Simon:

The idea of a cross-societal study of norms is a great idea worth studying. The PDF had the rightmost side of the pages chopped off, but once that is corrected, it might be a good read. (My own struggles with PDFs thoroughly leaves a bad taste in my mouth for the format.)

Maybe the Toyota Foundation isn’t the same as the car company, I don’t know.

Enco

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378138739_Moral_universals_A_machine-reading_analysis_of_256_societies

Simon:

I know of someone who got a grant from Toyota to do evolutionary ethics.

Hmmm…Interesting. Did it involve study of a large sampling of people with an experimental group and a control group? A survey with unloaded questions? Did it let the evidence guide the conclusion rather than vice-versa?

TheEncogitationer wrote:
True, but do they get scientific grants from labs, either corporate or governmental, for their speculations, however interesting they may be?

I knew of someone who got a grant from Toyota to do evolutionary ethics.

Simon:

There are people who are paid to do this kind of thing – professional philosophers. I think most of them are professors at universities and therefore are required to teach as well.

True, but do they get scientific grants from labs, either corporate or governmental, for their speculations, however interesting they may be?

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Even the most generous bankroller of Science has to have priorities.

If the Thomas Nagels of the world want to be a Furrie, a Smoothie, a Scaleie, an Exoskelie, or a Membraneie and then navel-gaze over it, that’s their own business, but that may have to be on their own time and Dime.

There are people who are paid to do t…[Read more]

Simon,

Actually, thinking about this again, humans who could be another species and who could communicate to other humans about the experience could do many useful things.

It could give greater insights on diseases that cross species, similarities between biological functions of our species and other species, give further substantiation for…[Read more]

Simon:

I disagree, you never know when something might turn out to be valuable. There’s a whole picture of reality to be painted, and it needs all the pieces in place.

All this is true, but when there are problems like:

*Chronic, degenerative diseases and conditions on top of resurgent infection diseases keeping humans from living longer, h…[Read more]