The T in JTB is kinda awkward. If someone says they believe something, they're already saying they think it's true. If someone says they're justified in believing something, they're saying they think it's true, and their thought is justified. — flannel jesus

I'm not an expert so please correct me if you think otherwise, but I think you got it wrong, if you read the linked JTB article you should notice right at the beginning the "The Tripartite Analysis of Knowledge" which states that for something which is "true" you also have to believe it it's true.
Otherwise for ex. if you're presented a proof of something and then claim you don't believe it that's equivalent of making truth not truth (subjectively I suppose).

And the "J", justification condition makes only sense if both belief and truth are fulfilled, that is, you believe true is indeed true, which justifies your belief that something is true.

On another side if you believe something that's not true then your belief is not justified (ex. it's false belief or belief in false statement), that's the fundamental point!

"JTB" is antiquated. Much more cogent: — 180 Proof

Thank you, I might read about it some time, didn't know it's antiquated, but is that your personal opinion or is it established that JTB is out of date?

Thinking about what you said, this should probably be classified as passive danger and active danger.
concrete tech ex. nukes correspond to active danger while what you said corresponds to passive danger, one which develops over time and does general destabilization.

Every 'civilization' is always most vulnerable to (thermodynamic and/or information) entropy. — 180 Proof

Maybe you want to explain?, I don't get it.

Everything will be just engineers improving current machines and concepts. But once you have developed the pencil, the written book, the spoon etc. there's not much to improve there. Spoons and books have stayed the same for quite a while. No incentive or reason to improve a technology that works so well. — ssu

Spoons will likely never go out of scope, but for written books there already are alternatives, PDF's and similar which we read on PC and mobile etc.

Fire was first invention to prepare meals followed by stoves and now wait until food replicator is discovered like the one in star trek series.

The point is that it takes centuries until one seemingly irreplaceable tech goes out of scope and is replaced with newer one.
Only because spoons and similar are used for very long time doesn't mean they'll be used for eternity.

I suspect so. Global travel increases the likelihood of a global pandemic, excessive industrialisation increases the use of non-renewable resources and the likelihood of harmful climate change, and automated systems controlled by an artificial intelligence is vulnerable to coding errors and sabotage. — Michael

Good point, so that's an alternative danger other than concrete technology, maybe it should be called self-destruction caused by cumulative scientific discoveries.
Climate change is good real-world example.

Knowledge consists of truths or not-yet-falsified claims the statuses of which are independent of dis/belief. — 180 Proof

Perhaps outside the concept of justified true belief:
"The general idea behind the belief condition is that you can only know what you believe."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJustTrueBeli

Chet says that statement is incontrovertible. I would like to see an argument to support that contention. — Janus

If you take JTB (above) into the picture then that's an argument against it because belief only is insufficient.

Must be really some awesome technology of the future, because the fact is that even an all-out nuclear war between US/Russia and China wouldn't devastate everything and kill everybody. It might be a well respected mantra to say to voice opposition to nuclear weapons, but destroying everything is a lot harder than we think. — ssu

Yeah we don't know what the future holds, so we can't dismiss the possibility.
General preventive measures are desired, just like there are preventive measures being discussed about the use of AI today even though the AI does not pose any risks for now but has the capacity to be weaponized in the future.

There really is a difference between science and technology. Your simply not using the definition of technology and just putting it together with everything being 'science'. However there's a reason why the standard definitions are different. Let's define first what they mean: — ssu

Agree but I think it's not wrong to say "scientific progress" when addressing this question because without scientific progress there is no technological progress.

ex. discovery of nuclear fission is science without which there would be no nuclear weapons (concrete technology)
inventing nukes was really easy thanks to scientific progress.

The point is that scientific progress leads to potentially devastating technologies.

There's a lot of examples that show that we aren't as vulnerable as earlier: we don't die as early as before. If there are bad harvests, we don't in the industrialized World die of famine. Actually famines have become more rare. We don't just have to raise our hands up and hope that the God's wouldn't be angry at us, we have an idea just how we changing (destroying?) our environment. — ssu

Yes, there are many benefits of scientific progress but the thing is that only one wrong technology can devastate all benefits.

I don't think science is inherently evil because of this, only that it has the potential of self-destruction if not controlled.

