+- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com)
+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: Off topic (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-13.html)
+--- Thread: Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked (/thread-9969.html)
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - vileru - 2012-11-19
Tzadeck Wrote:Ethics wasn't really a specialty of mine since I found it pretty stupidWould you care to explain why you found it as such?
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Tzadeck - 2012-11-20
vileru Wrote:Well, there doesn't seem to be any 'correct' theoretical framework for ethics. There are many to choose from, and I'm not sure there's a reason to believe that one is better than the others.Tzadeck Wrote:Ethics wasn't really a specialty of mine since I found it pretty stupidWould you care to explain why you found it as such?
Then after you have a taste for a few of them, you see which one makes sense to you. And for me it's some form of consequentialism (one of which being the famous utilitarianism), but once again it's hard to say that one type of consequentialism is better than another.
Once you decide you like consequentialism, you're committed to the belief that it is ethical to act (or push society in such a way) as to promote happiness/wellbeing or reduce suffering, or whatever it is you think is the most important thing to consider when examining consequences.
Then, you realize quickly that the consequences of events in society are even harder to determine than the consequences of physical events, and we're pretty shit at it. For example: Should we make efforts to reduce violent video games or video games in general? Well, perhaps violent video games cause people to act more violent. Maybe they cause a tendancy to act violently, maybe the don't. Even if they do, they might cause less violence overall because they keep people out of situations where they commit crimes (i.e., they distract 20-something guys and keep them off the streets). What about the other merits and demerits of video games? Well, kids could be playing outside, which would be better. On the other hand, there are lots of other distractions like TV that might just occupy them instead, and perhaps video games are better for mental practice because they are more active than TV. And these thoughts go on and on and on.
Even if you do choose a good theoretical framework, and look at an ethical problem through that framework, and then come to a good solid result, you can't easily convince others that it's a good idea. So even if we came to a good decision on video games, it might not matter.
(And, of course, there are a lot of interesting ways to look at ethics that are largely ignored. Especially, I think it's interesting to look at ethics through the lens of biology or culture, but that really isn't a part of ethics in philosophy.)
I think a non-theoretical, a non-philosophical approach, to ethics is better. Basically, you learn more about the world (mostly through science), about society, and about the concerns and goals of people in society, and you makes applied ethical decisions through what you learn. There's not much need to think about ethics in a logical or theoretical way, and you can still get good results.
Probably the old idea that scientific facts and ethics are separate is wrong. In reality, probably the more you know about the physical world the better you can make ethical decisions.
(Obviously, since I made a meta-ethical argument about ethics, I'm not saying that theorizing about ethics is completely pointless. Rather, I want to say that learning more about the world and society should play a larger role than theory, and should inform theory, rather than the other way around)
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - vileru - 2012-11-20
@Tzadeck
Assuming your applied way of doing ethics, doesn't ethical discourse nonetheless remain important? Once we acquire facts about the world and survey the concerns of people, we still need to somehow reach a decision. In this case, the ethicist becomes a cartographer who maps out the ethical implications of a decision to the facts and the beliefs of the concerned parties. For example, given the facts about fetus development and the societal effects of abortion (crime, poverty, etc.), an ethicist could write a paper about the ethical implications abortion rights have for consequentialists, deontologists, etc. Is this not what many ethicists are doing as we speak?
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - IceCream - 2012-11-20
nadiatims Wrote:We're basically too late to do that now. If we were having this argument 50 years ago i would probably say that you were right. But carbon levels need to be significantly reduced even from their present levels in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. We definitely don't have any longer we can wait.Icecream Wrote:Yeah, the whole point of a carbon tax is to make it more expensive so we switch to alternative methods.Meaning that energy prices will rise and global wealth will decrease. You can't just make green energy viable by throwing money at it. The more money you throw at green energy companies, the less necessary it becomes for them to actually produce economically viable solutions. The government doesn't need to create incentives. Any company that actually comes up with viable green solutions can make a killing on the free market.
Instead of giving subsidies to green energy, why not use that capital to build proven wealth providing infrastructure that can actually help poor people now?
Supposing we don't care about anything other than the economics of the situation (such as the 15%-40% of species that are projected to become extinct because of how fast the changes are occuring). Then, to make this a good strategy, we would need to ensure that all 3rd world and developing countries could grow their economies faster than the costs of climate change adaptation would grow.
This doesn't seem particularly possible, especially considering that climate change will affect the most basic parts of living, such as food security, water security, and health. Struggle over resources and having climate refugees will set development back even further.
Not to mention the fact that infrastructure for delivering that cheap energy is one of the most expensive things there is, and it is completely pointless to develop using fossil fuels if in 20 years time they will be completely banned. In most cases, it makes far more economic sense to get the right infrastructure in place to begin with, even if it is slightly more expensive, and there's good reasons to use renewables in those cases anyway (it's far easier to connect remote areas up for solar power, for example).
Because of the system by which wealth is distributed, with the owners taking a huge proportion of the profit, it leaves the majority of people even in the west unable to adapt effectively to climate change. And it will be the global poor who pay far more than the rich people, often with their lives. We would be far better to curb global warming at 2 degrees, even if that does mean slightly poorer living standards for everyone than save a few extra business owners and see millions of poor die.
The costs of climate change are going to be huge, and running far into the future, because even if we stop burning fossil fuels right now, there will still be effects of what we released now. The longer we use fossil fuels, the higher the costs will be. Although it probably isn't possible to project the exact costs of climate change, it is short sighted to think that using cheap fossil fuels will save us money in the long run.
nadiatims Wrote:The problem is that a surface level glance isn't going to cut it. There are many many arguments that might sound reasonable to non-scientists in favour of skepticism, but that don't sound particularly reasonable to scientists who have been trained to assess the evidence for themselves in a rigourous manner.Icecream Wrote:I'm still not sure what level of consensus between scientists you would require about this before you would make decisions based on it. Certainly the balance of evidence is not on the skeptics side, even if they weren't in the pay of oil companies...I probably can't sway anyone's opinions on these matters. But I would recommend everyone to give at least a surface level glance to some of the sceptic arguments before reaching their own conclusions.
I just don't see the problem with this at all. It's the division of labour... surely that is a good thing for society? There are all sorts of consultants, with their own professional and academic knowledge. If every single person has to then try to evaluate every single thing in the world for themselves because they don't trust the consensus, we would never get anything done at all, it would be ridiculous.
Even if 98% of scientists did turn out to be wrong, we would still have been justified in trusting them. If you have a sick child, and 98 doctors say "it's malaria" and 2 doctors say "it's flu", which treatment would you choose? Or would you then think that you could make a better diagnosis than the doctors based on a cursory glance at a medical textbook?
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - HiiroYui - 2012-11-20
The majority of any group of people can be wrong. Every time you guys mention the large consensus among scientists/economists as evidence of something, you are assuming there’s no choice but to accept the majority’s opinion. Suppose I'm a climate change denier who has a large company and I use the profits to build many universities around the world and create an army of scientists that deny climate change is caused by man. Would that bother you? Think about why that would bother you. The reason is that you believe in your heart that a catastrophe of human suffering awaits us if we don’t reduce emissions, regardless of what the majority of scientists actually say.
I happen to believe in climate change, but I want to show that it’s possible to be skeptical of professional scientists in general. Simply put, scientists never account for the effects all the particles in the universe have on each other. Pay attention to their thought process and you’ll see that they make approximation after approximation, then forget they made them. Have you ever noticed how often they try to explain newly discovered phenomena and how rarely they try to predict the existence of undiscovered ones? That shows they do not actually grasp the concepts they say they grasp. And what’s with their warped view of the scientific process whereby if someone has a theory that goes against the standard theory, they mock him so he gets no funding to do further research/experiments?
And economists? Don’t even get me started. The only reason economics seems hard is that the terminology used obscures what’s really happening. You can simplify economic problems by imagining a similar situation with a small number of people on a deserted island. If they start with no money, who will they pay to build a shelter? How will they eat without the money to pay someone to feed them? If you think about it, money is a tool for motivating people to work by relying on their greed instead of their empathy for others. Renewable energy is currently more expensive than burning coal. You want your hypocritical, environmentalist friend to finally make the switch, but he doesn’t want to because it’s so expensive. So what do you do? You pass a law (with his support) that takes a chunk of money from him each month, and you hope he works harder so he can still pay his electricity bill (which is now based on a renewable energy source). If you succeed in getting him to work harder, it will be by using his love of electricity, not by convincing him to help the people near the coasts avoid rising sea levels. If you fail to motivate him to work harder because he is too lazy, he won’t have electricity and then you’ll have to give that chunk of money back to him (and go back to using coal).
