				

				
1 follower   follows 11 users   joined 2023 January 20 00:05:32 UTC

					

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User ID: 2112

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the simple fact is that South African black people mostly have no personal animus toward whites

Why does the EFF get all that support, then?

indigenous

Off topic, but is there a coherent definition of this word?

But as OP mentioned, Judaism today teaches Jews to delight in the genocidal slaughter perpetrated by their forebears. That is, to say the least, unusual among modern ethnoreligious memes.

Plenty of Christians will defend the same. (Of course, there are relevant differences that might affect how we should treat the two.)

Stories like this are an important reminder that they are absolutely not, and that as a rule anyone who makes it to power has abandoned most of the principles I care about.

I wouldn't go that far; I'm sure there exist some great, principled politicians. But yeah, certainly no guarantees.

If it's a great post, and you want the chance of an AAQC (there's a monthly roundup of the best posts) for this month, well, you should post it before the end of the month. Thursday/Friday is plenty of time for people to comment on it; I'd mostly only consider delaying if it's Sunday, or maybe Saturday.

Also, cool username.

And of course the choices we make are informed solely by our character, history, and circumstances (how could they be informed by anything else?).

I think libertarians tend to think that we have some faculty of free will which must include some indeterminacy, which makes choices not solely based on our character, history, and circumstances.

I would affirm rather that we do genuinely make decisions between different choices (and so it makes a lot of sense to talk about our being able to do other things), but which choice we make is due to factors which are determined.

Honestly, any discussion of free will that goes too deep inevitably makes my head start to spin.

Quite fair.

I wouldn't consider myself a compatibilist, but then again I never really understood the compatibilist position so it's possible I am one and don't know it.

Compatibilists just affirm that we can make meaningful choices in a determined world. Most importantly, the world is not fatalistic (what choices you make matter and are tied up in the world's operation), and people can be held morally responsible for the things they do. I see no real reason why either of those would be a problem with determinism.

People will bring up that there's only one possible path, but I don't think that that's a problem. Epistemically, we have multiple choices before us, and that's how we decide and act, and our decisions and actions play a key part in what we end up carrying out and what effect that has on the world. The fact that only one will option lying before us will ultimately occur, and so the others are in some technical sense impossible isn't especially important.

People might object, saying "Isn't it all a lie, then? You thought you had many options, but only had one?" No! It certainly is not. It did not turn out to be the case that that was always going to happen; it only happened because of the crucial role of our decision-making and agency. That action was only the one that was always going to happen because of the very decision-making process of choosing it over the others. Were it not for the exact interplay and balance of weighing that went down as you chose, you would have chosen and acted differently.

Of course, precisely the problem is that that last "were it not…you would have" is dealing with things that might not, strictly speaking, be possible. But I think this is mostly an artifact of difficulties of talking about possibilities in deterministic world, not an argument that we should abandon the concept outright. Regardless of whatever you think about whether humans have libertarian free will, there would still be features in a deterministic world where it would be useful to talk about counterfactuals.

Every less complete model will treat those actions as possible, including the ones we use in our day-to-day lives.

But I think my core argument for compatibilism is:

I make choices because of reasons. Weakening that makes me less, not more, free.

Both sides argued that Aquinas actually supported their position, if I remember correctly.

If you like, I can take the occasion to dig up the old Latin texts and see if I can find any especially clear passages.

But are you aware of what the term "libertarian free will" refers to?

Edit: I saw that you talked about libertarian free will in another comment; I'll talk about it there, instead.

Most people wouldn't describe me as left-leaning.

Ah, that's fair, sorry about that.

I guess I was over-applying (non-explicit) heuristics like "worst post was for attacking Mike Pence," "dislikes religion a lot," "complains about leftists being downvoted," and "is downvoted frequently." None of these, of course, require one to be on the left.

If you're interested in my position on hot button topics I'm happy to straightforwardly list them.

I have no objection to you doing so, though I don't intend to turn that into an argument over every hot-button issue at once.

Thanks, those are both good examples.

