Steerzing in a New Direction...

[Steersman]

Okay... so that makes me cry.... but it does not mean that I want to stick my dick in a man's ass... no way... just fuck off!

Knew it!! Now stop lying about how that surplus ordinance got stuck.

:-) Where are we - or John's wife and daughter for that matter - going to find a man of his caliber? ... ;)

[Steersman]

White Karen-related chimpout on a plane:

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1 ... 1240109056

You saw the cat's eyes? That it was a stuffed cat? (Jerry - if you're lurking, avert your eyes ...)

Nice takedown of the "cry-bullies" among the woke but I wonder if all of the "actors" on the stage were in on the jest.

[fafnir]

And yet, people worship Callas and call that poor unfortunate hideous gay/trans* paedophile a monster! Who is the true monster, I ask you? Truely, it is ourselves....

[fafnir]

Like the Elephant Man and Rock Hudson and one of the Osundairo Brothers-- despite your gayness-- you are still a man.

An ancient race. Even if he is gay.

[Steersman]

Either Coyne has suddenly remembered how population genetics and mutations in infectious diseases works, or he lurks the Pit.

Two pieces of good Covid-10 news in the face of the Christmas surges and lockdowns. First, research in South Africa shows that the omicron variant may be less severe than thought—even less severe than the delta variant....


Nevertheless, he and his WEITards are still cowering under the bed in fear of OMI. From "Gravel-Inspector", one of the most consistently tarded of the lot:

.... The speed at which case numbers are increasing in the UK – with a strong testing basis – does not bode well. As that kicks off in America – within the “festive” week – that’s going to give some bad numbers.

When no wave of hospitalizations or deaths occur, they will, naturally, pretend their dire predictions were never made, and move onto the next piece of panic porn.

Mein Götterdämmerung! The sky's falling! (Hope you noticed I included the umlauts ... ;-) )

But I'll have to concede that there are a rather large number of Chicken Littles running about. Though still somewhat moot how much justification there is for that. Apropos of which:

Within-host evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in an immunosuppressed COVID-19 patient as a source of immune escape variants

The origin of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern remains unclear. Here, we test whether intra-host virus evolution during persistent infections could be a contributing factor by characterizing the long-term SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamics in an immunosuppressed kidney transplant recipient. .... Our results suggest that immunocompromised patients could be a source for the emergence of potentially harmful SARS-CoV-2 variants.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26602-3

May be some justification for arguing that the mRNA vaccines aren't particularly good at capturing "immune escape variants". No doubt that it's the nature of viruses to evolve to escape detection, but maybe the mRNA vaccines target features of the Covid virus that aren't essential which allows the too rapid proliferation of newer variants.

[Steersman]

Well, for starters I think the issue is more that it has never been demonstrated that you can build a society on rationalist principles ...

And you would prefer to live in a society that's built on "irrationalist" principles? Like Iran? Or Saudi Arabia? :think: :roll:

Don't think that your "thinking" is all that coherent. Or even intellectually honest.

As I mentioned in my post, the French Revolution was a rationalist project. The state religion was the Cult of Reason. See Burke for a fully worked out critique, but essentially the problem is that society and it's institutions and customs are far too complicated and interconnected a system for anybody to understand well enough to think you could tear things down and replace them based on rationalism.

"Rome" - the cultures and systems based on irrationalism and magical thinking - wasn't built in a day. And it won't be - probably shouldn't be - torn down in one either. Longest journey begins with a single step ...

But I'm no devotee of that "Cult of Reason" - I've said repeatedly that "that whore, Reason" - as Martin Luther once put it - has its "charms". But it also has its limitations.

No doubt it's something of an age-old battle between "rationalism" and "magical thinking".

In this context, rationalism is a form of magical thinking.

Largely because you haven't got much of a clue about the nature and limitations of reason and logic. That the sorceror's apprentice is careless, irresponsible, clueless, incompetent, suffering from hubris, or is "prostituting" his arts to pander to "popular delusions and the madness of crowds" and to those who wish to take advantage of those "failings" says absolutely diddly-squat against the sorceror or his arts or the principles behind either.

Apropos of which, something you had said earlier:

You aren't female because of some ineffable inner feminine quality. You are female, or a woman because other people in the society say you are and accept you as such. There is nothing more or less to what is required to be female, or a woman than that.

I'm glad you appreciate that there's no "ineffable inner feminine" essence - thank the lord for small favours - and I'm happy to agree that there's at least some merit in "accept you as such". But what you seem rather desperate to avoid facing is that all of the different criteria which people might use to gauge whether someone qualifies as a female - breasts, vagina, "neurotic as fuck", shit drivers, functional ovaries, etc, etc - are most definitely not all created equal. Some categorization systems are better than others because they're simpler - Occam's razor; have fewer or no contradictions - ex falso quodlibet; have broader applicability - literally millions of species using sexual reproduction; etc, etc, etc.

You - and your rather pigheaded reluctance to specify the criteria to qualify any member of any sexually-reproducing species as male, female, or sexless - remind me of another quip of Sagan:

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.

Broca's Brain, page xii; another book you might try reading.

That same attitude - the idea that all "social constructions" are just as good as any other one; something which Medawar goes into some depth on - is exactly what characterizes the critical race "theorists" and their ilk. You might want to try a bit harder to distance yourself from them - not just philosophically but where the rubber meets the road on the transgender/transwoman issue - instead of apparently, or in effect, embracing that rather pernicious "philosophy".

No, that isn't the problem at all. Plus, I think you'll find that it's the better educated amongst us who are more keen on "trans-women are women" and "all white people are racist" and other such insanity. ...

So, do transwomen qualify as women? Why or why not? Show your work ... ;-)

But there's your fucking problem - that someone has a diploma is hardly proof of being "better educated"; someone taking a course in theology is more likely to be confirmed in his dogma than develop an open mind or critical thinking skills. Likewise with the schlock being peddled in our vaunted educational system. As I've tried to show several times, it is largely, if not entirely, a basket case because it has been corrupted by "anti-intellectual and anti-scientific sentiments" which you're pandering to yourself.

The enlightenment has been great at hard sciences. It's crap when it get's into culture and morality though because it's founding principles are incoherent and contradictory and the notion of man that they were founded upon is just an earlier version of the "nice idea wrong species" criticism of Communist man. ....

"The enlightenment" isn't a thing in itself - it's a set of principles that have been more or less adopted in the "hard sciences" but are practically anathematized in the social "sciences".