I can easily get people to change their moral beliefs. Even religious people. A coworker came up to me and told me about his belief in an interpretation of the bible that says god only cares about us black people and other “jesuits”. I proceeded to ask him what human actions are immoral, but he avoided my questions and quoted the bible and changed the subject. Another coworker asked us to do her a favor, and I asked him if it’s immoral to ignore her request. “Yes, if you ignore it intentionally”, he said. But then I reminded him that she is not a jesuit, and he quickly changed his mind. Later, I asked him if another action is immoral in his system, and he said, “Stop asking stupid questions”. I said, “Is it immoral to ask stupid questions?” and in a flash of anger, he said “Yes!” He immediately realized the strangeness of what he said and fell into silence. In this way, I get people to contradict themselves. If you try to point out the contradictions in the bible, they will simply say it’s a flaw in the interpretation of the true meaning of the words.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Eikyu - 2012-11-20
HiiroYui Wrote:Simply put, scientists never account for the effects all the particles in the universe have on each other.Well, I'm glad you're there to do that for us.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Tzadeck - 2012-11-20
HiiroYui Wrote:The majority of any group of people can be wrong. Every time you guys mention the large consensus among scientists/economists as evidence of something, you are assuming there’s no choice but to accept the majority’s opinion. Suppose I'm a climate change denier who has a large company and I use the profits to build many universities around the world and create an army of scientists that deny climate change is caused by man. Would that bother you? Think about why that would bother you. The reason is that you believe in your heart that a catastrophe of human suffering awaits us if we don’t reduce emissions, regardless of what the majority of scientists actually say.*Face palm*
I happen to believe in climate change, but I want to show that it’s possible to be skeptical of professional scientists in general. Simply put, scientists never account for the effects all the particles in the universe have on each other. Pay attention to their thought process and you’ll see that they make approximation after approximation, then forget they made them. Have you ever noticed how often they try to explain newly discovered phenomena and how rarely they try to predict the existence of undiscovered ones? That shows they do not actually grasp the concepts they say they grasp. And what’s with their warped view of the scientific process whereby if someone has a theory that goes against the standard theory, they mock him so he gets no funding to do further research/experiments?
We clearly talked about this already.
(PS--Vileru, I'll try to get to your post sometime... I don't have a lot of time for the next while, haha)
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - vix86 - 2012-11-21
HiiroYui Wrote:Suppose I'm a climate change denier who has a large company and I use the profits to build many universities around the world and create an army of scientists that deny climate change is caused by man. Would that bother you?No. If you have strong evidence to support it, then why would it bother me. This sounds a lot like how "intelligent design" proponents always complain about the "academic institution" and majority; 'ignoring' their claims because it would rock their world and force a change in everything. Yet they lack any sort of concrete observable evidence.
To use the line from Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Quote:Have you ever noticed how often they try to explain newly discovered phenomenaOdd, I could of swore for a moment that's what a scientists job was suppose to be. Find and explain new stuff.
Quote:how rarely they try to predict the existence of undiscovered ones?If they have the evidence to suggest that something exists then they'll predict it. Look at much of quantum physics for the past few decades. The framework and evidence suggested the existence of various particles and they later found them.
No (smart) scientist though is going to make a prediction about something they are not very sure of because if they are wrong about it then they get crucified by the media and their peers. It damages their career.
Quote:In this way, I get people to contradict themselves. If you try to point out the contradictions in the bible, they will simply say it’s a flaw in the interpretation of the true meaning of the words.Right, and none of this [rarely] changes any Christian's mind or moral beliefs. They don't suddenly go, "Gosh, you're right, this book is complete nonsense! I'll become a Buddhist, thanks for showing me the light Hiiro!" Why? Because they have faith. Faith is irrational.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - IceCream - 2012-11-21
HiiroYui Wrote:I can easily get people to change their moral beliefs...Forcing people to make silly reductive moral statements and then proving they contradict something else they say, or that they don't always act on them doesn't amount to "changing someone's moral beliefs".
It's because you forced them to make such a statement to begin with that this happens. It's like going to someone, "DO YOU THINK IT IS MORALLY WRONG TO KILL PEOPLE?" and them going, "yeah, sure, i spose", then you going "BUT YESTERDAY YOU SAID THAT GUY WHO WANTED EUTHANASIA SHOULD BE ALLOWED!!!11!!!!!!!1!!!! HYPOCRITE!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!"
People's moral views are complex, and wrapped up in belief systems about the world. I already tried to show you how you can hold some beliefs about society without them needing to be reduced to silly moral imperatives. When you try to make them into moral imperatives, of course they are easy to contradict.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - HiiroYui - 2012-11-22
Eikyu Wrote:You say this as if I made a logical fallacy.HiiroYui Wrote:Simply put, scientists never account for the effects all the particles in the universe have on each other.Well, I'm glad you're there to do that for us.
vix86 Wrote:No. If you have strong evidence to support it, then why would it bother me.Good answer. That’s what someone thinking scientifically should say.
vix86 Wrote:No (smart) scientist though is going to make a prediction about something they are not very sure of because if they are wrong about it then they get crucified by the media and their peers. It damages their career.Exactly what I'm saying. A scientist’s job and the scientific process are two different things. Because of this, there's a scientific way for non-scientists to show the professional scientists are wrong.
vix86 Wrote:Right, and none of this [rarely] changes any Christian's mind or moral beliefs.I didn’t say I can get them to switch to another religion. They’re all illogical to me. What I can do is show them that they are not the good christians (or whatever) they claim to be.
IceCream, you said I misunderstood your previous post (#368), so let me try again. “Yes, empathy is a scientifically observable event….It's part of that network which makes emotions contagious for humans…as a normal human being, you do have the response. So, that's not a moral act.” So you’re saying there is evidence emotions exist and normal people feel them almost by definition. And, when a person feels an emotion, it has nothing to do with morality, so "it is morally good to feel empathy” doesn’t make sense. I agree that statement makes no sense, but for a different reason. While you can measure someone’s pulse and blood pressure, and see if they are smiling, crying or laughing, you can’t determine what emotion they are actually feeling even if you ask them. "It is morally good/bad to smile/cry/laugh/have low blood pressure in this situation, except when...” is better for my purposes.
“Neither is it that i necessarily think you should always act along with empathy, because empathy is a physiological response... it doesn't tell you what the correct action always is.” Emotions don’t tell you what the morally correct action is. It sounds like you agree with me. Emotions are not logical and consistent. Therefore, you have to ignore them and act on your moral beliefs so there will be consistency in your actions. If you see a suffering mouse and decide to end its suffering by killing it, you'd better not also believe animals’ lives are precious and should be prolonged as much as possible.
“You might want to [reluctantly] accept a little suffering in order to have a bigger gain in justice, for example. So making reductive statements about morality isn't always helpful.” Oh, but it is helpful. A person who is willing to accept suffering in this case should say, “it is morally bad for a person to not help suffering people unless he is increasing justice” (I’m ignoring reluctance because it’s impossible to tell if someone is “reluctantly not helping” even if you ask him). People who don’t allow increasing justice as an exception will disagree with his statement and they can try to change each other’s minds by debating.
“Suppose someone writes beautiful music... i don't necessarily think they must stop doing that and go to Africa and help feed starving children just because they also believe that starving children in the world is a bad thing.” If he says “not helping to feed at least 2 starving children at least once a year is morally bad”, he is obligated to help. He can write music and send some of the money he makes to Africa if he wants. If someone with the same view (who is not acting hypocritically) disagrees that he is doing enough to help, they can try to change each other’s minds by debating.
“Neither do we have the type of freedom of choice, or the information necessary in the world to act in line with all our moral choices. In fact, i think we often simply should just agree on our aims, and then just make it law.” If you don’t have the information necessary to act in line with your moral views, you should either stop holding those views or motivate yourself to get the information you need. If you pass a law, you will punish people who hold different moral views instead of convincing them (through debate) that your moral views are more logical. The result is cold-hearted, like the example I gave about you punching me.
“It's like going to someone, "DO YOU THINK IT IS MORALLY WRONG TO KILL PEOPLE?" and them going, "yeah, sure, i spose", then you going "BUT YESTERDAY YOU SAID THAT GUY WHO WANTED EUTHANASIA SHOULD BE ALLOWED!!!11!!!!!!!1!!!! HYPOCRITE!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!"” Exactly. You’re not confused like Tzadeck. You see that this is politics, and I’m not discussing the history of what people like Kant and Aristotle thought. If someone thinks killing is bad, but killing in war is not, that’s a contradiction. He should be more specific about what kind of killing is morally bad.
“People's moral views are complex, and wrapped up in belief systems about the world.” I point out their contradictions—they change their views. If their views are so complex, they would be able to explain why those are not contradictions. Again, my coworker should have had intimate knowledge of his belief system. At the first glance at a non-jesuit, he should know to treat them differently. It's his fault he forgot the main tenet of his own religion. For just about every situation, a religious person should be able to tell you the way he thinks god wants you to act. If they can’t give consistent answers, that means their actions will show no consistency over time and they are not "good christians".
