posted
"if it were not of survival benefit, our mind would not seek simple truths"
Hm. If it were not a survival benefit, my taste receptors would not drive me to seek out sugary, fatty foods that would then be stored for further use!
Seriously, your claim is true in the sense that, in specific situations, a simple truth is a helpful thing. But the problem is that not all truths are simple, and treating simplicity as something of "survival benefit" ultimately creates a selection of simple lies. If we stuck with simple truths, we'd still be beating each other over the head with femurs.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I posted this somewhere else but it's good to get the word out... how Karl Rove came out today and basically told us the anti-gay amendments were used to get the evangelicals out to vote Republican. It was all a tool, not to increase "morality", but to get the Republican agenda through.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Yes we see the utility of applied "scientific" codes in the great performance of our public schools. If they had not returned to old fashioned practical methods half our kids would be illiterate.
If you cannot say it with math it is not a science. Since efforts to weigh a decision have been shaky at best, I am comfortable with this caution, do not be quick to abandon the wisdom of our fore-fathers before you have a top to bottom code that works as well.
Our social experiments paying girls to raise children out of wedlock, lockstep education, and any number of other failures show one thing for certain. We have no suitable replacement for traditional morals.
Kant is often sited as obviously mistaken, or flawed. A negative example... but as was stated he was brighter then most. His effort is flawed not his reasoning. Without reality as a basis to build a system, (starting from the premise of pure reason) you are doomed to failure in developing a viable system. The point being that the best system is built like our religious code, by trial and error and passed on, by tradition.
Which brings us back to the practical value of our traditional morals. Don't be quick to toss what you cannot replace with something better.
posted
It just goes to show that you Kant put one past on Hatrack, Sara.
------
"Our social experiments paying girls to raise children out of wedlock, lockstep education, and any number of other failures show one thing for certain."
Out of interest, what criteria -- and I'm assuming that you're going to use math, here, because otherwise it's not a science -- are you using to determine the failure of these initiatives? Are you suggesting that children are less likely to survive to adulthood, or less likely to prosper? Are more people languishing in poverty and dying of starvation? Are our people less well educated? Are literacy rates falling? Math skills declining? Pregnancy rates and crime rates ascending through the stratosphere?
You may want to choose your indices carefully, by the way.
posted
Did you just ((hug)) Karl Rove? *blink* Eeeew. At least you guys can't share partner benefits in one of the states full of people he manipulated into voting for his candidate. That would lead to the decline of American civilization, and we can't have that.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Ah, how smart you are to have outwitted a doctorate in philosophy. I'm sure its not that your argument is flawed and you don't see it, what with your minor in philosophy and inability to properly formulate behaviors for kantian analysis.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
What do people mean by traditional values? As if homosexuality didn't exist in the past? gah, Why can't I stay out of these threads and get drunk off of Sviridov?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
"Increase in number of poor girls raising children out of wedlock. (Number) More bad"
Okay, so you're arguing that we have more girls raising children out of wedlock than ever before, as a direct consequence of giving money to them to keep their children alive. It is your contention that not giving them this money would make it more difficult for them to raise these children successfully, and that the assumed reduction in out-of-wedlock births would be worth the poorly raised, dead, or aborted children "spawned" during the transfer.
Now produce numbers, or it's not a science. I'll wait.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Poor PHD asserting authority to stop the noise.
If only it were something you could use anywhere but in acedemia you would not have had to grade those papers.
Why is it all the experts on Maneuver, Strategy and Tactics lean Republican?
I do use a value system based on cost benefit, but the coin I use is a bit more refined then the dollar. Not to be criptic but it is not a thing I would get into without a spell/grammer checker in the pressence of critics.
The point is that I am often amazed by how well it jibes with traditional conservative values.
quote: Never been near a university, never took a paper or a learned degree, and some of your friends think that's stupid of me, but it's nothing that I care about.
Well I don't know how to tell the weight of the sun, and of mathematics well I want none, and I may be the Mayor of Simpleton, but I know one thing and that's I love you.
When their logic grows cold and all thinking gets done, you'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor of Simpleton.
I can't have been there when brains were handed round, (please be upstanding for the Mayor of Simpleton) or get past the cover of your books profound, (please be upstanding for the Mayor of Simpleton) and some of your friends thinks it's really unsound that you're ever seen talking to me.
Well I don't know how to write a big hit song, and all crossword puzzles well I just shun, and I may be the Mayor of Simpleton, but I know one thing and that's I love you.
I'm not proud of the fact that I never learned much, just feel I should say, what you get is all real I can't put on an act, it takes brains to do that anyway. (And anyway...)
And I can't unravel riddles, problems and puns, how the home computer has me on the run, and I may be the Mayor of Simpleton, but I know one thing and that's I love you (I love you).
If depth of feeling is a currency, (please be upstanding for the Mayor of Simpleton) then I'm the man who grew the money tree. (no chain of office and no hope of getting one)
Some of your friends are too brainy to see that they're paupers and that's how they'll stay.