See this essay on the "Ideological Biases in the Psychology of Sex and Gender" - not least because you exhibit some of those same biases:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... and_Gender

Of particular note:

On a deeper level, the “patchwork” definition of sex used in the social sciences is purely descriptive and lacks a functional rationale. This contrasts sharply with how the sexes are defined in biology. From a biological standpoint, what distinguishes the males and females of a species is the size of their gametes: males produce small gametes (e.g., sperm), females produce large gametes (e.g., eggs; Kodric-Brown & Brown, 1987).

"patchwork" is being charitable; "dog's breakfast" is far more accurate.

<snip>
And you want to replace that with what? With the collective - with you in charge? With inequalities, and irrationalism? With more "magical thinking"?

Think you need to give your head a shake.

Read a book by somebody other than Pinker once in a while.

hominem unius libri timeo

I've read dozens if not hundreds of them - seems that in effect you've really only read one yourself; even if it has many chapters, all of them are saying pretty much the same thing or from the same point of view. You clearly haven't got a clue about most if not all of the foundational principles of science and logic that have a great deal of applicability far outside the rather narrow confines of the "hard sciences".

You might try reading The Art of the Soluble by Nobel Laureate (Physiology or Medicine) P.B. Medawar on the limitations of reason and the scientific method; The Laws of Thought, heavy going which I've just started, by George Boole for whom boolean logic was named; Word and Object, also heavy going which I've only touched upon, by Quine; Logic for Dummies by Mark Zegarelli; Taking Sudoku Seriously - great introduction to reductio ad absurdum and many other principles of logic and mathematics - by Rosenhouse & Taalman; The Cerebral Code on the applications of boolean logic to neurophysiology by William Calvin; and, one that looks interesting that I'll have to look into myself, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality reviewed by Calvin. Etc, etc.

http://calvinbrains.blogspot.com/

<snip>
Maybe. But given your argument that it's "the enlightenment principles of individualism, equality and rationality that are the root cause of this", one might reasonably wonder whether you're on the side that's fighting against those principles.

Certainly. I thought I had made that clear repeatedly.

What you've made clear - repeatedly - is that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. You concede that the principles of rationalism have a great deal of utility in the "hard sciences", even if you don't understand what they consist of or how they operate, but seem incapable of understanding - or are unwilling to even try understanding - that much of the clusterfuck in the "social sciences" - if not in most of the whole educational system - is because those same principles are not being applied there.

[Bhurzum]

And yet, people worship Callas and call that poor unfortunate hideous gay/trans* paedophile a monster! Who is the true monster, I ask you? Truely, it is ourselves....

Speak for yourself, mate, I'm no mere monster, I'm an elder god!

[Service Dog]

On a serious note, Kim Potter found guilty of manslaughter, aka using justified force on a piece of shit serial criminal who was endangering the lives of Potter's fellow officers while violently resisting arrest.

But, she killed a negro.

Daunte Wright was correct to violently resist arrest. If he submitted, he would have been dragged-before the same corrupt prosecutors and incompetent judge-- who botched this trial. Kim Potter killed the kid because the kid fled from the prosecutors. So the prosecutors are guilty of manslaughter & should go to prison until 2027, as per the sentencing guidelines.

[Service Dog]

Kim Potter is guilty of remaining a cop for a year after George Floyd died... including a the first full-month of testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial.

Take yer pick:

Either she was complicit in the same systematic racist institutional genocide as Chauvin... which isn't very nice.

OR else "holy fuck the police department is completely backstabbing Derek Chauvin to placate the BLM mob... that could happen to me!" in which case... every day you go to work-- you're playing russian roulette, ya dumb bitch! ...and her number came-up.

[fafnir]

Well, for starters I think the issue is more that it has never been demonstrated that you can build a society on rationalist principles ...

And you would prefer to live in a society that's built on "irrationalist" principles? Like Iran? Or Saudi Arabia? :think: :roll:

Our society is already irrational. It just uses the myth of rationality as a fig leaf, and worse as a pretext for tearing down perfectly good bits of the culture. You are again mistaking "is" arguments for "ought" arguments.

Don't think that your "thinking" is all that coherent. Or even intellectually honest.

Maybe address my arguments. For some reason you are arguing against a position that society should be irrational. That's not my argument. I am arguing "is" not "ought". I think I have explained this already.

"Rome" - the cultures and systems based on irrationalism and magical thinking - wasn't built in a day. And it won't be - probably shouldn't be - torn down in one either. Longest journey begins with a single step ...

I'd go with Rome being built on pragmatism, but what ever... It took about 200 years to go from Republican Rome being able defeat Hannibal to the culture collapsing to the point where Caesar steps in. Liberalism has been chipping away at the West for a bit over 200 years depending on where you start it. We've been on this road a while. The culture of a people that drives them to greatness isn't necessarily what is required to hold things together once the money comes in and the people at the top become rich and fat and lazy.

But I'm no devotee of that "Cult of Reason" - I've said repeatedly that "that whore, Reason" - as Martin Luther once put it - has its "charms". But it also has its limitations.

Most definately she does.

No doubt it's something of an age-old battle between "rationalism" and "magical thinking".

In this context, rationalism is a form of magical thinking.

Largely because you haven't got much of a clue about the nature and limitations of reason and logic.

Did Burke also not have a clue about such things? I am at least in good company.

That the sorceror's apprentice is careless, irresponsible, clueless, incompetent, suffering from hubris, or is "prostituting" his arts to pander to "popular delusions and the madness of crowds" and to those who wish to take advantage of those "failings" says absolutely diddly-squat against the sorceror or his arts or the principles behind either.

You are responding to an argument I haven't made. I refer you to Burke's arguments mentioned before. That is what I am arguing.

Apropos of which, something you had said earlier:

You aren't female because of some ineffable inner feminine quality. You are female, or a woman because other people in the society say you are and accept you as such. There is nothing more or less to what is required to be female, or a woman than that.

I'm glad you appreciate that there's no "ineffable inner feminine" essence - thank the lord for small favours - and I'm happy to agree that there's at least some merit in "accept you as such". But what you seem rather desperate to avoid facing is that all of the different criteria which people might use to gauge whether someone qualifies as a female - breasts, vagina, "neurotic as fuck", shit drivers, functional ovaries, etc, etc - are most definitely not all created equal. Some categorization systems are better than others because they're simpler - Occam's razor; have fewer or no contradictions - ex falso quodlibet; have broader applicability - literally millions of species using sexual reproduction; etc, etc, etc.

I'm not arguing with you about the definition of female.

You - and your rather pigheaded reluctance to specify the criteria to qualify any member of any sexually-reproducing species as male, female, or sexless - remind me of another quip of Sagan:

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.