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Tzadeck - 2012-11-22
HiiroYui Wrote:Exactly. You’re not confused like Tzadeck. You see that this is politics, and I’m not discussing the history of what people like Kant and Aristotle thought.Actually, that would be giving you more credit than I do. My biggest impression of what you are doing is that you are being full of yourself.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Shakunatz - 2012-11-22
HiiroYui Wrote:If someone thinks killing is bad, but killing in war is not, that’s a contradiction. He should be more specific about what kind of killing is morally bad.How I dare to call my wife with her name in public!!!!! I should call her with her full name...then, just to be sure I should say also her address, her date of birth and her blood group.
You know, there might be another woman with the same name within earshot. And then "Oh, what a coincidence! However I'm sorry. I meant my wife, the woman standing right there!" would be logic fallacy. Then you would pop from a corner to tell me that logic fallacy is morally bad. Thus, I'm a bad /naive person and I should argue like you to avoid this kind of embarrassment.
暇だね～ｗ
edit:typo
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - IceCream - 2012-11-22
@hiiro: Nope, you've still misunderstood a little. But i re-read my post, and i really didn't make it clear what point i was making, so it's not your fault.
The empathy example is complex, so i'll come back to it later.
HiiroYui Wrote:“Neither do we have the type of freedom of choice, or the information necessary in the world to act in line with all our moral choices. In fact, i think we often simply should just agree on our aims, and then just make it law.” If you don’t have the information necessary to act in line with your moral views, you should either stop holding those views or motivate yourself to get the information you need. If you pass a law, you will punish people who hold different moral views instead of convincing them (through debate) that your moral views are more logical. The result is cold-hearted, like the example I gave about you punching me.Do you beleive this about every law? What about murder? If someone believes that murder isn't morally wrong, we can't arrest them if they murder someone because that would be punishing someone for holding a different moral view?
This is what i'm saying, not everything is reducible to moral statements. If we're talking about society, and we agree that having murderers wandering around would have negative effects on society, we make it law that we must not murder, even if some people disagree. This is evidence based decision making, not moral decision making. Similarly, if our goal is to reduce the amount of murder in society, and we find that punishment does not have as much of an effect on reoffending as rehabilitation does, then we should rehabilitate criminals rather than punish them. This "should" is not a moral "should".
HiiroYui Wrote:“You might want to [reluctantly] accept a little suffering in order to have a bigger gain in justice, for example. So making reductive statements about morality isn't always helpful.” Oh, but it is helpful. A person who is willing to accept suffering in this case should say, “it is morally bad for a person to not help suffering people unless he is increasing justice” (I’m ignoring reluctance because it’s impossible to tell if someone is “reluctantly not helping” even if you ask him). People who don’t allow increasing justice as an exception will disagree with his statement and they can try to change each other’s minds by debating.Again, i disagree. I think making a moral statement like that is ridiculous. Let's take the example of the way workers are paid. Suppose a society has completely fair pay structures at work (pretend we are omniscient and know how exactly how hard everyone works or whatever). Now suppose that the only reason anyone ever became an entrepreneur was because of greed... that they could earn more than they really deserved from how hard they worked in comparison to everyone else. So in this absolutely fair society there are not enough entrepreneurs. Now, we might want to trade some fairness for some entrepreneurs. This is a practical solution to the problem. However, i would not be willing to assent to the proposition "it is morally good to have a fair society unless we need to increase entrepreneurship" because that is not what i believe. I still believe that the fair society is the morally good one. But i accept that that isn't necessarily possible to achieve, because there are other factors that motivate humans. (<- i actually totally disgree with this argument btw, it's just an example
)Right, now let's go back to empathy. Just to clarify, empathy is not synonymous with emotion. It's not the same as feeling sad about something. It is a response in your brain that mimics what would happen if you were in that situation. When i see someone else in pain or suffering, similar neural networks light up in my brain as they would if i myself were in pain. Pain isn't an emotion, as far as i'm aware.
Anyway, what i was trying to say is humans with normal neurology are hardwired to find certain things good or bad. You can't find that other people's suffering is a good thing, in the same way as you can't find your own a good thing. Sure, you can rationalise yourself into that position if you try, but it's not what our brains naturally teach us. Similarly, people naturally believe that justice is a good thing; it can be difficult to convince children that sometimes life just isn't fair. We are hardwired to have a natural tendency towards acting to reduce suffering and increase justice. There are certainly other factors which motivate humans, such as rational self interest. But we don't naturally see self interest as good (in fact, we often find people who are too motivated by self interest to be distasteful, especially when their self interest is to the detriment of others), so try to build a society based only on self interest at your own peril. It doesn't encapsulate all of what motivates humans to act, and it doesn't necessarily act to maximise what human beings naturally find to be good. So the onus is going to be on whoever is suggesting such a society to explain that when comparing two potential societies, the one that is less just or increases suffering in favour of self interest will turn out to be a "better" society. It's not impossible, like in the entrepreneur vs. fairness example. But it does take some explaining and convincing.
I don't really know what you are talking about, "it is moral to have low blood pressure in this situation". How can your blood pressure be a moral act? This seems silly to me. I also think you are mixing up what is scientifically observable with what you personally can observe. An empathy response, for example, is observable in the brain, even if you personally aren't around to stick someone in an MRI to see it. I don't see what relevence this has though, because i wasn't trying to say that "empathy responses are morally good" in the first place, i'm saying that the reason we feel that anything is good or bad to begin with is because we are hardwired to feel as such. Therefore, whether such responses are consistent or not is also irrelevent.
I do think that consistency of your beliefs is important to some degree, and that you can clarify your thinking about morality by checking your beliefs for consistency. But a lot of the time, it is the forcing someone to make such propositions that causes the inconsistency in the first place. Whether someone has the skills in argument to show this is quite irrelevent. Also, you do have to be more aware that not everything does reduce to a moral statement.
**********
HiiroYui Wrote:The majority of any group of people can be wrong. Every time you guys mention the large consensus among scientists/economists as evidence of something, you are assuming there’s no choice but to accept the majority’s opinion. Suppose I'm a climate change denier who has a large company and I use the profits to build many universities around the world and create an army of scientists that deny climate change is caused by man. Would that bother you? Think about why that would bother you. The reason is that you believe in your heart that a catastrophe of human suffering awaits us if we don’t reduce emissions, regardless of what the majority of scientists actually say.This is patently false. If the world ended in 2012 it would be an extreme catastrophe of human suffering. Except, there isn't a shred of evidence to believe it's going to happen, so i don't. If the MMR vaccine really did cause autism, this would be a terrible outcome. Again, there is no evidence that it does, so i don't believe it. So, it's really not how catastrophic the consequences are that is the point (although yes, you should also weigh up the consequences of being wrong). It's the evidence that it is actually happening. I outsource the collecting and interpretation of data to trained scientists, since i don't have the skills to do that myself, that's all.
HiiroYui Wrote:You can simplify economic problems by imagining a similar situation with a small number of people on a deserted island. If they start with no money, who will they pay to build a shelter? How will they eat without the money to pay someone to feed them? If you think about it, money is a tool for motivating people to work by relying on their greed instead of their empathy for others.I don't see where the greed is coming in here. If 10 people suddenly move to a desert island, why would they need to pay someone to build a shelter? They will either co-operate to build one, or they will each build their own.
Trade starts when people want a division of labour. It has nothing to do with greed as a motivation to work. Suppose everyone is farming their own food, and making their own tools. Well, that's all well and good, nobody needs to co-operate, everyone is self sufficient. Now, i notice that that guy next door's tools are much better than the ones i made. He obviously has a talent for tool making, or knows more than me about making them. I say to him, "Hey, why don't we co-operate? I like your tools more than mine. But i understand that if you spend your time making tools for me, you probably won't have time to grow your own food anymore. How about if i exchange with you whatever you need in food for the extra time you spend making me tools?"
Now, to say that empathy is the motivating factor here is pushing it. But empathy almost certainly plays an important part in our ability to co-operate and trade in a fair manner to begin with. If it's about greed, you would simply force the toolmaker to be your slave, and feed him only just enough to keep him alive. This is often how modern society does in fact function. But it's not the basis of trade itself, it's difficult to convince anyone that it's "good", and we don't have to stand for it.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Eikyu - 2012-11-22
HiiroYui Wrote:You didn't make a logical fallacy. The statement is true, but meaningless. Of course, scientists/science can't account for every particle in the universe. What I'm saying is that you certainly don't know more than the scientists.Eikyu Wrote:You say this as if I made a logical fallacy.HiiroYui Wrote:Simply put, scientists never account for the effects all the particles in the universe have on each other.Well, I'm glad you're there to do that for us.