I agree with you, and not with him, but you're not addressing his claims at all.

Okay, I'm pretty much on board with that.

A lot of people (not me, nor you) would prefer libertarian free will.

That's remarkable to me.

It's entirely possible I'm wrong.

The connection I saw was to the idea that God can see all possible outcomes, and His providence moves events in such a way that the choices He can predict we will make work towards His greater plan while preserving free will. That seems to fit well with Leibniz's thought, especially from this section of his Monadology:

I think the key question here is what does "the choices He can predict we will make" mean? I can see two ways of construing that. Either, it could satisfy the principle of sufficient reason (that is, there exists some set things which together suffice to cause/make it the case that I make whatever choice I end up making), or a way that doesn't (in an undetermined-by-causation manner, we would make choices in any setting, and God happens to know this).

I don't think the Jesuits meant the first, because then the whole schema isn't really different from whatever other determinists would say. But the second does seem to deny the principle of sufficient reason to me. Am I wrong in that? I assume you prefer the second?

It seems to me that the Dominican's primary objection is that God structuring the universe around our choices puts God subservient to man's decisions, in a sense. Which I don't really agree with, but I can understand the objection.

Specifically, in the sense that God's will, even exhaustively stated, does not suffice to explain the state of the world, but would depend also upon man's decisions (known to God in his middle knowledge).

To be clear, I do think the state of the world depends on man's decisions, but I think that man's decisions are something that are adequately accounted for by God's providence, not something that there is some extra nondeterministic component in.

Do I misunderstand what you think anywhere?

Perhaps what I meant is that I thought that you would think that our choices are not determined, that I thought you would think that there exists no set of things that would ensure that you make the same choices. (sorry, that's wordy)

I can't find a working nitter instance anymore.

There is still at least one, though I'm not sure that I want to spread it everywhere in case extra traffic kills it.

I don't think that's quite right.

Rather, I read it as: Dark Enlightenment: knowledge of forbidden truths Gray enlightenment: see above, but more morally ambiguous

And I've seen no third.

@grayenlightenment, thoughts?

Unfortunately, while it's definitely good at a producing the intended effect and capturing something of human experience, it's not an effect I particularly care to voluntarily immerse myself in.

Thanks! I've heard portions recited, but I've never read through the first of those.

Lepanto's fun.

That was a pretty bad comment.

Someone: "Mike Pence is a good role model"

You: Scornfully list a bunch of things you think are terrible about Mike Pence, assuming that everyone agrees the same things are terrible

The problem is chiefly the contempt and lack of justification. If you'd merely listed those as reasons that you don't think people should support Mike Pence, yes, you'd draw downvotes, but not as much.

That is, explaining why you support things in a way that shows that you understand that people can disagree on the issue and not be crazy, since there are a bunch of people present who would disagree with you on at least some points of your attack on Pence, and who do not fancy themselves crazy.

I at least am in favor of 1, 3, and 4, and get the motivation behind 2, even if I don't think it's good. Does that mean I like everything about Pence? No. But it does mean that your tirade isn't the self-evident thing you think it is, and recognizing that allows for better conversation.

I'll second this, though with the caveat that you will get some downvotes whenever you disagree with the local hivemind. That's just a fact. But you (@AhhhTheFrench) are definitely above average among the handful of left-leaning posters here in how antagonistic and flame-y you are, and I've downvoted several of your worst posts accordingly.

Saying things in a better way and backing them up will make a real difference in how you're received.

At the very least, that sort of thing affects my vote, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I think 16 people downvoted that post because it questioned how committed Republicans were to the principles of the anti-lockdown cause.

The thing that would tempt me most to downvote that (I didn't) was the following sentence:

Density + poverty drives most of the type of crime you seem to be concerned about, not who you vote for.

I think there are other factors besides density and poverty: most importantly, policing.

That said, I agree with the overall thesis that people downvote for disagreement, and more than I would prefer. I would be happier with downvoting for disagreement when what is going on in someone's head is closer to "that point in that comment is wrong" than "I don't like their team."

You did, hence why I'm the other upvote here.