And we find that following the ideas of Sagan and his friends leads to further chaos and collapse because they are progressive liberals and progressive liberal ideas lead to chaos and collapse.

Broca's Brain, page xii; another book you might try reading.

That same attitude - the idea that all "social constructions" are just as good as any other one; something which Medawar goes into some depth on - is exactly what characterizes the critical race "theorists" and their ilk. You might want to try a bit harder to distance yourself from them - not just philosophically but where the rubber meets the road on the transgender/transwoman issue - instead of apparently, or in effect, embracing that rather pernicious "philosophy".

No. Understand the arguments of your opponents. Burke. His is the position I am arguing. His argument in Reflections on the Revolution in France. I'm not saying that socially constructed institutions are all equally good. Obviously that isn't the case.... though one does find progressive liberals arguing something like that when the contradictions of wanting to regard all cultures as equal are played out to their logical conclusions.

What I am saying is that generally speaking complicated, interconnected, cultural institutions can't justify themselves on rational grounds. Marriage being reserved for a man and a woman for the purpose of having children couldn't justify itself purely rationally because no such institution can. Prostitutes not being primary school teachers can't be justified on purely rational grounds. Trans-women not being women can't. Everything may slowly slide to shit after tearing these vestiges of the old order down, but you only find that out by tearing it down and seeing what happens.... and by that point so much water has flowed under the bridge that who really knows? And besides, it's not like you can unwind the change.... it's too late.

Rationalism is a pretext for busy little Robespierres to try and manifest the same tired unworkable utopia as always while an army of innumerable bureaucrats consolidate their power. The Cult of Reason allows huge social programmes to be justified, since we are so smart and can solve these problems now that foolish men of ages past didn't believe government could fix. Thanks LBJ for using welfare to solve the problem of black inner city poverty! That worked well! The State grew bigger, and power because more centralised so it's not like no good came out of it.

Just as Democracy disguises the true nature of power, the Cult of Reason disguises the true nature of decision making.

No, that isn't the problem at all. Plus, I think you'll find that it's the better educated amongst us who are more keen on "trans-women are women" and "all white people are racist" and other such insanity. ...

So, do transwomen qualify as women? Why or why not? Show your work ... ;-)

It's not a question that there is a rationally decidable answer to.

But there's your fucking problem - that someone has a diploma is hardly proof of being "better educated"; someone taking a course in theology is more likely to be confirmed in his dogma than develop an open mind or critical thinking skills. Likewise with the schlock being peddled in our vaunted educational system. As I've tried to show several times, it is largely, if not entirely, a basket case because it has been corrupted by "anti-intellectual and anti-scientific sentiments" which you're pandering to yourself.

This sounds a lot like a No True Education System argument. Real liberal education has never been tried.

The enlightenment has been great at hard sciences. It's crap when it get's into culture and morality though because it's founding principles are incoherent and contradictory and the notion of man that they were founded upon is just an earlier version of the "nice idea wrong species" criticism of Communist man. ....

"The enlightenment" isn't a thing in itself - it's a set of principles that have been more or less adopted in the "hard sciences" but are practically anathematized in the social "sciences".

You don't think values like liberty and more particularly equality that came out of the enlightenment and are foundational to liberalism are big in the social sciences? Social sciences when they get beyond the relatively mundane tend, I think, to layer theory on top of theory. That is still a rational process, even if it's not one I like. It's not the scientific process but it's still an exercise in enlightenment rationalism.

Of particular note:

On a deeper level, the “patchwork” definition of sex used in the social sciences is purely descriptive and lacks a functional rationale. This contrasts sharply with how the sexes are defined in biology. From a biological standpoint, what distinguishes the males and females of a species is the size of their gametes: males produce small gametes (e.g., sperm), females produce large gametes (e.g., eggs; Kodric-Brown & Brown, 1987).

"patchwork" is being charitable; "dog's breakfast" is far more accurate.

The complaint is that the social sciences use the social meaning of concepts rather than using the biological meaning as it is not used to describe things in society? It's sociology and not biology. This is like a physicist dismissing biology because it lacks the precision and replicability of physics. They are studies of different things.

You need to get comfortable with words being used to mean different things in different contexts. Your rationalist project for words to refer to the same objects and same concepts in all contexts is a microcosm of the kind of French Revolutionary "the week should have 10 days" nonsense that Burke criticised.

<snip>
And you want to replace that with what? With the collective - with you in charge? With inequalities, and irrationalism? With more "magical thinking"?

Think you need to give your head a shake.

Read a book by somebody other than Pinker once in a while.

hominem unius libri timeo

I've read dozens if not hundreds of them - seems that in effect you've really only read one yourself; even if it has many chapters, all of them are saying pretty much the same thing or from the same point of view.

I was a liberal myself. I used to read Dawkins and all that nonsense years ago. I have read books on both sides of this issue. More non-liberal than liberal of late, but not exclusively.

You clearly haven't got a clue about most if not all of the foundational principles of science and logic that have a great deal of applicability far outside the rather narrow confines of the "hard sciences".

Yes, Edmunde Burke and I are terribly ignorant people. Enlighten me, please in this brief break in you important work of demonstrating that old women aren't female. Incidentally, could you in your well read erudition explain to me what Burke's error is?

<snip long booklist>

I spend 40+ years as a liberal reading popular science books, books by enlightenment thinkers and so on. I'm certainly not going to bother to read anything you recommend if you won't respond to the main thing I am arguing which is yet again just a restatement of Burke's thoughts about the French Revolution that I am sure an erudite person such as yourself must have found time to read since it was published 230 years ago.

Why would I take reading lists from you when you persist in responding to "is" claims with arguments against "ought" claims?

<snip>
Maybe. But given your argument that it's "the enlightenment principles of individualism, equality and rationality that are the root cause of this", one might reasonably wonder whether you're on the side that's fighting against those principles.

Certainly. I thought I had made that clear repeatedly.

What you've made clear - repeatedly - is that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. You concede that the principles of rationalism have a great deal of utility in the "hard sciences", even if you don't understand what they consist of or how they operate, but seem incapable of understanding - or are unwilling to even try understanding - that much of the clusterfuck in the "social sciences" - if not in most of the whole educational system - is because those same principles are not being applied there.

Good God! Respond to my argument. You are pathologically incapable of responding to arguments people make and instead go into your canned nonsense and extended quotes from Pinker and Co. What. Was. Burke's. Error?

Burke's argument is an attack on the Progressive Liberal project. That is to say that you can remake society and man based on rationalism. The argument works against the project of the authors you are keen on to push God out of society every bit as much as it does against the French Revolution. Dawkins and Co. had no fucking clue what they were doing, any way of knowing what the consequences were or any humility about doing it.