HiiroYui Wrote:I can easily get people to change their moral beliefs. Even religious people. A coworker came up to me and told me about his belief in an interpretation of the bible that says god only cares about us black people and other “jesuits”. I proceeded to ask him what human actions are immoral, but he avoided my questions and quoted the bible and changed the subject. Another coworker asked us to do her a favor, and I asked him if it’s immoral to ignore her request. “Yes, if you ignore it intentionally”, he said. But then I reminded him that she is not a jesuit, and he quickly changed his mind. Later, I asked him if another action is immoral in his system, and he said, “Stop asking stupid questions”. I said, “Is it immoral to ask stupid questions?” and in a flash of anger, he said “Yes!” He immediately realized the strangeness of what he said and fell into silence. In this way, I get people to contradict themselves. If you try to point out the contradictions in the bible, they will simply say it’s a flaw in the interpretation of the true meaning of the words.Do you get along well with your coworkers? This kind of behavior might irritate some people.
Edit: Krugman had a piece today about reality denial and the GOP:
"As the evidence for a warming planet becomes ever stronger — and ever scarier — the G.O.P. has buried deeper into denial, into assertions that the whole thing is a hoax concocted by a vast conspiracy of scientists. And this denial has been accompanied by frantic efforts to silence and punish anyone reporting the inconvenient facts. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/opinion/krugman-grand-old-planet.html?_r=0
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Eikyu - 2012-11-24
In case anyone is interested in learning more about climate change the University of Edinburgh has a very nice series of lectures. This one is a good introduction: http://youtu.be/IM4HlzZpSBc
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - HiiroYui - 2012-11-27
Tzadeck Wrote:My biggest impression of what you are doing is that you are being full of yourself.It is not immoral to act arrogantly/over-confidently. I’m frustrated that you keep saying you are confused. You understood enough to make up a hypothetical debate between two people. Now I ask for you to stop using hypothetical situations and say what your actual moral views are. You talk as if you have none.
Shakunatz Wrote:That wasn’t a “moral should”, but a strategic or logical one. If his words are contradictory but his thoughts aren’t, he should change his words so they more accurately reflect his thoughts.HiiroYui Wrote:He should be more specific about what kind of killing is morally bad.How I dare to call my wife with her name in public!!!!! I should call her with her full name...
IceCream, I think I understand what you are saying now. If the goal is to reduce violent crime, you might look at the correlation between violent video games and crime rates among video game players and say, “there is evidence that violent video games increase crime” and you might believe that it’s illogical to allow young people to play those games if we want to reduce crime. Then if a law is passed that bans those games, but crime among youths increases anyway, you’ll say, “there’s evidence there is no connection between video games and violence” and you might change your view about the logic of the law. I think what you’re doing is not deciding on the morality of an action until you can see what the results of that action will be. If the results seem to lead us closer to the ideal society, you think that action is morally good. I think differently. I believe certain actions are inherently good or bad, regardless of what the future holds. Dropping the atomic bombs ended WWII, and there is evidence that that saved American lives in the long run, but I still hate that it happened. Obama used super PAC money to get reelected, and there is evidence that poor people’s taxes will remain lower for longer and the recovery will be faster, but I still hate that he did it. Anyway, there is room in the system for people like you. Just say you won’t decide on the morality of actions until you see the evidence of the results of those actions. While waiting for that evidence, however, it would be strange if you praise/criticize people for taking those actions.
I want people to debate each other with the purpose of changing people’s minds. Debate should be endless unless everyone agrees with everyone. This way, everyone will constantly try to find better and better logic to support their positions. When people give up on trying to change each other’s opinions, they start punishing each other. I hate the very existence of the punishment phase, yet I realize people can’t just debate forever because they’ll need to stop in order to eat and go to work and stuff. I imagine a system where, if the majority of people think an action is immoral, they can pass a law and make it illegal. When someone breaks the law, he is put in jail, but he can still debate with people on the outside and try to convince them to change their moral view and the law. And supporters of the law try to convince him that what he did really was bad.
Even then, you have to think about the motivations of the people enforcing the laws. You should have people who think killing is immoral investigating murders and catching murderers. You should have people who think doing drugs is immoral catching drug users, and so on. If you just leave it to the general police population to enforce all the laws, you’ll put some policemen in the position of punishing people for actions they don’t feel are bad, so they won’t try their best. I want people to compete at having the best logic, at having consistency between their words and their actions, and at working the hardest.
“Now suppose that the only reason anyone ever became an entrepreneur was because of greed... that they could earn more than they really deserved from how hard they worked in comparison to everyone else. So in this absolutely fair society there are not enough entrepreneurs.” So, everyone that has a job is getting paid fairly in relation to how hard they work, but unemployment is very high? Are all the employers entrepreneurs who are paid more than they deserve? Your actions are what matter. If you do what’s “practical” and try to increase entrepreneurship, you see allowing high unemployment as morally worse than allowing unfair pay among workers. Anyway, this example is strange because debating people so they change their views isn’t an option.
I’ve always thought of empathy as an emotion, but I could understand if you think empathy is the thing that makes you feel happy when you see happiness, anger when you see anger, sadness when you see sadness, and so on. But you also seem to believe that that response is always present to some degree. Almost as if it’s impossible to feel anger and no happiness when people are laughing at you. As if it’s impossible to be happy that a criminal is suffering in jail. In these cases, would you say empathy is present, but dulled down? It also seems strange that you separate what our brains naturally teach us from what positions we reach through thought (or rationalizing, as you put it). Like, “my brain is telling me to give this homeless man some money, but if I do that I won’t have enough to catch the bus, so I’ll ignore my brain”. I believe it really is possible to change your views about what is morally good and bad. Empathy is not hardwired in us because if it were, children wouldn't be able to hurt each other like it was nothing. As for "self-interest", it’s possible to believe that by getting everyone to be greedy for money they work hard to earn, there will be a competition to work harder and harder for more money and therefore society will be better off.
If you believe it is immoral to lie, but you don’t have the technology to read thoughts, you’ll have to settle for some other moral statement. If you believe that when people lie, their blood pressure and pulse rate spike, you might settle for “it is immoral to answer a question while your blood pressure and pulse spike”. If you believe it is immoral to act out of self-interest, you’ll have to change that to what MRI’s can measure. If you are part of a group on a deserted island and don’t have access to advanced technology, you’ll have to change it to something less precise, like “it is immoral to increase the amount of things you possess” or “it is immoral to smile when increasing your possessions”. If you are unhappy with these less precise statements, that should provide you with the motivation to develop the technology you require for more precision.
“It's the evidence that it is actually happening. I outsource the collecting and interpretation of data to trained scientists, since i don't have the skills to do that myself, that's all.” That’s fine as long as you remember that other people are free to not trust the majority of scientists. You criticize those people as “armchair-scientists”, but it is possible to have logical, scientific reasons to think the majority of scientists are wrong. You seem afraid of this idea because your moral views are based on the facts, as determined by the majority of scientists. You seem to think “it is morally good for a person to reduce his carbon footprint yearly because the majority of scientists say the evidence says that if we don’t, there will be catastrophic suffering in the future”. If I create an army of climate change denying scientists with their own interpretation of the evidence and they become the majority, you will have to change your moral view. It's strange how you say you don't have the skills to interpret the data, yet you try to fight back against any evidence nadiatims brings up. If you don’t want to have to change your moral view, you could say, “it is morally good for a person to reduce his carbon footprint because it is morally good to have a net zero impact on the environment”. This way, even if world temperatures start falling or the majority of scientists change/lose their minds, you would still want people to be green. Even better, say “it is morally good to reduce human suffering”. This way, instead of having to predict how bad future suffering will be, people can just concentrate on the suffering happening right now.
If there are 10 people on a deserted island, I would want them all to work hard to help each other without expecting anything in return. It’s beautiful when people slave for each other for free. If one guy is good at tool making, it would be nice if he made some for the others. If someone can farm well and produce a surplus, he would be helping the group if he gave some away. It is hard to determine how much people deserve for their work, so I just say “it’s morally good to work hard at work” and I encourage competition to see who can work harder to help others. People shouldn’t care if they receive fair pay or if they receive an item or service of equal value to that they provided because once they start caring about that, a competition could begin to see who can receive the most for the least amount of effort.
Eikyu Wrote:Of course, scientists/science can't account for every particle in the universe. What I'm saying is that you certainly don't know more than the scientists.Scientists don’t have a monopoly on the scientific process. A scientist’s job and the scientific process are different things. Normal people can realize things scientists have missed. I was just trying to show you guys the way.
Eikyu Wrote:Do you get along well with your coworkers? This kind of behavior might irritate some people.So far, I only fought back against religious people who try to get me to believe. I guess you guys would be surprised at how non-angry they were. Besides, if I say something logical and they have a negative emotional reaction, that doesn’t mean it was immoral for me to say it. People’s illogical emotions don’t render my actions morally bad. Once you stop trying to get your opponents to feel positive emotions and stop trying to prevent them from feeling negative ones, you’ll find it easier to change their minds.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Tzadeck - 2012-11-27
HiiroYui Wrote:In daily life, especially among people with little political or social power, not being obnoxious is often as important as not being immoral. And besides, whether it is immoral or not seems a matter of opinion.Tzadeck Wrote:My biggest impression of what you are doing is that you are being full of yourself.It is not immoral to act arrogantly/over-confidently. I’m frustrated that you keep saying you are confused. You understood enough to make up a hypothetical debate between two people. Now I ask for you to stop using hypothetical situations and say what your actual moral views are. You talk as if you have none.