So you could think of the individualism-framed problem as a problem of the ratio between adults and toddlers, and the ensuing probability that any given random individual will be a "toddler." The government solution is based on the idea that a minority of adults will maintain control over time, thus preventing toddlers from accessing dangerous weapons. — Leontiskos

So the world government idea becomes even more undesirable in the eyes of those who oppose it, because it implies censorship of destructive knowledge further raising suspicion and conspiracies about world government.
Overall world government, censorship of knowledge and moral development play together, inclusively instead of either one exclusively.

I think maturation is needed, including moral maturation. — Leontiskos

I think no matter how morally perfect or morally enlightened world population is there will always be individuals willing to do immoral things with the help of destructive knowledge or technology.

What you seem to have problem with is to prevent censorship of knowledge or to ensure public access to knowledge.
From one side this also means bad actors having free access to dangerous knowledge increasing the risk of destabilization.
The opposite is that such knowledge should be censored to prevent destabilization which you compare to Biblical view in that people should have the knowledge regardless of what some "evil" world government (or God) says.

Since you like neither of these 2 options you propose that moral maturity of the population is the answer.

But the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and so is the population only as mature as it's most immoral (or insane) individual.
For this reason I don't find maturity any better than world government or censorship of knowledge.

It seem Russia didn't drop investigation against Prigozhin, Putin likely betrayed his word.

https://tass.com/society/1638327

Prigozhin doesn't look sane enough to control a nuclear arsenal.
He can't even control his own emotions.

What happens next in your view? — Baden

This is so difficult question not even the wisest could answer given past events that happened so far in regard to Ukraine war.

I think stalemate is inevitable followed by some events to replace Putin peacefully.

I don't believe Ukraine will regain lost territories and all that Putin is likely to do is to maintain current position and exhaust Ukrainians militarily to force them to negotiation table.

With gene manipulation just like there is a chance to cause undesired effects so is there a chance to cause desired ones.

Whether that's good or not then boils down to the study of the results.
The bigger "issue makers" are those taking ethics into the matter though rather than those postulating about positive or negative side effects.

Truth cannot be a lie. Otherwise the foundations of our court/judiciary system is completely faulty and evidence and justice are total nonsense. — Benj96

Truth cannot be esoteric, because it spans the range from basic/simple to complex. — Benj96

Truth cannot not exist, otherwise all of science is debased. — Benj96

Therefore truth exists. And as a spectrum of all true things, some are more longstanding, more consistent, more fundamental, than others.
I just drank some water is true.
Civilisation has been around for millenia is true.
Animals exists for millions of years is true.
The planet condensed via gravity is true... — Benj96

We need to distinguish true statements or logical truths from universal truth.
There any many logical truths while universal truth is only one.

Existence of logical truths does not imply existence of universal truth, universal truth may as well consist of multiple or a series of logical truths, however the opposite is false, such that any of the logical truths is universal truth because no such logical truth is known.

What you're saying is that universal truth is necessarily logical truth even though unknown, but this is wrong assumption for reason above.

universal truth might as well be illogical or paradoxical.

I don't know if you're aware but since 1990's there is a new field of study called "Western esotericism", only very few universities in the world exist, and only the one in Amsterdam offers PhD degree.

According to this field of study, there are three approaches on how this problem of universal truth could be approached:

1. Historical-critical approach,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism

There are two currents of thought in this approach, one is strictly "historical-critical" aka. "kill the God" approach, that is, remove God or anything spiritual and then deconstruct texts.
And another one, the “generalists,” who intend to study "esotericism" as a whole.

2. Perennial philosophy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy

Perennialist approach is either:
A) Universalists

consists in postulating the existence of a "universal esotericism" of which
it would be a matter of discovering, of explicating the “true” nature

That is, approach in which there is search for "esoteric truth"

B) Religionists (3rd approach)

consists in positing that, to validly study a religion, a tradition, a spiritual trend, and so on - and, consequently, "esotericism" - it is necessary to be a member of it oneself on pain of not
understanding very much about it

C) Both A and B in same time
Principally "Perennial philosophy"

Btw. I took above two quotes (A and B) from the book called "Western Esotericism" by Arthur Versluis.

