Site-Wide Activity

_Robert_ wrote:

Thanks Davis. I have committed just about everything on your list at least one time except for waterboarding of course. The last one was my favorite. I needed stuff for the confessional you know.

You haven’t lived until you extract unreliable information from a perhaps innocent person through torture you could claim isn’t really t…[Read more]

Objective methods don’t work.

@Robert. Indeed. One thing I very much like about deontological moral systems, is that you become the law maker. No one needs to dictate laws to you. The only challenge is how seriously you take your own moral rules. Under some versions of deontological morality, there is no better or worse crime (in theory), only b…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

robots acting with “good intentions”?

It does remind me of “Data” in Star Trek, who seems the only character that follows the rules to its most difficult rendering (often in danger to him) and his final sacrafice. The few times he breaks those rules (like rescuing the little girl on a Vulcanic planet) he does it by h…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

@davis – “hierarchies” – what I mean is, we can compare any two crimes and usually, one will be worse than another.

Great. Could you please at least list those 15 unfavorable acts from worst to least worse???

Quixotic, eh? – If we had candidates who did not have us tilting at windmills then they would merit a vote 🙂

Would Kant have had much to say on the “duty” of humans who send killer robots to war if they were programed never to kill civilians…..i.e. robots acting with “good intentions”?

Gee, if only you guys and MANY thousands more who share your ideas would run for and get elected to legislatures.

Quixotic, eh?

I do have a black sense of humor at times. The word I had in mind was Schadenfreude 🙂

Davis: It’s partly the reason why I am really hesistant to take some moral systems seriously.

I too will always act unpredictably. Don’t hold your breath until I explain.

Reg: The Nazi party lost and are now all dead. If only there was some word, maybe a German one, to describe how that makes me feel.

Freude? Pleasure. (from my compact Eng/Ger dictionary)

– what I mean is, we can compare any two crimes and usually, one will be worse than another.

Of course you can. That’s the basis of any legal system. The result will be a subjective, non universal conclusion. Sorry, but there is no ultimate law maker or judge. Objective methods don’t work. We are great apes trying to get along enough to survive. W…[Read more]

I am currently living in Dublin, Ireland. I do spend about a month a year in the USA and a few weeks in Europe. Where are you living Rodrigo?

@davis – “hierarchies”

– what I mean is, we can compare any two crimes and usually, one will be worse than another.

Where are you from, Rodrigo? You’re right; not knowing any atheists sucks.

I’m in California’s Northern SF Bay Area. The SF Bay Area is home to many atheists.

The Categorical Imperative assumes three things: 1) you are a rational and logical being, 2) you are a dutiful person (if you conclude you should do something, you will have to do it), and 3) you have a pre-existing morality. Eliminate any one of these and it falls on its face.

Like the Golden Rule (which it is, basically, reworded somewhat), it…[Read more]

Rodrigo Moreira Pavanelli wrote:

I wanna know. Cause I wanna connect with atheists in my area. It sucks to not know any

Welcome, Rodrigo! Please start here, in Introductions, and tell us about yourself, first.

British Columbia Canada.

Thanks Davis. I have committed just about everything on your list at least one time except for waterboarding of course. The last one was my favorite. I needed stuff for the confessional you know.