What is your actual response to Burke's argument?

[Keating]

[Service Dog]

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Besides proving that Eikks have no natural rhythm, was there a point to this?

[Steersman]

And you would prefer to live in a society that's built on "irrationalist" principles? Like Iran? Or Saudi Arabia? :think: :roll:

Our society is already irrational.

Which you seem all too ready to accept if not promote. You might try reflecting on these words from your patron saint:

Quotes_Burke_TriumphOfEvil.jpg

(104.4 KiB) Downloaded 181 times

But I'm no devotee of that "Cult of Reason" - I've said repeatedly that "that whore, Reason" - as Martin Luther once put it - has its "charms". But it also has its limitations.

Most definately she does.

Hallelujah. Something we agree on. Though I think I know "her" rather better than you do.

I'm not arguing with you about the definition of female.

Because you really don't have any sort of coherent and rational rebuttal.

And we find that following the ideas of Sagan and his friends leads to further chaos and collapse because they are progressive liberals and progressive liberal ideas lead to chaos and collapse.

What horse crap. A pile of ipse dixits; diddly-squat in the way of evidenced argument to justify them.

.... I'm not saying that socially constructed institutions are all equally good. Obviously that isn't the case.... though one does find progressive liberals arguing something like that when the contradictions of wanting to regard all cultures as equal are played out to their logical conclusions. ....

Nice to see that you aren't totally around the bend.

What I am saying is ... marriage being reserved for a man and a woman for the purpose of having children couldn't justify itself purely rationally because no such institution can. Prostitutes not being primary school teachers can't be justified on purely rational grounds. Trans-women not being women can't. ...

So you'll appeal to the emotional, to the irrational? To "magical thinking"? :think: :roll:

So, do transwomen qualify as women? Why or why not? Show your work ... ;-)

It's not a question that there is a rationally decidable answer to.

Only because you haven't got a clue about what "rationality" consists of, nor about Voltaire's quip about defining our terms, nor about the principles undergirding taxonomy, all of which tie together to answer that question:

In biology, taxonomy (from Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) 'arrangement', and -νομία (-nomia) 'method') is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(biology)

"The enlightenment" isn't a thing in itself - it's a set of principles that have been more or less adopted in the "hard sciences" but are practically anathematized in the social "sciences".

You don't think values like liberty and more particularly equality that came out of the enlightenment and are foundational to liberalism are big in the social sciences? Social sciences when they get beyond the relatively mundane tend, I think, to layer theory on top of theory. That is still a rational process, even if it's not one I like. It's not the scientific process but it's still an exercise in enlightenment rationalism.

Rather decidedly moot - more like rationalizations; see Medawar. The best you might argue is that "values like liberty and ... equality" are axioms, are premises that may not be particularly tenable, particularly under all circumstances.

Pretty much all of rationality is based on the axiomatic system, Euclidean geometry being pretty much the paradigmatic case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_system

Axioms are just premises, assumptions, working hypotheses that we more or less take on faith until events or evidence prove them untenable. It took several thousand years to disprove the parallel axiom, the parallel postulate.

That's the "fatal flaw" in Reason Herself. Though one might argue that She is getting a bad rap there for people expecting too much of Her.

But that's why I've emphasized that "The Enlightenment" isn't a thing in itself, it's not a package deal, it isn't an indivisible whole: some aspects, some axioms or premises - rationality - may be more tenable or useful than others - liberty & equality.

You seem to be in the position of wanting your cake and eating it too: you more or less reject all of the "The Enlightenment" - for some unspecified and poorly argued and entirely unevidenced "reasons" - yet are forced to concede that Rationality has its benefits. So you have to backtrack and make yourself look like a hypocrite, like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

You might try separating out the wheat from the chaff.

Of particular note:

On a deeper level, the “patchwork” definition of sex used in the social sciences is purely descriptive and lacks a functional rationale. ...

"patchwork" is being charitable; "dog's breakfast" is far more accurate.

You need to get comfortable with words being used to mean different things in different contexts. ...

You need to get "comfortable" with the fundamental principle of logic that from contradictions, anything and everything follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion

Why much if not all of "social sciences" is a dog's breakfast, a bunch of incoherent twaddle. Should close all of those departments and put all of their inhabitants out to pasture - or to work in some sweat-shops ...

You clearly haven't got a clue about most if not all of the foundational principles of science and logic that have a great deal of applicability far outside the rather narrow confines of the "hard sciences".

Yes, Edmunde Burke and I are terribly ignorant people. Enlighten me, please in this brief break in you important work of demonstrating that old women aren't female. Incidentally, could you in your well read erudition explain to me what Burke's error is?

Haven't got the foggiest idea - or not much of one in any case. Though I was amused to see this that leapt out at me:

Burke was a proponent of ... the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

You olde magical thinker, you ... :roll:

My argument has less to do with whatever you think he has to say about "religious institutions", about equality and liberty, than with your completely untenable and ridiculously broadbrush attacks on rationality - which you more or less concede yourself to be the case, at least in the "hard sciences". But you refuse to consider the fundamental principles that undergird those hard sciences and how they might have wider applicability far outside of them. And regardless of how various sorcerer's apprentices might misuse those principles and arts ...

Good God! Respond to my argument. You are pathologically incapable of responding to arguments people make and instead go into your canned nonsense and extended quotes from Pinker and Co. What. Was. Burke's. Error?

What is your actual response to Burke's argument?

And you're pathologically incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff, of actually listening to and thinking about what I've said. I haven't the foggiest idea - apart from the previous qualifications and elaborations in this comment here that address parts of your questions - what his "errors" might have been.

But those are secondary to your completely untenable and entirely unevidenced attacks on rationality itself. Try thinking that there's a difference between a tool and what it's used for, that it being misused in some circumstances is not prima facie evidence that it's being misused in all cases, that the principles behind them may well be worthwhile regardless of the ends to which it is being put.

[fafnir]

blah, blah, blah no response to the augment of Burke that I said was the one main argument I was making.

[fafnir]

Axioms are just premises, assumptions, working hypotheses that we more or less take on faith until events or evidence prove them untenable. It took several thousand years to disprove the parallel axiom, the parallel postulate.

No. The parallel postulate was known to be a problem from antiquity and has never been disproved. It can't be proved or disproved, it's an axiom. It's just that there are now multiple geometries based on a range of assumptions that are useful in some contexts and not useful in others. The kind of thing you tend not to like.

[fafnir]

fafnir wrote: ↑
I'm not arguing with you about the definition of female.
Because you really don't have any sort of coherent and rational rebuttal.