What I'm trying to say here is this:
1. If truth is known only by small circle (ex. esoteric truth) then as we already concluded, this circle either A) keeps the truth to manipulate masses, ex. for their own gain, or
B) keeps the truth because it would not be understood or may be harmful for society

2. truth itself can be either of religious nature or historical nature where both may be considered with the aim for either one to outweight the other with the support of outweighted one.

3. It clearly shows that truth-saying has evolved to the level of scholarship and there are divided opinions non-the less, probably influenced by real "truth-keepers" which is well known among scholars except it's unknown who keeps the truth and why.

How does one prove their validity as the claimant to objective morality in this dilemma? When everyone is prepared to project delusion, judgement, intolerance, envy and hatred onto them despite their noble attempt?

The answer is a 3 step process: ... — Benj96

I think none of the 3 propositions are desired for "truth-speaker", at least not for wise one, first two would simply fail because mass media is biased and controlled by governments or lobbies or by truth-keepers, very likely resulting in denigration of a truth-speaker which was the case with many truth-speakers.
The 3rd one is unwise because with one's own death one cannot be sure what will happen later nor can a dead person influence the world once it's dead.
There are countless martyrs in the name of truth and none succeeded to answer great questions.

Thus a wise one knows the result of truth-saying is equal to destruction of it's life or carrier.

1). Speak the truth, if it is indeed as powerful as it ought to be - because of its logical and revelatory nature, the truth speaker ought to gain some attention and fandom, rising from obscurity to the height of politics and media coverage. — Benj96

This is interesting however, if it is indeed as powerful as it ought to be - because of its logical and revelatory nature then such truth if it ever was told is a lie because we still do not know the answers to great questions, at least not empirical ones.
Therefore I think truth is either esoteric, a lie or it doesn't exist.

I would rule out "doesn't exist" however because we and the world around us obviously does exist, so I'm in favor of, it's either esoteric or an elaborate lie.

I agree with you though that not telling the truth is evil for society if such truth exists, however also without knowing the actual truth we can only speculate about reasons for keeping it secret.
Maybe speculating about what truth is could help figure out reasons for keeping it secret.

Why would a fundamental, profound or simple/basic truth be esoteric (specialised and inaccessible).
The whole point of truth and it's "acknowledgement" ie "knowledge of what's true" is that it very much is accesible by following basic logic and reasoning to their ends.

Truths make sense to people. Strings of lies do not because theyre "inconsistent" (false) ie not true and thus not sensible. — Benj96

I think because it is objective truth that truth is not known.
But I don't think truth makes (or would make) sense to people just because it's truth.

That's why I linked to the allegory of the cave, knowing the truth in this sense means going out of the cave but nobody is willing to do it (to know the truth):

Socrates concludes that the prisoners, if they were able, would therefore reach out and kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave

Secondly you speak in doubles first saying "one who has some revelation" and then "such as institutions" which is it? One person does not an institution make. — Benj96

I would say it applies to both but more leaning toward institution, it depends on what is meant by 'truth' or how is it defined.
I think of truth as of universal truth which answers the existence of all things because this would answer many great philosophical questions.

I think it's far more reasonable that an "institution" or hierarchy of power, withholds the truth from the top (manipulator/truth with-holder) downward not because the general public couldn't understand it but rather because they don't want the public to understand it as if they did, they wouldn't be in a position of power anymore would they? — Benj96

What you're talking about is exactly "esoteric" truth, meaning not only that it would not be understood by cave men (it blinds them) but also unwillingness of those circles which know it to share, both applies.

Also the publics lack of understanding of it is literally caused by whoever withholds it from them. It's in effect keeping the public distracted and uneducated (without knowledge). It's easier to deceive and manipulate someone without much understanding of anything. — Benj96

Yes, agree.

If you asked the public would they like to know who is fooling them and misguiding them. Who is spreading prooganada and misinformation. Do you genuinely think they wouldnt care? — Benj96

The public would of course care but I don't think they would believe it.
We are again to the cave story, the public would "reach out and kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave"

Imagine going up to someone and saying "so I have this big super important super powerful secret which let's me manipulate others. And I'm not telling you what that is."