It's natural to be annoyed by people who think they are insightful when they are not. You have not been in this thread. I don't think you've convinced anyone here that your 'method' is a useful or interesting one; if anyone thinks otherwise please speak up.
You stated one of your points well enough for me to comprehend it and disagree with it, so I tried to explain why with the help of a hypothetical situation. It was meant to illustrate a situation in which your argument did not hold true.
I don't understand what my moral views have to do with anything. I haven't really made any arguments which have to do with my moral views.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - IceCream - 2012-11-28
HiiroYui Wrote:I think what you’re doing is not deciding on the morality of an action until you can see what the results of that action will be. If the results seem to lead us closer to the ideal society, you think that action is morally good.No, that's not what i'm doing. I'm saying that morality is totally irrelevent to discussions where people can agree on what their goals are. (Actually, i can think of examples where it wouldn't be irrelevent, but in general).
HiiroYui Wrote:I believe certain actions are inherently good or bad, regardless of what the future holds.And where do you think these universal morals come from? What makes something inherantly good or bad?
You seem to be suggesting that coherence makes a moral system correct. But a system can be totally coherent but false.
HiiroYui Wrote:While waiting for that evidence, however, it would be strange if you praise/criticize people for taking those actions.I disagree. We pretty much never have complete justification for believing any one thing, but we still have to act. Best evidence is often good enough.
HiiroYui Wrote:I want people to debate each other with the purpose of changing people’s minds... I want people to compete at having the best logic, at having consistency between their words and their actions, and at working the hardest.I think your justice system sounds great hahah. But why must we debate under your rules instead of our own? Certainly changing someone's mind is one valid reason to discuss things, but it's not the only one. Through engaging in discussion, i learn a lot from the reading that goes along with the debate, and looking at the evidence i find. I also come to understand the position of others much better that way, and it allows me to see outside my own viewpoint. I don't think that everyone is convincable though, because not everybody argues on the same terms as i do.
HiiroYui Wrote:you see allowing high unemployment as morally worse than allowing unfair pay among workers.Again, you are trying to insert morality into the discussion where there isn't necessarily any involved. It's possible for something to be a social good but not necessarily a moral good. The two are seperate things. (at least, they can be, depending on your view of morality). To give another example, think of a christian who believes that abortion is morally wrong, but supports the right to choose as a social good.
HiiroYui Wrote:But you also seem to believe that that response is always present to some degree.It depends how you define empathy, but no, i don't recall ever saying anything like that. It's essentially irrelvent though, because again, i'm not saying there is a direct relation between what is moral and when you have an empathy response. I'm saying that the empathy response forms the basis for many of our moral intuitions, and you're going to have a hard time convincing others to ignore them in favour of things that we do not have such responses about.
HiiroYui Wrote:Almost as if it’s impossible to feel anger and no happiness when people are laughing at you. As if it’s impossible to be happy that a criminal is suffering in jail.I don't see why you think i think that would be impossible?
I do think it's likely that if you actually went to jail and talked to a criminal that was suffering, it would be likely to engage your empathy (perhaps unless you had also been sufferring horrendously from a crime they committed. But some people can even manage this.)
I think abstraction is the root of a lot of problems in advanced societies, but direct experience tells you otherwise.
HiiroYui Wrote:It also seems strange that you separate what our brains naturally teach us from what positions we reach through thoughtYou seem to keep thinking i'm taking some kind of radical position, but that's not what i mean. Yes, i think you can and should take rationality into account too. It's not impossible to convince people with rationality that another way is better to ultimately achieve a goal. But think about what those goals are. Are they supposed to reduce suffering? Are they supposed to increase justice? Then you are back at the limits of our understanding based on what our brains have naturally taught is good or bad to begin with. (Just want to say again here, this doesn't make those things universally good or bad, just that they are generally seen as good by humans). It's hard to imagine true goals for society that would do the opposite of these things unless someone really were a psychopath. In which case, we can return again to "social goods" and discount their opinion.
HiiroYui Wrote:Empathy is not hardwired in us because if it were, children wouldn't be able to hurt each other like it was nothing.Children are born with the neural networks necessary for empathy. Next time you see a new born baby, try opening your mouth or sticking your tongue out at it. It will copy you. That's the beginnings of empathy.
It takes time for empathy to fully develop in children though, and even adults can learn to turn it off, or be trained to. Again, it doesn't matter what humans are capable of though, we know that we are capable of great evil, or great good. But that we know intuitively to start with that certain things are evil is down to our sense of empathy.
HiiroYui Wrote:If you believe it is immoral to lie, but you don’t have the technology to read thoughts, you’ll have to settle for some other moral statement.Well, i'm still not sure why i have to settle for any moral statement.
HiiroYui Wrote:That’s fine as long as you remember that other people are free to not trust the majority of scientists. You criticize those people as “armchair-scientists”, but it is possible to have logical, scientific reasons to think the majority of scientists are wrong.It is, of course possible. However, that does not change the fact that the sceptics do not appear to have any logical scientific reasons to think that the majority of scientists are wrong that haven't been refuted at least 3 million times by now. There are still areas that are less well understood, but the overall picture is very clear now. Also, regardless of whether such a logical, scientific objection exists, if someone is not capable of being able to identify which said logical, scientific objections are actually logical and scientific (as most non-scientists aren't), it is irrational to believe anything other than what the majority of scientists believe. And no, i'm not saying that irrationality is immoral, but i don't debate people i think are truly irrational as there is absolutely no point. They are best ignored.
HiiroYui Wrote:If I create an army of climate change denying scientists with their own interpretation of the evidence and they become the majority, you will have to change your moral view.No, i would not have to change my view. The scientists i am basing my opinion on work with real evidence, and their knowledge is based on the best rational principles we currently have. I see no good reason to believe they are in general doing anything other than this. If your army of climate change deniers actually have the evidence and sound rational argument to back up their arguments, they should be able to change the minds of real scientists. If they can do that, then yes, i will believe that it was all a big mistake. Otherwise, they are politicians, not scientists, and i trust their opinion about as much as i trust the opinion of real politicians.
HiiroYui Wrote:It's strange how you say you don't have the skills to interpret the data, yet you try to fight back against any evidence nadiatims brings up.Not really. I learnt that much in GCSE science. And yes, that is exactly how low level those objections are. I can't interpret or understand higher level science for myself, but i can still direct people to the arguments and evidence given by scientists. I don't see the problem here.
Actually, i think the whole consensus argument is probably a little overdone in this thread. I don't have a problem if people have a genuine interest in understanding climate change for themselves, i think it's good to discuss the evidence to the extent we can. But when it comes to decision making, that has to be done by scientific consensus, not the opinion of people who don't understand science properly.
HiiroYui Wrote:If you don’t want to have to change your moral view,Again, i don't see why i have to be forced to give a moral view to begin with.
HiiroYui Wrote:If there are 10 people on a deserted island, I would want them all to work hard to help each other without expecting anything in return. It’s beautiful when people slave for each other for free. If one guy is good at tool making, it would be nice if he made some for the others. If someone can farm well and produce a surplus, he would be helping the group if he gave some away. It is hard to determine how much people deserve for their work, so I just say “it’s morally good to work hard at work” and I encourage competition to see who can work harder to help others. People shouldn’t care if they receive fair pay or if they receive an item or service of equal value to that they provided because once they start caring about that, a competition could begin to see who can receive the most for the least amount of effort.I think this works quite nicely for small societies like a hunter-gatherer type group, but it's hard to make it sufficiently organised to work in a bigger one.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - IceCream - 2012-11-28
I just want to recommend the series "Why Poverty", which is being done by the BBC along with the Open University. There's some in depth documentaries, and some short films. They're interesting, and often touch on topics brought up in this thread.
If you're in the UK, the documentaries are here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p010jxky/Why_Poverty_Four_Born_Every_Second/
Otherwise, you can find links to your local service showing the documentaries here: http://www.whypoverty.net/en/
Short film playlist:
Open University Site: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/international-development/ou-on-the-bbc-why-poverty
helps you study the data and evidence about poverty for yourself.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Eikyu - 2012-11-29
Btw, I think that what you're saying makes a lot of sense IceCream.
IceCream Wrote:In the lecture I linked earlier, the lecturer answers a question about climate change denial and essentially says the same thing as you, that these objections are stupid and only make sense to people who know nothing about climate change. Here's the link to her answer: http://youtu.be/IM4HlzZpSBc#t=56m50s This may not convince anyone, but her answer is interesting anyway.HiiroYui Wrote:It's strange how you say you don't have the skills to interpret the data, yet you try to fight back against any evidence nadiatims brings up.Not really. I learnt that much in GCSE science. And yes, that is exactly how low level those objections are.
