tom sarbeck

Yeah. I often find that these “hands off” people, actually support “getting tough of crime” which really baffles me because if regulations should be so laxed to the point that “victims just deal with the consequences and it will all be sorted out through lawsuits and personal economic interest” then I honestly don’t see why people would support…[Read more]

The problem with your sort of solution is that it is totally post hoc.  Once the pitbull maims the little old lady, kills the family’s Yorkie or cat, or kills the 2 year old by yanking his arm off, sue the bastards!

How about a solution that keeps all that mayhem from happening in the first place?

What Unseen said. Letting people do virt…[Read more]

Once again Enco strawmans the shit out of one of us.

You don’t seem to understand Enco that it is very possible to have something inbetween absolute unconstrained freedom and a controlling communist tyranny. It is basically called: most of the Western world. The very country you live in constrains all sorts of freedoms like driving without…[Read more]

Pitbul kebabs?

Enco, you seem to be operating on the absurd free market idea that people make rational economic decisions and avoid irrational economic decisions. The threat of being sued doesn’t stop some people from doing dangerous shit. People keep doing dangerous shit, even when there is a high chance of getting caught and going to jail (bank robberies for…[Read more]

Enco, you seem to be operating on the absurd free market idea that people make rational economic decisions and avoid irrational economic decisions. The threat of being sued doesn’t stop some people from doing dangerous shit. People keep doing dangerous shit, even when there is a high chance of getting caught and going to jail (bank robberies for…[Read more]

The stafordshire bull terrier my brother had was actually really beautiful (that particular breed is quite nice) with really soft short fur and she was extremely sweet and wonderful to have, until she got very angry at and did major damage to our other dog (requiring a lot of stiches and taking a fair bit of time to recover). I am less interested…[Read more]

Nobody needs a pitbull. A pitbull doesn’t offer anything many other breeds can offer. Since they are the agents of a huge number of human fatalities, injuries and other pet injuries and since they are easily bred out of existence (and we bred them ourselves) this is a no brainer solution. Who was responsible for the dog’s misdeeds is irrelevant to…[Read more]

Bitbulls are completely prohibited in many countries/jurisdictions including the UK, Belgium, New Zealand, Ontario and some cities in the United States including Denver. I have never seen a pitbul in Europe (though they must exist in some countries where they are still legal) and I have no problem breeding them out of existence (considering we…[Read more]

Genetically inheritable adaptation only works when death is programmed into each species, i.e. when old makes way for the new. I didn’t know or remember about the short lives of octopi, but there must be some selective advantage to their having frequent generations… from what I just read, I surmise that their selection pressures are the need to…[Read more]

Ridiculous human being. The University is facing no loss there. Imagine a chemistry science professor refused to wear new almost certainly safe protective gear and was ever so slightly careless with their equipment which put other students at a slight risk of getting hurt and then went: awe, the university is coercing me into using safety gear…[Read more]

I don’t consider it all flawed – but much of it goes nowhere except up its own arse.  Traditional moral philosophy is largely a giant waste of anybody’s time, except that it primes people to be ready for the real stuff (evolutionary ethics).

Yes Simon, we all totally have all the reason in the world to take someone seriously when they know virtua…[Read more]

Enco, it is unconscionably immoral for an utterly filthy rich country like the United States (a nation with wealth the world has never seen before) to allow a citizen to die because of thirst or hunger, all things that can relatively easily be covered by soup kitchens and water subsidies which, as a total cost relative to the US annual budget,…[Read more]

Simon, if you cannot even conceive of evidence or arguments that would make you question your theory, then I don’t know why anyone would ever take it seriously. I can fairly easily come up with multiple kinds of evidence for any argument I think is important. You have a major argument which you think is a comprehensive explanation of so many…[Read more]

Simon, moral norms are arbitrary, developed out of culture, in many cases unable to be bent despite clear reasons (and even cultural advantage) to get rid of it. You hand pick praiseworthy traits that have developed in some cultures and ignore the many cultural norms which are harmful and morally repugnant. Mass rape is a moral norm of human…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Some illusions (e.g., natural camouflage of moths and lizards, for example) operate quite well on very low forms of life that we might think of as having primitive brains but maybe not true minds, but work not so well on higher orders of intelligence.

True, as evolutionary pressures have favored the development of camouflage with or…[Read more]

I’m also increasingly suspicious of the relevance of the term “illusion”. Illusion only exists in thought processes, in brains. Continuing in theme from my previous post, illusions have no relevance in scientific discourse… unless we’re talking specifically in terms of empirical data when trying to measure consciousness, which (btw) is also…[Read more]

Could a counter-question be just as relevant, such as “how real is life”? The only scientific viewpoints I’ve seen on this are just… viewpoints, and philosophical questions that lack empirical data. Regarding standard definitions of life and death, and even the definition of “reality”, I see more opinions than science. Come to think of it, there…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Should taxpayers be forced to provide these and should producers of these good be forced by law to provide them to all?

Yes, to a more reasonable extent than the the current USA’s system. Other countries are quite happy with their more socialized approach to health care. There will always be deeper, philosophical…[Read more]