Of course it's been rebutted, in as much as an asserted definition can be rebutted. What you mean is your pet definition hasn't been rebutted to your satisfaction, which of course it can't be. For some reason you want social scientists to blind their eyes and stop up their ears to the social concept of "female", and how the category "female" is used and understood in society, and instead build their "science" on an incompatible definition from Biology.

The way human languages work is that sometimes a word may refer to different concepts in a context dependent way. Trying to make English "rational" in the Enlightenment sense is a fool's errand. Why not take on the task of decimalizing the week instead?

[fafnir]

Maybe Esperanto works in the way you think human languages should? It was certainly constructed by the kind of people who would have wanted to make it rational. That idea of creating a new type of man bubbling about in it. Since humans don't actually speak, or want to speak, Esperanto it would be much easier to update the definition of "female" without causing confusion and difficulty in day to day life. Perhaps this would be another road open to you? Fix up Esperanto and then persuade everybody to use that. It may stand more chance of success than getting people to use your definition of female by updating English, and presumably every other human language.

[fafnir]

My argument has less to do with whatever you think he has to say about "religious institutions", about equality and liberty, than with your completely untenable and ridiculously broadbrush attacks on rationality - which you more or less concede yourself to be the case, at least in the "hard sciences". But you refuse to consider the fundamental principles that undergird those hard sciences and how they might have wider applicability far outside of them. And regardless of how various sorcerer's apprentices might misuse those principles and arts ...

Let's conduct a thought experiment shall we about an issue of the day. How would I go about using your principles to "prove" the long term impact on a society of redefining the definition of "woman" such that trans-women ARE women, or the effect of changing the social meaning of "female" such that old women aren't female? How would one use your hard science principles that have such a wide applicability to tell us what the impact is going to be of making a change like that across society?

[fafnir]

Effectively, the Burkean argument is that you have institutions and cultural norms that have built up slowly over centuries in the normal human way. They are the machine learning, neural net, darwinian solution to "how do you build a culture". The liberal progressive view advocated by Dawkins, and before him Robespierre is we are men of science and can take an expert systems approach to building a society. Irrational things like religion should be cast out. The problem, again, is that ultimately as I think you agree, things aren't being attacked so much because they are irrational, but because they are not in keeping with liberal progressive assumptions - liberte, egalite etc...

The founding fathers of the US were not, on the whole, progressive liberals and were not implementing a project of remaking society from the ground up. No decimalised weeks for them. They didn't attempt to replace the religion of the country by fiat. Changing the meaning of the word "woman" to include men in dresses would have struck them as madness, but I think not the French revolutionaries. One group changed what they had to and looked to the past as a model and reason as a guide when they had to go beyond the past. The other cast out the past and relied on principles and reason, year zero if you will.

Just as it is very hard to build an expert system that is able to cope with anything but a very narrowly restricted version of the real world, Burke's argument, as I recall it, is that nobody really knows, and it likely isn't possible to know, what the full functional role in society of something like religion, or two parent families is. The argument about the state of the black community in America being partly because the family has been undermined by things like welfare - ooops! It was done with the best of intentions though, so no reason to question liberal progressivism.

Unless you think divine providence has given you the axioms, assumptions and prejudices of liberalism... what you are doing when you cut away these outdated bits of culture and either replace them with liberal culture, or don't replace them at all is akin to sitting high up in a tree, blindfolded swinging an axe around. There is an ideal tree in your head and you just swing your axe in all the places where the ideal tree isn't and what ever is left when you are done is going to look more like perfection. Maybe the branches you cut away are important, maybe they aren't... hopefully they aren't. Who can say? Wait a while and find out if the tree falls down.

This isn't an argument to set society in stone. It is an argument for humility, to leave the door open for multiple approaches and multiple solutions to be tried (different states and different countries taking different approaches is good). It's an argument to have some respect for the past and not tear down some key bit of the social fabric because a bunch of students decided 5 minutes ago that it was wrong and horrible and had to go.

[Service Dog]

Auction ended. Zero bids. Starting price $9.99

"Contact Seller" button available, if you wanna make an offer.

[Service Dog]

https://shopgoodwill.com/item/135733366

[Bhurzum]

Well, happy holidays one and all.

Here's to many more!



I'll be upside-down for a few days so you'll not have to endure my shit-posting shananigans.

Result, huh?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

On Esperanto from Steerz’ most trusted source:

The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Białystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. In such a town a sensitive nature feels more acutely than elsewhere the misery caused by language division and sees at every step that the diversity of languages is the first, or at least the most influential, basis for the separation of the human family into groups of enemies. I was brought up as an idealist; I was taught that all people were brothers, while outside in the street at every step I felt that there were no people, only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, and so on.

Brother Afrum was so impressed with that idea that he learned Esperanto in a very short time at home from a little book. He then bought many dozens of them and gave them out to relatives, friends, just anyone he could, to support that magnificent idea for he felt that this would be a common bond to promote relationships with fellow men in the world.

So, invented based an extremely naive understanding of human nature, with the equally naive ‘hope’ that human nature could be conquered, if not molded, via new words artificially imposed. Exactly the same flaws of today’s woke. (cf. Latinx). Why such a stupid exercise ever became so popular, is credit not to the crappy language itself, but to the prevalence of this crappy moralistic fallacy.


NB: In practice, Esperanto functioned as a pidgin for Romance languages. Aspiring speakers of other language groups would be at a disadvantage. So by it's very design, it was exclusive and divisive.

[Service Dog]

Service Dog wrote: ↑
Those vaccines don't work as-advertised, mere months ago. Your memory is weak.
And so the masters steer you with ease.

Another compilation:

[Service Dog]

[fafnir]

So, invented based an extremely naive understanding of human nature, with the equally naive ‘hope’ that human nature could be conquered, if not molded, via new words artificially imposed. Exactly the same flaws of today’s woke. (cf. Latinx). Why such a stupid exercise ever became so popular, is credit not to the crappy language itself, but to the prevalence of this crappy moralistic fallacy.

You've got the same idea at the formation of what became the EU. Setup Esperanto like nowhere institutions and laws and a new nowhere man will arise. It is pernicious. I have a great desire to know it's source.

[fafnir]

Białystok

I wonder if that's where Max Bialystock in The Producers got his name?

[Service Dog]

'...This is what Burke would describe as "reducing a woman to being a mere human"...'

In-which, Sargon finds the perfect gender-critical feminist mate for Steersman:




And to woo this feminist Roxane, I humbly offer...

Klingon Courtship rituals:

Knufli, Postcongresa Sindromo, Kio la fek'...