It really makes no sense that climate change denial is so widespread, but then many people lack a basic scientific education, or don't care to look at the subject in detail.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - HiiroYui - 2012-12-03
Tzadeck,
You didn't really find a situation in which my argument doesn’t hold true.
Reply #316:
Tzadeck Wrote:Two people can agree on the facts concerning a scientifically-observable, human action and still disagree on the morality of that action. Two people can agree on the morality of a scientifically-observable, human action and still disagree on the facts concerning that action. In other words, stating a scientific fact/statistic during a moral debate as though if your opponent agrees with that fact he must also agree with your moral view, is a logical fallacy, and stating a moral view during a scientific debate as though if your opponent agrees with that moral view he must also agree with your scientific view, is a logical fallacy.#322:
Tzadeck Wrote:There are times when you are having a moral argument and the presentation of a scientific fact logically puts your opponent in the position that if he accepts that fact he must agree with you.Having said that, I also said, “You can't logically fight a moral view with a scientific fact, but you can fight it by using a moral view of your own and pointing out your opponent's fallacies, contradictions and hypocrisies.” I should have been more careful and said, “You can’t necessarily fight a moral view with a scientific fact….” I didn’t mean to cause confusion.
Of course what is moral and immoral is a matter of opinion. Everyone can have different ones. I’m asking you what your opinions are. I said you talk as if you have no moral views, but in fact you’ve been hinting at them a lot:
Reply #147: It is morally bad to act like a racist, lack critical thinking, and not understand higher level concepts. #194: It is morally bad to use “science” with no qualifier to describe economics. #200: It is immoral to talk about economics if you don’t know much about it. #206: It is not immoral to not vote. It is immoral to run campaigns the way politicians currently do. It is morally good to be honest. #252: It is immoral to mistake communism and totalitarianism. It is immoral to talk about communism if you don’t know much about it. #283: It is immoral to do philosophy in a mediocre way. #285: It is immoral to not gain insight into the topic at hand. It is morally good to think simply and clearly. #290: It is immoral to call a goal subjective if the achievement of that goal is measurable. It is morally bad to do politics the way it is currently done. It is immoral to show a degree of naivete. It is not immoral to not change people’s minds. #306: It is immoral to sound confident about a subject if you don’t know much about it. #346: It is morally good to believe what the best experiments tell us. It is immoral to not side with the consensus of the scientific community if you are a layman. #352: It is morally bad to not express yourself well. It is morally good to reduce the number of tangents you go on, be concise, and organize your writing well. It is morally bad to use unnatural language unless it is unavoidable. #363: It is not morally bad to not provide precise definitions. #381: It is morally bad to not listen to your opponent. It is morally bad to have too much of your own ideas/baggage. #408: It is not morally good to talk about ethics. #410: It is not immoral to not choose which ethical framework is better than the others. It is morally good to bring about an increase in happiness/wellbeing or a reduction in suffering. It is morally good to bring about a reduction in violence. It is morally good to make ethical decisions based on what you learn about society and culture through science. #419: It is immoral to act arrogant/over-confidently/full of yourself. #425: It is immoral to be obnoxious.
Technically, you didn’t actually say these things, which is why you will be able to slip out of every one of them by saying “but that wasn’t a ‘moral should’”, “I didn’t mean that in that sense of the word”, and “I was just giving strategic advice”. I hope you won’t do that for all of them, though. Looking through them, I can see a pattern. There’s at least two views you shouldn’t be ashamed to state out loud and with pride: “it is immoral for a person to sound confident about a subject if he doesn’t know much about it”, and “it is morally good for a person to try to bring about a reduction in violence”. These are statements that you might find easy to not contradict with your actions, and no one can necessarily get you to change your mind by simply quoting a fact or statistic.
IceCream,
I thought you think it would be impossible for a normal person to not feel empathy (it's always present, though it may be dulled down) because of this:
IceCream Wrote:Feeling empathy or not isn't a moral event. If you are a psychopath, you probably have something wrong with this neurological network. Otherwise, as a normal human being, you do have the response. So, that's not a moral act. It's not something you could have chosen differently (although i do think it can be trained to be sharper or duller too).
IceCream Wrote:what i was trying to say is humans with normal neurology are hardwired to find certain things good or bad. You can't find that other people's suffering is a good thing, in the same way as you can't find your own a good thing….We are hardwired to have a natural tendency towards acting to reduce suffering and increase justice….the reason we feel that anything is good or bad to begin with is because we are hardwired to feel as such. Therefore, whether such responses are consistent or not is also irrelevent.You seemed to think of feeling empathy kind of how I think of feeling the urge to breathe. It’s hardwired in every normal person and has nothing to do with morality. Anyway, I hope to answer all your other points by talking about your actual moral views. You keep asking why you need to make a moral statement in the first place, and the answer is “because you’ve been hinting at them a lot”.
Reply #4: It is immoral to not believe in basic human rights and equality. #6: It is immoral to believe gay people don’t deserve equal rights with straight people. #13: It is immoral to not be diplomatic. It is immoral to not show respect to other countries. It is immoral to manufacture fear. It is immoral to cut government assistance to those most in need. It is immoral to believe poverty is a choice. It is immoral to not believe everyone has the right to health care. It is not morally bad to give hand-outs. It is morally bad to not meet people’s basic human needs. It is morally good to lead on climate change, and morally bad to give subsidies to carbon fuel companies. It is immoral to not stick your neck out. It is morally bad to bail out banks and morally good to bail out people. #28: It is immoral to stone gay people to death. It is not morally bad for the majority to infringe on the liberties of the minority. It is immoral to restrict the liberty of others to make a free choice. It is not immoral to not have an abortion. It is not immoral to not use contraception. It is immoral to not accept that you can’t make decisions for others in a free society. It is not morally good to have more children. #65: It is immoral to not act now to combat global warming. It is immoral to not invest in the solutions being proposed. It is morally good to provide 50% of you power through non-carbon-producing methods. It is immoral to increase access to domestic energy resources, streamline permitting for drilling, eliminate environmental regulations, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline. #92: It is immoral to allow the amount of human sacrifice necessary for libertarianism to eventually work. #100: It is morally bad to make unfair transactions. It is not morally bad to believe in wealth redistribution. #186: It is immoral to believe people made choices they did not make. It is immoral to ignore social problems. It is immoral to steal from your workers. #189: It is immoral to deregulate banks. It is immoral to be greedy. It is immoral to lie. It is immoral to say whatever will benefit you the most personally. It is morally good to have minimum wage laws and labor laws. It is immoral to pay people as little as possible based on how replaceable they are. #196: It is not morally good to dehumanize and demotivate workers. It is morally good to share profits with workers. #201: It is immoral to not reward workers for the risks they bear. It is immoral to collect enough money to never have to work again. It is immoral to tell workers to take responsibility for their own lives. #203: It is immoral to allow exploitation. It is immoral to sack and re-employ a worker under a new contract. It is immoral to run off with the company’s money if the workers ask for a fair deal. #222: It is morally good to warn people of the dangers of tobacco products. #228: It is immoral for a government to act like totalitarian idiots, try to make up economics as they please, persecute their own citizens, or do any of the other crazy things communist governments have tried to do. #236: It is immoral to allow people to live in poverty under unfair working conditions. #240: It is morally good to compete, make the system fair, and make sure that nobody falls beneath a certain standard of living. #247: It is morally bad to let the unemployed starve to death. It is morally good to provide everyone with a pension. It is not morally good to have more kids. It is immoral to allow poor people to sell thrown-away food to other poor people. It is immoral to allow a person to sell himself into slavery. It is immoral to not compromise. It is not immoral to restrict people’s wealth. It is immoral to take from the earth without considering the consequences and giving back. It is immoral to be selfish. #312: It is immoral to say Obama is clueless about how money works. It is immoral to give oil and coal a push and give a tax break to the super rich. #335: It is immoral to allow a great deal of human suffering to occur. #342: It is immoral to say the scientific consensus is not clear when it really is. #347: It is morally good to act on the best evidence. It is morally bad to wait any longer to tackle climate change. #355: It is morally bad to be a psychopath. It is immoral to hold a shallow and misguided view of freedom and to butcher fairness. It is immoral to sacrifice our humanity for efficiency. It is morally good to believe in a safety net. #360: It is not immoral to trade. #368: It is morally good to learn and use skills related to sustainable development. #370: It is morally good to find the best path to effect positive change. #373: It is not immoral to reluctantly trade one good for another. It is morally bad to lack empathy for others. #395: It is morally bad to avoid spending money now on measures that will reduce future costs. #412: It is immoral to allow 15%-40% of animal species to go extinct. It is immoral to negatively affect food security, water security and health. #417: It is immoral to reduce beliefs to moral imperatives. #421: It is immoral to force someone to be your slave.
