Simon Paynton

_Robert_ wrote:
I’ll say one thing, if Trump’s ultimate goal was to get Western Europe to begin handling more of their own military defense and “ante up” on spending, it is working. This idea that he may be just faking his love affair with Putin to achieve this goal would indicate that he is a very clever man, indeed. LOL !

I agree he is right t…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Her pretty face kept her in the news cycle.

It was the sensationalism of the case that kept it in the news cycle, together with her being British, one of our own.  Murder, sex, drugs, pretty girls, Africans, Italians – it had it all.

Unseen wrote:
Had she been a black girl or a homely white girl, she’d have been toast.

If she had been Black, she would have been treated worse by the police and the press.  Beyond that, that’s a pretty misogynistic assessment.  What do the Brits think?  We’ve pretty much forgotten about it.  I think it unfolded in a complex way and we follo…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
the rules of the “patriarchy” don’t redound to the benefit of most men. … Lots of reverse serendipity to go around on this flying mudball in space.

You’re right, those things are true.  There’s a sore deal for men there.  However, they’re there for reasons of practical necessity – someone’s got to do those jobs, and wom…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Women’s bodies are moralized more than men’s, study finds.

This finding is exactly consistent with patriarchy behaving as a moral domain whose overarching method is to dominate and control women and their sexuality.  Women are subject to all kinds of rules that men are not.  The more they try to assert self-…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Your initial belief (before evidence) + new evidence = updated belief.

That sounds very reasonable.

Unseen wrote:
It is not single axioms that strike me as obvious, it is a system in which consequences and premises give one another mutual support.” — Wittgenstein, On Certainty, sec. 141-42

That’s good too.  If ther…[Read more]

I thought that Bayesian reasoning was about extrapolating “what is” to “what might be”, thereby limiting new ideas.

I think that’s brilliant Reg.  I’m not sure about Bayesian thinking though – it seems to repackage “what’s possible” as “based on what’s already the case” – not allowing in new ideas.

Strega wrote:
Regarding wishing we could all see each other as equals, that’s not how humans evolved. We are an instinctive tribal species, and there’s always “the enemy” somewhere to fight. If you’ve got no-one to fight, you’ll lose your fighting people.

You see it in football in Europe. Each team has a particular nemesis team. We love compet…

[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
What a real-life ‘trolley problem’ reveals about morality.

This is very interesting, and shows what I always said: there is usually no single right or wrong answer to a moral question, but a number of right or wrong answers, one for each value that comes into play.  So, something can be right in *this* way but wron…[Read more]

@robert – why were those things done?  For what reasons?

jakelafort wrote:
In any event as long as it can be established that the onset of transexualism is biologically based we take out the free will BS and that diminishes societal condemnation of trans people.

If people chose to be trans, rather than being born that way – so what?  It’s a harmless thing in itself, and not like molesting children,…[Read more]

I don’t think someone needs a “female brain” to feel like they are female.  Who knows where gender identity resides?  The body is a complex system.  Biological sex is one thing.  Psychological and social gender identity can be separate from that.

Where’s the relationship between being trans, and being gay?  Is there one?  How would that even be defined?