[Steersman]

Well, happy holidays one and all.

Here's to many more!

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PhysicalBreak ... ricted.gif

I'll be upside-down for a few days so you'll not have to endure my shit-posting shananigans.

Result, huh?

Indeed - cheers; bless us all - the long and the short and the tall. :-)

Though one might also at least genuflect to "god have mercy on us all" - not knowing, at least really well, what we do; the blind leading the blind.

But "Man" - as a species, at least the Westernized cohort - may also want to consider forgiving Gawd; 'tis the season and all that:

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth did make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give - and take!

https://victorianweb.org/authors/fitzge ... aiyat.html

:) :flags-wavegreatbritain: :flags-usa: :flags-australia: :flags-canada: :)

[Steersman]

On Esperanto from Steerz’ most trusted source: ....

In case you missed it, the bloom is off that rose:

https://medium.com/@steersmann/wikipedi ... 0901a22da2

Though I still think - as indicated - that it qualifies as "The People's Encyclopedia (tm)", even if some editors there are riding roughshod over otherwise credible principles, even if there may be something of a fatal flaw in the whole project.

So, invented based an extremely naive understanding of human nature, with the equally naive ‘hope’ that human nature could be conquered, if not molded, via new words artificially imposed. Exactly the same flaws of today’s woke. (cf. Latinx). Why such a stupid exercise ever became so popular, is credit not to the crappy language itself, but to the prevalence of this crappy moralistic fallacy.

NB: In practice, Esperanto functioned as a pidgin for Romance languages. Aspiring speakers of other language groups would be at a disadvantage. So by it's very design, it was exclusive and divisive.

"naive understandings" are, of course, rather problematic - "drink deep of the Pierian spring" and all that.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't some benefit to having a common language - "What have the Romans ever done for us?" and all that:



You seriously think that the Tower of Babel isn't a useful lesson from history? No doubt some definitions and some languages are better in some circumstances than others, but it kinda helps to have various common points of references - not for nothing that "Choam Nomsky" argued in favour of a universal grammar of sorts.

Some additional but quite illuminating biblical references - even it they may not really square with your aversion to teleology ... ;-) :

As we teeter on the cusp of purposefully directing evolution, the god championed by the originally polytheistic Hebrews (usually translated “the LORD God”) warned his god colleagues about what human knowledge of good and evil might lead to (Genesis 3:22-24; RSV): ....

Despite this defense [casting humanity into the outer darkness], armed with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and the ability to communicate knowledge, the potential deification of humans threatened the gods again, and the lord god came to their rescue again (Genesis 11:6-7, RSV):

The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

http://www.strugglesforexistence.com/sc ... gineering/

Clearly, at least (some of) the Jews recognized that Jehovah isn't entirely humanity's benefactor; probably the gods in general - need a long spoon to supp with the devil. But also quite clearly, even the authors of the Bible - assuming it wasn't Jehovah Himself ... - recognized the problem of having too many words - or having the same word mean far too many different things. Tends to muddy the waters at best, to preclude the completion of any sort of rational project:

Wikipedia_HumptyDumptyAliceWords_Sctn.jpg

(109.38 KiB) Downloaded 132 times

Even if the "deification of humanity" may entail some problematic aspects in itself - "What rough beast" and all that.

[Service Dog]

[Service Dog]

Oh, Canada.

[fafnir]

But that doesn't mean that there isn't some benefit to having a common language - "What have the Romans ever done for us?" and all that:

Certainly there is a benefit, and perhaps some costs, but the question naturally arises..... whose language is everybody going to speak? I vote English.

As I said before, these ideas were floating around after both the wars and in the foundation of the proto-EU. The idea was that common language, common institutions, common laws would dissolve national and cultural identity and a new stateless man would emerge. After a generation or two it would only be the literature and history of this new man that will be directly engaged with, and the culture of the past will be a thing for intellectuals alone who will speak the old languages and consume the old art. Year zero. A great reset, if you will.

I think it's flawed and self refuting even on it's own terms, but at the end of the day that doesn't matter. I want to pass on my culture to my children, and my grandchildren. I don't want my grandchildren to be deracinated stateless men in a world populated by other such people. I think it will be a great pity if the Monnet plan succeeds and someday there aren't French and Italians and Greeks, but only Europeans. The whole project seems wicked to me.

At least the language part of the plan died.

Merry Christmas etc... ;-)

[fuzzy]

[Steersman]

Merry Christmas etc... ;-)

:-) Merry Christmas Ralph. Or Sam as the case may be ... ;-)

But that doesn't mean that there isn't some benefit to having a common language - "What have the Romans ever done for us?" and all that:

Certainly there is a benefit, and perhaps some costs, but the question naturally arises..... whose language is everybody going to speak? I vote English.

Cost-benefit analysis required - some scope for an application of rationalism here ... ;-) .

But English generally has my vote as well, although I am kinda partial to binary, hexadecimal in a pinch ... ;-) . Remember reading some time back that English tends to be more economical than many other languages - able to say more in fewer words. It's always kind of amused me, even reading the bumpf on cereal cartons, that the English always took some 20% less space than the French - Canada being more or less bilingual, there's a legal requirement for both languages on pretty much all packaging.

.... The idea was that common language, common institutions, common laws would dissolve national and cultural identity and a new stateless man would emerge. After a generation or two it would only be the literature and history of this new man that will be directly engaged with, and the culture of the past will be a thing for intellectuals alone who will speak the old languages and consume the old art. Year zero. A great reset, if you will.

I think it's flawed and self refuting even on it's own terms .... The whole project seems wicked to me.

Don't know about "wicked' - a bit of questionable "moralizing" ... ;-) , but monocultures of various types tend to have a number of serious problems associated with them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoculture#Risks

General problems with globalization being a case in point:

https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horiz ... balization

[fafnir]

But English generally has my vote as well, although I am kinda partial to binary, hexadecimal in a pinch ... . Remember reading some time back that English tends to be more economical than many other languages - able to say more in fewer words. It's always kind of amused me, even reading the bumpf on cereal cartons, that the English always took some 20% less space than the French - Canada being more or less bilingual, there's a legal requirement for both languages on pretty much all packaging.

Speedrunners tend to use the Japanese versions of old games as dialogue takes up less space and scrolls by faster. If it's pure compression of written communication that wins the day, I think our alphabet has to go.

[Service Dog]

If it's pure compression of written communication that wins the day, I think our alphabet has to go.