Again, I know you didn’t actually say these things, but there are patterns in here of strong positions you shouldn’t mind stating proudly: “it is immoral for a person to not share his company’s profits with his employees”, “it is immoral for a person to have too many children”, “it is morally good for a person to reduce his carbon footprint”, and “it is not immoral to act homosexually”. Most of what you’ve been saying reduce to just a few statements that you may find easy to not contradict with your actions, and no one can necessarily change your mind by merely stating a fact or statistic, so you are allowed to hold these views stubbornly.
Now, I believe it is not immoral for a person to not share his company’s profits with his employees. My reason for feeling this way has nothing to do with what most economists or scientists think, so quoting them will do you no good. Your term, “social good”, sounds a lot like “what most voters in a democracy believe is morally good (or in the best interest of their society)”, but my reason also doesn’t have anything to do with what most voters think, so quoting national opinion polls will do you no good. My reason is “it is morally good for a person to work hard at work”, and this is regardless of his pay.
Work is not necessarily fun. My job is hard, physical labor. I sweat and bleed. Yet, I know that because of my actions, I am benefitting someone, somewhere. I am providing a service to my company’s customers and thereby helping society. I feel pride in not doing it for the money. There is something beautiful about a person trying his best to help others even though he will get little or nothing in return. And that’s how it should be. If you really cared about helping others, you would help them without expecting reward. I don’t accept rewards besides my pay. Rewards tend to corrupt people and make them work to get more rewards. They stop caring about helping society.
The more people work hard at work, the more society is benefitted, so I encourage my coworkers to also work hard. To make things interesting and fun, I do this by trying to compete with them. “Dang, you’re pretty slow!” “I’m work much harder than you.” “You’re lazy! You don’t deserve your pay.” There was once a guy I worked with long ago named Eddie. We would often work beside each other, but we rarely talked to each other. We never had friendly chats. I thought I was the hardest working person at work until I worked beside him. He seemed to have a little more passion and energy than me. So I resolved to work harder than him so I would once again be the best. To my surprise, when I sped up, he went faster too. It seemed we had started a silent competition to be the best. This was the first time I competed at work and it’s hard to describe the feeling I had in my heart. It’s like “I am a good person and I know he acknowledges it. He is a good person and he knows I acknowledge it. Together, we are the only people here with big hearts.” One day, I finished eating lunch early and wanted to get a head start on work before lunch break was over, and he came and joined me! We were working for free, all in silence!
Well, Eddie has long since left the company, but I never stopped trying to work as hard as I can, even working for free. There have been other coworkers who competed with me to see who works harder, and they felt that same thrill and pride. I was surprised to discover that this thrill is the basis of fiscal conservatism (when worded correctly). Both liberals and conservatives say it’s good to work hard, but they each act hypocritically in different ways. By saying basically the same thing, but matching my words with my actions so I’m not hypocritical, I found I can strike fear into people from both sides of the spectrum.
undead_saif’s post (#383) is an example, but maybe you guys would be interested to hear what my managers and boss thought about what I’m trying to do. They panicked. I said “I don’t want a reward for working hard. If you give me one, I’ll destroy it in front of everyone.” They said “We won’t let you do that”. I said “I want to encourage my coworkers to feel comfortable speaking up when they think they have better ideas than the managers for how to make the company more efficient”. They said “We won’t let you”. I said “I’m working for free a few hours a week to make up for the raise I got, but didn’t feel I deserve”. They said “You deserve that money. We won’t let you refuse it”. I said “I want to encourage my coworkers to work harder and teach them how to be more efficient”. They said “But if you do that, there would be no need for managers. We won’t let you do that”. My boss is a tea-party supporter, so he should have liked my message about working hard. But when he learned I don’t do it for the money, I think he realized what that means: he doesn’t deserve his pay. I didn't even debate morality with him, so he can't claim I confused him with my terminology or I over-simplified his moral views. He got scared all on his own, without me even having to mention his hypocrisy. ぞっと・・・
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Thora - 2012-12-03
HiiroYui, why don't you create a "HiiroYui's Debating Method" thread. People who are interested in what you have to offer can follow you there. And people here will be able to resume their discussion about an actual topic (if any momentum has survived, that is.)
You've repeatedly asked people to play your games and they've repeatedly declined. Bludgeoning them with it isn't likely to change their minds. Time to let it go? Maybe you could find some kind of debating forum in Japanese where you could practice your Japanese while engaging with like-minded individuals. That's seems to me like a better use of your time.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - IceCream - 2012-12-05
HiiroYui Wrote:Anyway, I hope to answer all your other points by talking about your actual moral views. You keep asking why you need to make a moral statement in the first place, and the answer is “because you’ve been hinting at them a lot”.I didn't say those things, no, and as i've tried to explain already, there are good reasons why not.
........
Again, I know you didn’t actually say these things, but there are patterns in here of strong positions you shouldn’t mind stating proudly: “it is immoral for a person to not share his company’s profits with his employees”, “it is immoral for a person to have too many children”, “it is morally good for a person to reduce his carbon footprint”, and “it is not immoral to act homosexually”. Most of what you’ve been saying reduce to just a few statements that you may find easy to not contradict with your actions, and no one can necessarily change your mind by merely stating a fact or statistic, so you are allowed to hold these views stubbornly.
You seem to think that almost every possible statement is a moral one, but that just isn't the case. I don't think you should go around multiplying your morals like that, it can only cause trouble. In fact, i prefer a much more intuitive take on morality, because i don't believe in universal morals to begin with. I also find people who hold their views stubbornly, and never change their minds even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary extremely annoying in general. So i'd rather avoid moral discussions at all, to be honest, and stick to discussions with people whose basic moral standards are close enough to my own that they can be convinced by evidence.
Now, if you really want to get close to what someone's morals really are, i think that rather than just translating statements they've made into moral statements (since they may well be making social or scientific statements that have nothing to do with morality), what you need to do is play the "why" game. When you reach a statement they can't justify in social or evidential terms, you have reached their morality in a lot of cases (there are also instances where the irreducible statement isn't necessarily moral though, so be careful).
Think about the following statements:
* We must reduce the number of people starving to death
* We must reduce the number of elephants
Now, in order to convince you about reducing the number of elephants, i must give you a good reason why we must reduce elephants. Is there an overpopulation of elephants? Are they causing other species to go extinct? etc. And then, if you ask why again, i've got to tell you why their causing other species to go extinct is a bad thing, and so on. Eventually, if you ask me long enough, i'll probably come to a statement that is more like the first statement above. Because when you ask me why reducing the number of people starving to death is a good thing, there is very little i can actually answer. It just seems to me to be a good in itself. Even if it were bad for society, (as in, overpopulation), i would still think it's a good. Well, i've given you my view on why this is so in the other posts... because that's what empathy teaches us. I don't necessarily think it's a universal good though, as there are some situations where i might take a different view (hunger strikers, for example). There are also pragmatic considerations to how much can be done, etc.
Anyway, i think this is the kind of thing you should be looking for if you really want to get to the heart of people's morals. What you seem to be doing instead is simply applying morality to any old statement, like the elephant one, and assuming that what the person meant is "it is a moral good to reduce the number of elephants", when in fact the actual moral behind the statement was a very different one, and the statement itself only one way of achieving the desired outcome, to which morality is completely irrelevent.
Ok, lets turn to your pay at work argument, and i'll play your game with you this time. Firstly, and most importantly, whether or not you should work hard at work has no bearing on whether or not you should be paid fairly. It is possible to believe you should work hard at work, but still believe you should be paid fairly for the work you do. It is also possible to work hard at work without working specifically for a reward, but still think that you should be paid fairly for the work you have done. The two things just aren't necessarily connected in that way.
Now, personally, i don't believe "it is morally good for a person to work hard at work", and i bet you don't seriously either (to begin with, because we can play the "why" game with the statement). What i do think is that the harder you work, the more you enjoy your work and gain dopamine rewards, assuming your brain has a normal capacity for that. So that's a good reason to do it. It's just not a particularly moral reason.
Why do i think you don't seriously think that "it is morally good to work hard at work"?
Well, what about if your job was a concentration camp guard? Then, surely, it would not be morally good to work hard at all... in fact, it would be morally good to slack as much as possible without getting sacked (you shouldn't get sacked because the next person might slack less / be more evil than you, and therefore cause more harm in the long run). This should be the same for any industry that does things you see as overwhelmingly morally bad.
Neither is it always the case that more hard work = more benefit to society, even in a job that does benefit society in general. In fact, overproduction is bad for society as it's costly. So you should only work hard enough to meet demand. And, well, since that demand is often created by marketers in the first place, and comes at great harm to the environment, you should probably question whether the work you are doing is actually beneficial to society in the first place (i don't know what you do, so...).
On the other hand, not being paid fairly for the work you have done can harm society too. If you're stuck working a 60 hour week doing robotic tasks just to scrape by, you aren't going to be able to contribute to the development of society through cultural or artistic means. You're not going to be able to spend the time you might like with your children, making sure they turn into good, happy human beings. You're not going to be able to volunteer your time or work hard in another, less monetary based way. If everyone were fairly paid rather than CEO's taking all the money, more of us could work part time and enjoy our lives more fully, and work hard to contribute to society in more individual and personal ways.