Well I don't know how many pounds make up a ton of all the Nobel prizes that I've never won, and I may be the Mayor of Simpleton, but I know one things and that's I love you.
When all logic grows cold and all thinking gets done, you'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor of Simpleton. You'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor of Simpleton. You'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor. (Please be upstanding for the Mayor of Simpleton.)
quote: Okay, so you're arguing that we have more girls raising children out of wedlock than ever before, as a direct consequence of giving money to them to keep their children alive.
Actually the money was not to keep the children alive. Charity was ample for that. It was to remove the stigma and shame that local charity imposed that made the case for federal intervention.
quote: It is your contention that not giving them this money would make it more difficult for them to raise these children successfully, and that the assumed reduction in out-of-wedlock births would be worth the poorly raised, dead, or aborted children "spawned" during the transfer.
It is my contention that intervention made the situation worse and that this is cautionary tale to those who would intervene, without a science to guide them, in a system that has long been in place.
posted
"Not to be criptic but it is not a thing I would get into without a spell/grammer checker in the pressence of critics."
For your benefit, or for theirs? Then again, if you're putting big words like "criptic" into it, it's probably best for all concerned.
BTW, please don't insult Sara again. At the present time, I tolerate you. I will stop tolerating you if you question the quality of her education one more time. I recognize that you do not know her well, and do not know her current profession or background; I would suggest that you do some research on this topic before you presume to judge the use she's made of her doctorates.
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"It is my contention that intervention made the situation worse..."
Yes, I understand that. And I am asking you to prove that with "scientific" numbers. Although, as someone who is familiar with the "scientific" numbers in this specific case, I should warn you that it will be more difficult than you may at first assume.
Tom, you big sweetie. I am mortified with myself for playing the degree card, anyway. Never ever ever done that here before. Shouldn't have now. It was, well ... today, at least ... irresistible. I won't do it again.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote: Actually the money was not to keep the children alive. Charity was ample for that.
Are you joking? The welfare system came into being because charity was not doing the job. It wasn't a social experiment. It was a sincere effort by the government to provide the minimum neccessaries to citizens who did not have them.
[ November 03, 2004, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: Wussy Actor ]
Posts: 288 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
I offered no personal insult and could care less weather I am tolerated.
Recorse to authourity is one of the fundamental logical fallacies as she can tell you.
I just reminded her.
We are discussing practicallity, the core of the discussion is that religious convictions should not guide law. My position, if you are lost, is that there is no better basis available, therefore the aplication of religious morals is perfectly valid and also nearly unavoidable.
Threats that do not involve life and limb are merely a bore.
I trust that the healing you speak of makes you an MD as well? That is a practical set of skills and it is admired by me.
Tell me are there practical reasons for restricting sodomy? From the standpoint of medical science?
posted
Bean Counter, you have an awkward syntax and use too many 'big' words when short ones will do fine. Numbers must be more your 'thing', as you have indicated.
Yes, I have just insulted you. Get over it. You are annoying me by attacking personality instead of the substance of the message.
I am also not okay with this, Vana. I am also a Christian. I believe in religious freedom (not just for different sects of Protestantism, as some believe was the founding fathers' original intent). I believe that same-sex unions will not rend our society's fabric and cause our families to disintigrate. That's what MMORPGs are for (kidding! just kidding!).
Math is a wonderful thing, but it cannot calculate human emotion. That's why machines cannot create novels or sonatas. Not good ones, anyway.
I am apprehensive, now. I do not feel safer. I am part of a set of Americans that just do not organize well, because we are too tolerant, apparently.
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
"My position, if you are lost, is that there is no better basis available..."
Yes. And like your other position, the one in which giving federal funds to single mothers directly increases the number of single mothers, I await proof of this claim.
To date, you have misapplied Kant's Critique of Pure Reason but have made no other supporting argument. What else do you have?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
PS--Mosaic law is not the only set of laws telling one not to kill or covet or steal. Hammurabi anyone?
Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
You consider that homosexual marriage would create an unacceptable tax burden for you, then? Have you calculated this burden relative to the social cost of widespread promiscuity, just to mention one complicating factor?
See, BC, I find your grasp of "scientific numbers" really, really lacking, especially for someone who appeals to numbers as the only form of science.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Marriage allows a variety of tax credits. State and Federal. Money not going in is the same as money going out.
Pshaw. Until very recently there was no tax benefit to two-income couples being married. There are no tax credits dependent on being married, although being married can tend to hurt eligibility for them.
There are lots of tax credits for parents, mind you.
Apprantly you want to use denial of equal civil rights to subsidize your lifestyle.
posted
Sorry mack, I thought I deleted that almost as soon as I posted it. Apparently not soon enough. Almost as soon as I posted it, I didn't think that my comment was a good idea.