That said, I don't know that I agree that all of those would be serious problems. I'll run through what I think of each.

tragedy of the commons

This is only really a problem when there are commons. With expansive enough property rights, there would not be many commons, and so not much tragedy. That said, some things are hard to keep separate (like air). In such cases, while, strictly speaking, it may be regulated as an infringement on property rights, really it should probably just be treated as a commons with no property rights, and subject to regulation accordingly.

extraction without due compensation

Not really a problem with good property rights, except in cases of bad decision making/desparation (and the market should sort out the latter).

collusion

Yup, this is a problem. It shouldn't get worse than monopoly pricing, but this isn't great, and regulation is probably reasonable here.

fraud

Yeah, I'd want this regulated. But I would assume that many libertarian states (should such exist) would care about things like this? Breaking contracts like this should fall afoul? Maybe violate property rights?

monopoly

Yes, bad, though not always worth getting rid of, if the alternative is worse.

That said, I'm not sure that we'd have more of these. Competition should try to keep these away, and the reduced regulation should lower barriers to entry for competitors.

rivers on fire

See tragedy of the commons.

cancer clusters

The market might sort this out to some extent (in that people won't want to be in harmful situations, and so would have to be compensated accordingly should they know), but yeah, this is a problem.

disgusting food

What? There are no laws requiring that our food, as it exists today, tastes good. It tastes good because they want us to buy it. This wouldn't change.

dangerous drugs

Yup. I'm not a fan. I suppose libertarians could try to regulate nonconsensual use of them as a crime; it would be infringing on the rights of others?

pinkertons

Not okay. The state has the monopoly on violence. That doesn't change.

unsafe air travel

Well, airlines have a pretty strong incentive to make air travel safe: they want people to fly. I don't think this would be too large of a problem.

Overall, I don't think it's nearly as hellish as you suggest to go with the minimalist option, though there are several things that I would prefer be regulated.

I agree with you that if you were them, you would have made the same choices, but that comment didn't respond to what @ChickenOverlord was saying.

That is:

You: if you were the same as them, you'd make the same choices

ChickenOverlord: Only if choices are indeterminate

You: if you were the same as them, you'd make the same choices

That merely repeats your argument. It doesn't address his.

That said, I think both of you assume too much about the implications of determinism, saying that it strips one of responsibility.

@ChickenOverlord, you say, "and if it doesn't then this discussion doesn't even matter but it's not like I could stop us from having it." This does not seem true. This discussion, under the belief that we have no free will, does at least matter in the sense that it is a part of the set of influences upon us that shape who are and contribute to our choices. And, depending on what you mean by "could stop," you certainly could. If you wanted to, you could get up and leave, the only question is whether you will decide to, which is itself based on such features as who you are.

@AhhhTheFrench, you bring up causal influences upon choices to argue that this absolves one of responsibility for one's choices. I do not see any reason to think that that is the case. You were still the person who made those choices, which reflects on one's character, etc. It seems entirely reasonable to cast blame on someone for acting badly, according to their own character. That their own character was shaped by other factors is irrelevant. That doesn't make them better.

I find this exchange a little amusing in light of your pro-Arminian tendencies that we were just discussing: I would have thought that meant that you thought that choices were not sufficiently determined by one's character and history and circumstances, while here you seem to argue that that does suffice.

It (assuming you are referring to the Jesuits) isn't the same as Liebniz's "best of all possible worlds" theodicy. Leibniz was working from the principle of sufficient reason, among other things, which the Jesuits would not affirm, as they would think (roughly speaking) that human choices are brute facts; there is no reason sufficient to explain the choice beyond the choice itself.

The Dominicans' position is more compatible with that, I suppose.

You know, the folks that take umbrage with this (outside of a few truly principled libertarian types) were probably completely fine with the speech banning here, they just disagree on the targets.

Eh, I think there are a pretty good number of people who are against speech restrictions in general. I'd expect there to be a good number of Republicans opposed to this.

I assume this would better for the separate threads from Sunday or Friday.

Do you remember what belief?