:animals-chimp: :beer: :arrow: :character-mrt: :occasion-xmas: :obscene-sexualkyjelly: :bjarte:

[Service Dog]

Mother Nature, Jack Frost, Old Man Winter...

and

the Weather Chad:

[Service Dog]

The first U.S. death 'due to' Omicron wasn't 'due to' Omicron.

[Service Dog]

[John D]

Best Xmas present... James Webb telescope has successfully launched today. There are many things that could still go wrong... but so far so good.

These types of projects are so important. They are an expression of the constant search for scientific truth. It is such a joy for me to see all the scientists and engineers that have worked on this. It is really the love of truth that drives these people. I have been involved in some similar things... like starting the production of a new automobile. It is so thrilling when these events can be accomplished... a sign that we mere humans can try to do things that are god-like.

Merry Christmas.

[John D]

Seriously... Joe is as dumb as a brick.

[Service Dog]

Happy 10th Anniversary of this Traditional Holiday Classic...

[Service Dog]

Biden simps :hankey:

https://media.patriots.win/post/hzrPj4zWvqi4.jpeg

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Merry Christmas, you bastards!

[Service Dog]

Merry Christmas, Manger-Matt.

[Steersman]

Seriously... Joe is as dumb as a brick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y-3Fz5w8zs

:-) That's a hoot:

"Let's Go Brandon" is a political slogan that has been widely used as a minced oath for "Fuck Joe Biden" in reference to Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Go_Brandon

Interestingly, McWhorter has an amusing and cogent perspective - which may be of some passing relevance to various topics de jour:

The meme is a wild, woolly kink in the intersection of language, politics, wit, and creativity, and is a prime example of why language change is a spectator sport.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... cs/620652/

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Merry Christmas, Manger-Matt.

:nin:

Forget chimp outs -- Mask Karen Meltdowns are the new rage!

[Steersman]

blah, blah, blah no response to the augment of Burke that I said was the one main argument I was making.

As the Brits and the Huns have now exchanged their obligatory Christmas pleasantries from their respective trenches across the no-man's land of a WW1 battlefield, we now return you to our regular scheduled programming ... ;-)

Shorter Fafnir, with his fingers in his ears, "Nyah, nyah, can't hear you!"

You keep blathering on about not addressing your "one main argument" while studiously avoiding the fact that you've contended - more or less and from square one, and with diddly-squat in the way of justifying evidence - that the prognosis and "implications ... for a society [that] takes Science and rationalism as its guide" is rather dire indeed:

http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 09#p506528

As I've mentioned and argued in some detail which you rather pigheadedly refuse to address, you really might want to consider that there is a difference between a tool, on the one hand, and the uses and misuses to which it is put on the other hand. Reading up on the scope and nature of rationalism - one of the main "planks" in the platform of The Enlightenment and its proponents - might be a good start to rectify that "cognitive distortion":

In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism

There are - as I've frequently taken some pains to emphasize - a few flies in that particular ointment. However, you look like you've painted yourself into the corner by endorsing rather egregiously subjective and wooish "other ways of knowing" and "magical thinking" as an "alternative" to "using reason" as that "chief source and test of knowledge".

Although that is not at all to say that there are no other "ways of knowing" that may have some merit - gestalt, intuition, hypotheses, and inductive logic for examples. But a recognition of the underlying limitations of those "other ways of knowing" is sort of built into rationalism itself - "the problem of induction" for one example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

And likewise the scientific method itself which tests those intuitions and hypotheses against the "brute facts" of "reality":

Quotes_Huxley_UglyFacts_1B.jpg

(16.53 KiB) Downloaded 72 times

You may wish to consider reading Medawar's The Art of the Soluble for some rather cogent elaborations on those themes.

[MarcusAu]

Was this necessary?

...the American Revolution, I mean.

[John D]

Happy 10th Anniversary of this Traditional Holiday Classic...

Anita would look good with a black choker necklace to match those earrings. "Eyes up.... eyes up." and a red ass after a good spanking. Hmmm. "Say that you need more.... more daddy.. more daddy."

[fafnir]

You keep blathering on about not addressing your "one main argument" while studiously avoiding the fact that you've contended - more or less and from square one, and with diddly-squat in the way of justifying evidence - that the prognosis and "implications ... for a society [that] takes Science and rationalism as its guide" is rather dire indeed:

I said rationalism, not Science. My argument is Burke's now 230 year old one about the French revolution. His criticism is of what happens when you try to rationalise society as an active programme.

As I've mentioned and argued in some detail which you rather pigheadedly refuse to address, you really might want to consider that there is a difference between a tool, on the one hand, and the uses and misuses to which it is put on the other hand. Reading up on the scope and nature of rationalism - one of the main "planks" in the platform of The Enlightenment and its proponents - might be a good start to rectify that "cognitive distortion":

It's the same with Communism. People keep criticising it for how it plays out in the real world, rather than what would the theory implies should happen if it is done correctly. If people were different, both would work fine. Again, this is little more than Burke's argument about the French Revolution. Again, this isn't a criticism of liberalism or rationalism per se, but the progressive versions of both as you, Dawkins, the SJWs, etc... all variously and in different forms support.

There are - as I've frequently taken some pains to emphasize - a few flies in that particular ointment. However, you look like you've painted yourself into the corner by endorsing rather egregiously subjective and wooish "other ways of knowing" and "magical thinking" as an "alternative" to "using reason" as that "chief source and test of knowledge".

You can base a society on reason, or rather you can try, or you can base a society on experience. It's the French enlightenment vs the Scottish enlightenment if you prefer that way of putting it. The issue we have is the same issue one always has when trying to implement the axioms + reason based rationality. Again, the Burkian critique of the French revolution. The French way is more to establish principles upon which society should run and attempt to rationally implement that - the centrally planned version of society. The Burkian way is more like Adam Smith's invisible hand - the "what actually works in the real world" markets approach. You are French enlightenment, I am more Scottish enlightenment. The French way has been being pushed for a long time now.

And likewise the scientific method itself which tests those intuitions and hypotheses against the "brute facts" of "reality"

But that's not what happens, and it can't happen for any of the questions we have been discussing. As I asked you before... What test could be devised of the long term effect on society and the culture of doing things like normalising prostitutes being school teachers as you recommend, changing the popular understanding of female to include men in dresses, or the UK leaving The EU. There isn't even a single way of implementing any of those questions. We aren't Dr Strange. We can't check all the possible futures.

There is, in principle, no way of knowing what the wider effects of implementing these policies is. The typical progressive, liberal answer is to look at these things as purely questions of the relatively short term impact on the individual and ignore the impact on the culture. That makes the problem more tractable, but does so by ignoring the difficulties.