Anyway, earlier you said that it is immoral to earn more at work than someone who you think is working harder than you (or something to that effect). You do think people should be paid fairly for what they do. So you contradicted yourself
So yeah, i think that working hard is good, but not morally good. And i think if you really think about it, you will too...
p.s. by all means, if anyone wants to continue any of the other discussions, please go ahead. I think it kinda fizzled out though...
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - Eikyu - 2012-12-07
I can't resist linking to this: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/
It talks about the climate change debate in the US and specifically about how the debate evolved and where the skeptics come from. It gives great insight on what changed since 2007 and why climate change is now so controversial.
Private video of private Romney Fundraiser leaked - HiiroYui - 2012-12-11
Thora, what are your political and moral views?
IceCream, I’m really happy with your response. You made points that might seem obvious to you, but very few people know how to point them out. You’re starting to understand me more and more. Soon they’ll be calling you crazy, too. You and Tzadeck are the first ones to push back against what I’m doing. I want to be sure that I’m right, so I actually want to find people who might be able to point out flaws in my thinking. I learn nothing when people respond with silence.
In Reply #287 I said: However, the words should/shouldn’t, good/bad, right/wrong don’t always imply morality. “If a equals b, and b equals c, then a should equal c.” “You should use e-mail instead of snail mail because it’s more efficient.” “What? 23=24? That’s not right!” “It’s a good thing you remembered your umbrella.” If you let your opponent get away with a should-statement and then his actions contradict himself, he can just go back and say, “But I didn’t mean should in the moral sense”. I’m removing possible excuses beforehand.
So, I know that not all statements imply morality. That is why I try to get people to be clear about what they mean. I pay close attention to when people use words that have positive/negative connotations so I can quote them back when they refuse to clearly say what their moral views are. That usually gets them to admit they were implying morality. I need them to admit it before I can really say they are acting hypocritically. You criticize people for many actions. If you don't want people to perform those actions, why aren't you willing to say "I will not perform those actions". You confuse me when you say some actions are good, but not morally good. When you just say "good" to describe an action, it's too vague. If reducing hunger is morally good except when those people are on hunger strikes, word your view to exclude them. If an action isn't necessarily good in all situations, word your view to exclude situations where it's not good. The point is to get you on the record saying what your future actions will be in certain circumstances.
At the beginning of Reply #324, I showed that the "why game" is included in my considerations. It can also be the case that the method he wants to use to save the endangered species depends on another moral view and isn't necessarily the easiest or most efficient method. And maybe he believes killing elephants is a beautiful thing in and of itself.
I believe it is morally good for a person to work hard at work. I don't know how to give a more basic moral statement in terms of a scientifically observable human action. The best I was able to do was to give an anecdote explaining why working hard is beautiful in itself, but I can't say "it is morally good to do something beautiful" because beauty is not scientifically observable. I mentioned benefitting someone, somewhere, but "it is morally good to benefit someone, somewhere" does not capture what I am aiming for because any action that helps another person would have to be morally good. I mentioned helping society, but "it is morally good to help society" doesn't capture it either because any actions that help the whole (or the majority of) society would have to be morally good. My goal is to get everyone to work hard, which can't be worded in terms of “society”. A person by himself on a deserted island is doing something beautiful if he works hard to build a shelter that protects him from the weather long enough to build a spear he can use to catch enough food to keep himself alive long enough to build a rain collection tank on a hill that he can then use as an energy source to help him build better tools that will help him make..., and so on. Any efficiencies he finds to accomplish more work in less time don’t give him a reason to work less hard. I'm not in a position to do this kind of stuff outside of work right now, so I limit my statement to "at work".
What is fair pay? How much money do people deserve for their work? I've considered this for a long time. I used to think that as you work harder and harder, you deserve more and more pay, but it's hard to determine exact numbers and how exactly do you measure how hard a person is working? Libertarians answer this question by simply saying you deserve how much you currently make at work, and if that's not satisfactory you should work hard and start your own company. There's a simplicity to this that I like, so I made up my own simple version that undermines theirs: it is morally bad to make more than people you admit work hard. By saying this, I don't have to define "to deserve money" and I can pressure libertarians into not taking pride in making more than other hard workers.
As for dopamine rewards, I don't care what is going on in people's brains as long as the outcome is hard work. I won't say "it is morally good to work hard while thinking about how much you're helping other people" and "it is morally bad to work hard while thinking about the reward you may get" because I don't believe these actions can be observed.
I already took into account that I'm encouraging people to work hard regardless of their job. If there are people who work at companies that do things I think are bad, I'll have to add those actions to my moral views and act accordingly. If I say it is immoral to work as a guard at a concentration camp, I'll have to carve that exception out of my view that it is good to work hard, and I'll be obligated to not work as a guard. The burden is not very big in this case, but if I make this exception, I’ll have a hard time explaining why I don’t make exceptions for similar jobs. Instead of going down that path, I’d rather say it’s morally good to work hard at work, and point out that if someone is working hard and something bad happens to him, I will not blame him. It would be hypocritical of me to criticize someone for working hard and bringing about a bad outcome. Even slaves should work hard because it’s beautiful. If that brings about the prosperity of their slave master, I can’t criticize the slaves. In fact, at this stage in my views, I won’t even criticize the slave master (unless he is lazy) because that would mean changing my moral views again. Only when I’m sure I’m ready to take on the full burden will I change my views.
I am forced to be silent on many moral issues because I’m not ready for the burden. I'm too busy trying to fulfill the burdens I already carry. In effect, I’ve given up on the lives of most people alive today, and can only work hard at work until I can create a company that will give me the money to help the people of the future.
“If you're stuck working a 60 hour week doing robotic tasks just to scrape by, you aren't going to be able to contribute to the development of society through cultural or artistic means.” Create a company. “You're not going to be able to spend the time you might like with your children…”. Don’t have children you can’t afford to raise. “If everyone were fairly paid…, more of us could work part time and enjoy our lives more fully, and work hard to contribute to society in more individual and personal ways.” Back to the deserted island where there is no such thing as money. Don’t you see that if all ten people work part time, less work will be done? What if one of them was that guy I mentioned earlier who built a shelter, a spear, a water tank on a hill, and good tools? If he builds shelters for the other nine, catches their food, provides their energy and makes tools for them, they would have more time to enjoy their lives more fully. The presence of money obscures the fact that this is what you are proposing.
“So yeah, i think that working hard is good, but not morally good. And i think if you really think about it, you will too...” When I gave examples of me getting people to change their views, you said it was only because I forced them to reduce their views to silly statements, and that the contradictions I found were not real ones. If I change my mind about working hard, will you say the contradictions you (thought you) found were not real and that my actual views are too complicated to be reduced to simple statements? Many people actually do make such simple moral statements, sometimes even without you asking them to. How can you not take their word when they say those are their views? Why don't you believe they can simply act hypocritically?
“And where do you think these universal morals come from? What makes something inherantly good or bad?” I learned some views from MSNBC, school, and history documentaries and developed others after giving it a lot of thought. I didn’t always hold these views and I used to think the ends justify the means (Democrats in congress should do what Republicans did to gain power) and “an eye for an eye” makes sense.
“But a system can be totally coherent but false.” A person can hold a coherent set of views that you completely disagree with. In cases like this, you compete to convince more people of your own views while trying to catch him acting hypocritically.
IceCream Wrote:There is currently no evidence from scientists that burning toenail clippings causes more rain in the deserts of Africa and allows more food to grow there and reduces hunger. If you praise someone for burning all the clippings he can find, you will not be performing evidence-based decision making.HiiroYui Wrote:...there is room in the system for people like you. Just say you won’t decide on the morality of actions until you see the evidence of the results of those actions. While waiting for that evidence, however, it would be strange if you praise/criticize people for taking those actions.I disagree….Best evidence is often good enough.
“To give another example, think of a christian who believes that abortion is morally wrong, but supports the right to choose as a social good.” I have only heard of people who don’t want to pass a law while the majority of the people don’t support it. Is a “social good” a moral view shared by the majority of the people?
“...i don't debate people i think are truly irrational as there is absolutely no point. They are best ignored.” If their scientific views seems strange and irrational to you and they stubbornly hold on to them for no good reason, that’s your clue that their real reason is a moral one. They think they have to cling to a certain view of the science in order to justify their actions. If you figure out what their morals views are, you may be able to change their minds by arguing over morality. If you ignore those people, you will never change their minds.
“If your army of climate change deniers actually have the evidence and sound rational argument to back up their arguments, they should be able to change the minds of real scientists.” So, you will only listen to your favorite (so-called “real”) scientists even when they are in the minority? Sounds like what deniers do now. “I learnt that much in GCSE science. And yes, that is exactly how low level those objections are.” I had no official science or math education beyond the Advanced Placement level (introductory college physics) in high school, yet I can spot problems in what experts say. I think you are capable of more than you think.