You think people "wouldn't care". — Benj96

Well, Jesus also proclaimed truth and we all know people *did* care but didn't believe it.
Jews went out of the cave and killed him to not be dragged out of the cave.

I think for this discussion to make any sense you should define what is meant by truth, that is, what should this universal truth be about, what should that universal truth answer or reveal?

You said "Any individual in possession or "revelation" of such a truth", thus I assume by revelation you mean truth which answers great questions.

Also I assume there can be only one truth, otherwise it's not truth but just true statement related to something of insignificant value to the general public.

Conclusion: Any individual in possession or "revelation" of such a truth has 2 options: conceal it/keep it to oneself. In which case one cannot tell the truth. And so becomes a liar by definition.

This is basis for powerful and dangerous propaganda - from the word "to propagate" - as in to propagate delusions, deceptions and misinformation. To be deceitful. This is therefore wholly immoral as it disempowers others/misleads them and reduces their ability to be moral or take control. It is manipulative.
So to know the truth and not speak it is the archetype of the "villain", "antagonist" or "evil doer". — Benj96

I don't agree with this and to support my disagreement I'm going to point to the amazing allegory of the cave by Plato:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

Scroll to "summary" section to read the allegory.

Thus if one who has some revelation and knows truth but does not speak about it such as institutions, it's very likely this is so because revealing the truth would not be understood (esoteric truth) or the public wouldn't even care to listen to it.

nice nickname lol

If humanity is unified under single government, meaning no wars between nations, then anyone who would oppose such government could easily be declared as terrorist or terrorist group.

Doesn't sound like a good idea.

So, there is nothing in the definition of God that commits a Christian to the belief that God created the world. — Bartricks

there is,
consider a god which creates a world, and god which doesn't.
which one is more benevolent?

A.. maybe. B. try "benevolent god and benevolent world." — god must be atheist

is therefore not logically possible in this context.

it's simple because you need to start from god or definition of god.

god is perfect and not inferior in anything (otherwise it's inferior god and thus not god)
god which gives free will is more benevolent than one which doesn't.

then the rest follows based on that premise.

you must substantiate this. You haven't convinced me yet that a world full of evil is better than a world with no evil. — god must be atheist

perfectly benevolent god and evil world is better than less perfect or evil god and good world.
one reason why is that if there is imperfect god then this means there exists god which is superior thus leading again to god which gives free will, a good god.

And the god that is claimed to be all benevolent, good and graceful... why would being a slave to him be bad? — god must be atheist

god which gives free will is more benevolent than god which doesn't give free will.
thus god which gives free will is superior to god which doesn't.
and god is a superior being.

here is NO SLAVERY in a world with no free will. — god must be atheist

you would be a slave of god.

just go out ask 10 random people "would you like your free will to be taken away from you?"

but we're on right track, free will is closely related to evil and good:
https://www.gotquestions.org/why-did-God-give-us-free-will.html

We would still have thoughts, and pleasure; we'd all live in harmony; no evil. Isn't that what the Christian ideal of Heaven is? Free will is responsible for Evil. Isn't your idea of a good world to live without evil? — god must be atheist

would you like to sing songs to god all day, wash feet of poor people, give your wealth to the poor, go to church and all this stuff without the right to complain and so all day and every day until your death?

I think this sucks so bad, I prefer free will and I'm sure a lot of other people do as well.

isn't slavery evil? But no free will, no evil. — god must be atheist

slavery is evil and god would be an evil god if it gave us no free will but instead enslaved us to do only as god wants.

Your third set is false in the A part. "Free will is good, taking away free will is bad." Without free will there is no evil; therefore the lack of free will is desireable. — god must be atheist

how is lack of free will desireable?
without free will we would be 100% slaves, no freedom no nothing.

God PUNISHES (according to the scriptures) evil, but he does not stand in the way of evil deeds. Where did you get that? — god must be atheist

because otherwise it would violate our free will.

Therefore your argument in OP should be reformulated to:

1. Free will may lead to evil
2. God gave free will
3. God let his creation (humans and angels) do evil

Which doesn't imply that:
A) God is evil
B) God allows evil
C) God created evil

Because:
A) Giving free will is good, taking it away is evil
B) We know god doesn't allow or tolerate evil
C) Beings with free will create evil

Which doesn't make god evil character.