Maybe I am wrong and you are right? Explain how you would implement an experiment to determine the effect on US society of normalising prostitutes working as teachers. The idea that one can do this is every bit as much "nonsense on stilts" as the French revolutions claims of universal rights.

[fafnir]

Was this necessary?

...the American Revolution, I mean.

It was probably sufficient.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

and a red ass after a good spanking.

She's Armenian. That's a lot of acreage to cover.

[Steersman]

I said rationalism, not Science.

You said "Science and rationalism" - that was a direct quote:

I think one of the questions of the day is what the implications are for a society who takes Science and rationalism as it's guide. I wonder if you don't inevitably turn Scientists into the new priest class. A priest class the believes in tradition, is a very different proposition to who that demands that tradition constantly justify itself or be thrown out.

http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php ... 09#p506528

Is that your "final answer"? ;-)

My argument is Burke's now 230 year old one about the French revolution. His criticism is of what happens when you try to rationalise society as an active programme.

Haven't got a clue what "Burke's argument" was about the French Revolution. Though it seems he was clearly pandering to the religious, to "magical thinking":

Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

You going to join or part company with him on that?

Doesn't look at all like the latter. That's the crux of the matter which you seem rather desperate to avoid dealing with.

As I've mentioned and argued in some detail which you rather pigheadedly refuse to address, you really might want to consider that there is a difference between a tool, on the one hand, and the uses and misuses to which it is put on the other hand. ....

..... Again, this isn't a criticism of liberalism or rationalism per se, but the progressive versions of both as you, Dawkins, the SJWs, etc... all variously and in different forms support.

Kinda looks like a "criticism of rationalism [and science] per se".

But not sure what specifics you have in mind for those "progressive versions", but it still looks like you're trying to tar all of rationalism with whatever failings you think they entail.

There are - as I've frequently taken some pains to emphasize - a few flies in that particular ointment. ....

You can base a society on reason, or rather you can try, or you can base a society on experience. ...

You remind me of Kierkegaard - Mr. Either/Or as the street urchins used to call him. Which probably says something favourable about the culture then, at least in Denmark.

But they're not mutually exclusive methodologies; each will be better in some cases and not in others.

And likewise the scientific method itself which tests those intuitions and hypotheses against the "brute facts" of "reality"

But that's not what happens, and it can't happen for any of the questions we have been discussing.

Doesn't happen where? In science? Ethics? Why the fuck do you think I quoted Huxley?

But try thinking about tools, their uses and misuses; about their optimal range of applications. See Medawar - there IS some relevance to "soluble".

l As I asked you before... What test could be devised of the long term effect on society and the culture of doing things like normalising prostitutes being school teachers as you recommend, changing the popular understanding of female to include men in dresses, or the UK leaving The EU. There isn't even a single way of implementing any of those questions. We aren't Dr Strange. We can't check all the possible futures.

Where have I said anything to the effect that all school teachers should be or should have been prostitutes?

You might consider that "if everybody did x" is considered as something of a logical fallacy:

https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-name-f ... al-fallacy

Not that you seem very cognizant of either logic or fallacies thereof.

But do you seriously think that I'm arguing that "men in dresses" should be considered as "females"? How do you think that idea is working out? You seem to "think" that any criterion to qualify as "female" is as good as any other one. That you refuse to specify any such criteria is exactly what gives free rein to those who claim that male transvestites qualify as females, and to the thugs and psychotics who follow in their wake.

You really don't seem to have a clue about the logic of definitions and the principles behind them - and despite me making some effort to explain them, notably through reference to the science of taxonomy, and the concept of intensional and extensional definitions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extension ... efinitions

There's NO intrinsic meaning to the word "female" - it means whatever "we" say it means. But if it means everything and anything then it is literally meaningless and pretty much worse than useless. However, some definitions are more useful and of broader application than others; there's some rhyme and reason to the process.

And the standard biological - and lexical - definition is "produces ova": no tickee, no washee. People don't get to make up their own definitions. As they don't get to drive on any side of the road they want and whenever they want.

There is, in principle, no way of knowing what the wider effects of implementing these policies is. The typical progressive, liberal answer is to look at these things as purely questions of the relatively short term impact on the individual and ignore the impact on the culture. That makes the problem more tractable, but does so by ignoring the difficulties.

Maybe I am wrong and you are right? Explain how you would implement an experiment to determine the effect on US society of normalising prostitutes working as teachers. The idea that one can do this is every bit as much "nonsense on stilts" as the French revolutions claims of universal rights.

So what if "there's no way of knowing" whether the cards are going to give a full house or a busted flush?

Science in general - quantum mechanics in particular - is less a matter of what will always happen in a given situation, and more one of what will happen most often, or most probably, and in most similar situations. We're not omniscient - few of us in any case - so, whether we use science and rationalism or not, we still have to roll the dice, play the odds, "screw up our courage" and make a more or less educated guess. Otherwise we wouldn't even get out of bed in the morning.

That's why science is generally seen as a model, not as a guarantee.

[Lsuoma]

blah, blah, blah no response to the augment of Burke that I said was the one main argument I was making.

As the Brits and the Huns have now exchanged their obligatory Christmas pleasantries from their respective trenches across the no-man's land of a WW1 battlefield, we now return you to our regular scheduled programming ... ;-)

Er, the soldiers actually left the trenches and met in no-man's land.

Do pay attention, 007!

[Service Dog]

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/12/21 ... 835361.jpg

Daunte Wright shot his boyhood friend in the head, leaving him permanently in this condition.

https://republicbrief.com/daunte-wright ... -the-head/

[Steersman]

blah, blah, blah no response to the augment of Burke that I said was the one main argument I was making.

As the Brits and the Huns have now exchanged their obligatory Christmas pleasantries from their respective trenches across the no-man's land of a WW1 battlefield, we now return you to our regular scheduled programming ... ;-)

Er, the soldiers actually left the trenches and met in no-man's land.

Do pay attention, 007!

:-) Right you are, Q. ;-)



Desmond Llewelyn, born 1914, died at 85 in a car accident - RIP:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Llewelyn

[Service Dog]

https://media.patriots.win/post/yTCIszum9QjW.jpeg

RUTLAND, Vt. (WCAX) - Some Vermonters who are able to find antigen tests and then test positive are clogging up emergency rooms.

The emergency department at the Rutland Regional Medical Center has been overwhelmed with asymptomatic folks.

Dr. Rick Hildebrant is RRMC’s medical director. He says some people who test positive with a rapid test go to the emergency room looking for a PCR test.

The Vermont Hospital Association says it’s hearing similar stories from other parts of the state.
https://www.wcax.com/2021/12/22/covid-p ... og-up-ers/