So to be clear, Mack isn't crazy. I'm just working it hard to make it seem that way.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Who are you talking to, mack? There's no one there. Oh Lord, spare this poor child from the ravages of the cursed brain fever.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
This whole thing makes me physically ill. The number one problem in these states is that to those passing this legislation, gay people are alien and strange. This isn't a human issue for them, it's an abstract one (and yes, I know there are exceptions.) I myself live in an uber-conservative district in East Texas, and I honestly feel like moving to Canada right now. I need to be someplace liberal and godless for a while, where people aren't excluded from basic rights (or at least considerations) based on their genetics.
In fact, I used to be one of those annoying kids who tried to convert all of his friends. Frankly, the only gay person I know is a complete ass (who also happens to be my boss,) although in High school there was this incredibly cool lesbian girl in one of my classes. For me, homosexuality was wrong. Then it started to become a human issue. You see, all of the conventional morality that had been layered on top of me through my years of attending churches and listening to sermons could not stand up to the story of David Sedaris, or the music of Rufus Wainwright, or the keen intellect of Telperion the Silver (I may not post much but I've been watching, people) or, most of all, the compassionate, reasoned, and incredible stories on This American Life, which deals with homosexuality quite often. I freely admit I don't know many gay people personally, (In Tyler TX, how could I) but I know now that this isn't an attempt to hijack our society. It's just about people who love each other.
If you aren't gay, the rights of gays are not an attack on you. This has nothing to do with you. Get out of the way.
I am horrified by this.
Horrified.
Things like this are the main reason I no longer consider myself a christian. If this is what God's people are doing, I want no part of it. I have great respect for those of you who are on the inside working for change, but I just can't. Not here. Not in Tyler.
This election gives me a tight, sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach. My supervisor (not the ass) is thinking of moving to Amsterdam. I am tempted to just wash my hands of the whole thing.
And Bean Counter. Karl Rove thinks like a computer. In order to acheive result A, we must accomplish B by whatever means necessary. I see now that human beings do not enter into his equations, but only cause and effect, desired result, and path to get there. Please don't be like him. These are real people, not hypotheticals in a philosophy book.
Posts: 894 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote:Recorse to authourity is one of the fundamental logical fallacies as she can tell you.
I just reminded her.
Well, no, not quite. Appeal to authority is sometimes a logical fallacy, sometimes not. (This is why, say, one would appeal to an engineer to design a bridge, or to a lawyer to try a case.)
Five conditions for a legitimate argument from authority - The authority must have competence in an area, not just glamour, prestige, rank or popularity. - The judgement must be within the authority's field of competence - The authority must be interpreted correctly - Direct evidence must be available, at least in principle - A technique is needed to adjudicate disagreements among equally qualified authorities.[/quote]
Like Kant, this is easily misunderstood at first glance.
quote:Tell me are there practical reasons for restricting sodomy? From the standpoint of medical science?
Depends. What do you mean by sodomy? And, I take it that this is all in context. Namely, that there are many things which people do and which medical science supports which may have some effects on the body that one would consider detrimental. Childbirth, for one example. Gymnastics, for another.
So, I guess I'm saying that I'm not sure that your question is relevant, at least not if you want to establish that same-sex sex is something medicine should come down against.
You would also be wanting to consider female-female sex, were that where you were going with this. Because, of course, STD transmission is the lowest in female-female sex (compared to male-male and male-female). One could misguidedly take that as medical support to encourage female-female sex and utilizing artificial insemination. Of course, that would be absurd.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
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If you need further examples of bad socialism, then let us ignore cases where bad execution could be held responsible, like the relief efforts in Africa.
Let us instead look at only things that were done, "to ease suffering" and have caused more, prolonged or increased suffering.
all farm subsidies fall in this catagory, creating false values for produce, dependence and overproduction.
all attempts at socialized medicine "to manage cost" increase cost.
all attempts to lockstep education lead to movement at the pace of the slowest students, eliminating the social benefit of pushing the gifted to their potential so they can pull society upward/forward. A truth that all progress depends on (it is actually a handful who are responsible for this movement)
any condition, be it unwed pregnancy, poverty, joblessness, or ignorance that has been subsidized has seen its percentage grow.
any group of do gooders given an annual budget to solve a problem will ask for an increased budget and find more of the problem to gain greater prestige, a more pressing matter then whatever problem they are working on.
posted
I must seriously wonder if you're on some sort of drug. You keep making basic logical mistakes, keep wandering from topic to topic, can't seem to form coherent paragraphs, and misread things constantly.
Those seem to point to some sort of temporary mental impairment.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Either the wall breaks or my head will and my head's softer than the wall. IdemosthenesI, that's exactly it. Gayness isn't a social problem but a human issue affecting human beings who need to be treated with respect and compassion. The only way to do that is the break down whatever ideas and concepts that stand in the way of that. If several thousand years of so-called time honoured ideas have to break down to keep a few million people safe and protected I don't really care. I value those people over scripture anyday.. *wishes I'd just give it up*
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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