If you accept this, then you accept that evility is MORE than just a lack of goodness. — god must be atheist

You have to choose between the two. Either you accept your own definition, or you reject your own opinion on evility. — god must be atheist

and you can't say that there are degrees of lacking. — god must be atheist

OK, I got it, my definition excludes degrees of evil
I'm not sure what other definition could be made.

Is it in the scriptures that Satan had free will, or you made that up along with the people whose values you still embrace? Please tell me the book and line number where it is explicitly stated that Satan had free will. — god must be atheist

in the book of Enoch trough parables for ex. a lot can be found.
what I found in the book of Enoch is that angels are able to sin, and we know to sin one needs free will.

2 Timothy 2:26 states satan has will (not god's will but his own will)

I could find better matches than this with additional research for sure, for ex:
https://www.gotquestions.org/angels-free-will.html

What do you call it when you buy a loaf of bread or you look out the window in religious terms? — god must be atheist

This doesn't make sense, you're missing a context, it depends a lot on purpose, for what purpose does one look out of a window or buy bread?

I think genesis 1:3-4 is one good example:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good

So using your logic one could say "light" is neutral, but it's not, at least not in this context.

Did god plan for us to idly look out the window, or to buy a loaf of bread? — god must be atheist

it is certainly god's plan to for us to live life, that's good, looking out a window is living life but it depends on context.
perhaps the window is from your house which you earned with your own hands so you enjoy your hard work, it's god's plan that you work and earn for house and now enjoy your hard work, that's good not evil.

You must have a neat explanation how Satan had come into existence without being created. — god must be atheist

we all know satan was created by god with free will. and it choose to defy god.
but you're trying to prove that god created evil being which is not true.

How do you define good, or goodness, in religious terms, SpaceDweller? This would be helpful in knowing how evil is created. — god must be atheist

I don't have a definition but I would certainly not limit good to morally right since the bible ie. mentions good things which don't necessarily deal with morality.

I know I answered this based on my own beliefs,, but I don't know what your beliefs are, SpaceDweller. You must have the clear idea how goodness gets taken away from an otherwise good deed for it to become an evil deed. — god must be atheist

I'm no longer religious even though it difficult to get rid of old values.
and I don't think good deeds can become evil by simply taking good out of them, deeds are either good or not.

There is a third problem. If evility is a lack of goodness, then there is no gradation of goodness. Everything that has no goodness is evil. You can't say "this nothing has more something missing than that nothing." If goodness is missing, then how much of it is missing? That is a silly question. Therefore all evil deeds are equal in magnitude of evility. yet you insist that they are graded for magnitude. — god must be atheist

but we know that not all good deeds or things are not equally good and same is true for evil things.
evil lacks all shades of good and consist of one shade of evil.
problem with your reasoning I think is that you compare good and evil with 0 and 1, but 0 and 1 don't have shades.

I bought a quart / a litre of milk today. — god must be atheist

good for you.

You must always check the blind spot before changing lanes.

Don't worry; be happy. — god must be atheist

good advices.

my argument is that something is either good or evil, in shades ofc. not absolute good or absolute evil. but no such thing as complete absence of both good and evil.

When we talked about good and evil here, we use the terms in religious senses. — god must be atheist

in religious sense "neutral" doesn't really exist.
in Christianity for ex. it's called "indifference" which is slightly evil, for ex. seeing an injured person on the street and not helping, you're indifferent (or neutral) by not helping but that's slightly evil, in religious or moral sense.

In what proportion? For every 1000 jobs made obsolete, how many are created? What happens to the 999 people and their children? — Vera Mont

for that we need statistics.

People seeing negative things and ignoring positive things is nothing new.

You have a point, but isn't your reasoning based upon that "neutral" is a state which could be put into same category as good and evil?

is neutral of same "type" so to speak, as good and evil?

Can you give a real world example of neutral which would imply something that excludes both good and evil?

With that said, is it ethical for technological automation top be stunted, in order to preserve jobs (or a healthy job marketplace)? — Bret Bernhoft

Available jobs don't go down due to technology, what happens is that some jobs are replaced with technology, however new kinds of jobs also pop out.

One difference is that those new jobs require more skills, ex. higher education, while old jobs are usually those requiring raw workforce with no special education such as high school.

I am afraid I can't accept your definition.

There are things in the world which are neither good nor bad. They are neutral. — god must be atheist

How is that an argument?

Because there are more or less good or more or less bad things doesn't make bad = ~good false.
ex. darkness is absence of light is false because dawn exists which is false.

related:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_white_horse_is_not_a_horse

3. Humans have free will and they created evility with their moral displestitude. — god must be atheist

1. Assuming that 3 is right, it does not explain the existence of the devil. — god must be atheist

You need to define evil first,
"Evil is lack of good"

If you agree with this definition, then evil isn't creatable.

ex. Night isn't created, night is lack of light.
There is no special celestial object which would shine night like there is Sun which shines light.

Thus the devil wasn't created but become so due to lack of good.

I believe the "agent" is anything you want it to be in game theory, so long as it is acting. This is why game theory has a very wide range of applicability. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you for reply.

I must admit I didn't read trough the whole article in the link I posted, but I did read a bit more now in trying to understand what you said and I see where does this lead to...

There are basically 2 camps of opinions as to who agents are by interpreting "utility",
one camp which defines utility by way of RPT (Revealed Preference Theory), and other camp which doesn't:

RPT camp:

Economists and others who interpret game theory in terms of RPT should not think of game theory as in any way an empirical account of the motivations of some flesh-and-blood actors (such as actual people).

Non RPT camp:

Some other theorists understand the point of game theory differently. They view game theory as providing an explanatory account of actual human strategic reasoning processes.

Further the continuation of the article seems to lean toward RPT camp:

An economically rational player is one who can:
1. assess outcomes, in the sense of rank-ordering them with respect to their contributions to her welfare
2. calculate paths to outcomes, in the sense of recognizing which sequences of actions are probabilistically associated with which outcomes
3. select actions from sets of alternatives (which we’ll describe as ‘choosing’ actions) that yield her most-preferred outcomes, given the actions of the other players.

Which excludes human player as the only one qualifying as "rational agent":

An entity is usefully modeled as an economically rational agent to the extent that it has alternatives, and chooses from amongst these in a way that is motivated, at least more often than not, by what seems best for its purposes.

Thus according to RPT camp definition, it qualifies the AI in computer games as rational agent.

Therefore I guess those arguments against AI in my OP can be dismissed if non RPT stance is also dismissed as definition of game theory, but that's up to debate because I'm sure non RPT camp has it's own arguments to defend their stance that only human beings qualify.

I start this OP because I am interested in your thoughts regarding transitoriness. We already discussed some threads about the concept of death where I quoted Mishima’s books. But this time is different because I learned a new state of mind: self-realization on the pass of time. — javi2541997

Maybe not related to what you're asking but transitoriness from the link you posted sounds like a proof of reality, as opposed to ex. theory of simulation which aims to say we and our surrounding aren't real.

The feeling of running out of time is thus sense of reality or proof that world is real.

To my knowledge all mutations are either bad or don't change anything, and super rarely anything good and evolving. — TiredThinker

I don't find any article which would support that good mutation are super rare, DNA mutations are either bad, good or change nothing:

What are the consequences of mutations?
Mutations are a source of genetic diversity in populations, and, as mentioned previously, they can have widely varying individual effects. In some cases, mutations prove beneficial to an organism by making it better able to adapt to environmental factors. In other situations, mutations are harmful to an organism — for instance, they might lead to increased susceptibility to illness or disease. In still other circumstances, mutations are neutral, proving neither beneficial nor detrimental outcomes to an organism. Thus, it is safe to say that the ultimate effects of mutations are as widely varied as the types of mutations themselves.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/dna-is-constantly-changing-through-the-process-6524898/

Artificial intelligence does or may someday have the reasoning we have, but does this mean they are conscious? — Gregory

Conscious I think means self-awareness, and if so machines will never be self-aware like us.
machines may have reasoning far better and faster than us, ex. chess engine, but self-awareness not.

It's easy to predict war, just look which country buys most gold.

Russia for ex. was buying a lot of gold in recent years.

What does it mean to give oneself purpose? — TiredThinker

To know what one lives for.