No I’m not. You were triggered that I defended the free speech of Nazis, and said I should be ashamed. Then I showed how civil rights activists do the same. I’d love to watch you tell the head of the ACLU that he should be ashamed of himself for defending the free speech of Nazis. — NOS4A2

Yes you are, and I would have no qualms about telling him so, except that it wouldn't count as free speech under U.K. law, so over here he wouldn't be defending free speech, he would be defending rightly prohibited hate speech.

And what happens if there is no royal assent for the extension bill? — Galuchat

There will be. If not, we'll cut off her head. Or maybe stick a red-hot poker up her arse, like we did to Edward II.

But they don't really or simply mean belief, they mean religious belief or having faith in their religion. So there's ambiguity in your question which you could have avoided if you had've worded it better. Is religious belief, or having faith in your religion, in an uncritical manner, a virtue? No, it's the opposite. So, on that basis, I'll vote for "No".

You're once again confusing the advocation of free speech with your extremely unreasonable absolutist nonsense.

The question doesn't seem to make sense. Belief is a necessity, and is no more or less a virtue than breathing. Perhaps you mean something else.

Are you defending the Nazis and their vile and condemnable hate speech?
— S

That’s one of the perils of defending free speech: you have to defend it for everyone. — NOS4A2

No you don't, and you should be deeply ashamed of yourself.

What is Jeremy Corbyn's current condition for agreeing a general election? — Galuchat

“The bill that is going to parliament today needs to pass. It needs to pass all its stages. It needs to go through and have royal assent – and once we’re confident they can’t crash out and no deal is taken off the table for 31 October, we will support a general election,” he said. — Corbyn's spokesperson

That's not true at all. — schopenhauer1

You're right, despite how it may have sounded, we all know you're too obsessed to let the matter go.
And yes, you really, really, really, really don't need to repeat your exaggerated failure of an argument. I've definitely heard it all before. Multiple times. And funnily enough, believe it or not, it continues to suffer from the same faults.

With anything less than force a la physical causality, the person could have decided to do something different.
— Terrapin Station

Right. But that leaves only physically manipulating someone's limbs. Not a very common scenario in practice. — Echarmion

Actually, he's an ardent physicalist who claims that everything is physical, including that the mental is the physical, so he'd be inconsistent in denying the physical process involving sound waves from verbal speech, all of the physical stuff that goes on in our brain in reaction to them, and all of the resulting physical actions, all of which have a cause and effect relationship. He's actually just assuming that there's a point where the person could have acted differently. Apparently that's based on nothing other than an intuition, which is weaks grounds for support. I don't recall seeing any positive case from Terrapin Station. He has just been playing sceptic when it's convenient to do so.

Nazis were persecuted for their speech... — NOS4A2

Are you defending the Nazis and their vile and condemnable hate speech?

Breathe out, breathe in. A bad habit brought me back now which is the same one that had driven me away then: breathing ... — 180 Proof

It's 180 Proof! :gasp:

Yeah I'm not putting the other premises in there. I think you can fill those in..and if you can..you know where the argument was going in the first place and this objection is an exercise in objecting. — schopenhauer1

Sounds like you're coming around to the idea that these discussions you keep creating are pointless, as it has been done to death. You already know that the full argument contains objectionable premises, yet you continue to peddle it.

Yes, the same Lib Dems who opposed Labour's war in Iraq. — Michael

New Labour's, and our current leader opposed it.

Did you know that the current leader of the Lib Dems almost always voted for the bedroom tax, consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices, generally voted against a banker’s bonus tax, almost always voted for reducing the rate of corporation tax, infamously u-turned by having consistently voted for university tuition fees and by voting for raising England’s undergraduate tuition fee cap to £9,000 per year, consistently voted for ending financial support for some 16-19 year olds in training and further education, consistently voted for selling England’s state owned forests, generally voted against financial incentives for low carbon emission electricity generation methods, generally voted against greater regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract shale gas, consistently voted against slowing the rise in rail fares, generally voted against greater regulation of gambling, consistently voted for capping civil service redundancy payments, almost always voted against Labour's anti-terrorism laws, generally voted for the privatisation of Royal Mail, generally voted for restricting the scope of legal aid, and generally voted for the policies included in the 2010 Conservative - Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement?

So, she can't be trusted to support the least financially well off in society, can't be trusted to tackle ruthless capitalism, can't be trusted on national security, can't be trusted on education, and can't be trusted on the environment.

Mic drop.

I don’t see how a deal is the only way to go, especially if that deal is no good. May’s deal, for instance, was deemed a bad deal. Rather, It would be shooting oneself in the foot to accept a bad deal. The no-deal needs to remain on the table as another option. — NOS4A2

Ha! "No deal's better than a bad deal"? But realistically no deal is always going to be worse than a deal. A deal worse than no deal is merely hypothetical!

I read that Corbyn’s polling is dreadful. I must say I couldn’t vote for him, if I were British it would have to be Lib Dems but I can’t see them forming Government. — Wayfarer

The same Lib Dems who propped up a Tory government for five years?

A 'no-deal brexit' has never been a 'default position', not even for Johnson - he's been saying (although not many believe him) that he's only threatening it to get traction in negotiations. — Wayfarer

Thereby undermining his own strategy.

Fantastic opening post.

What number is this one? 74?

I don't see how it doesn't. — schopenhauer1

Then, like I said, you need to restudy logic. You can't validly derive the conclusion that you shouldn't give birth from the premise that it's impossible to get consent and the premise that birthing a child causes unknown suffering. There are missing premises. And even if you can manage to put together a valid argument, it will still remain unsound. But at least that way we can pinpoint any false premises.

Being a category error is irrelevant. — schopenhauer1

Lol, no it isn't. It means the argument fails.

The logic follows if you use the term "impossible".

If it is impossible to get consent and a future action leads to unknown suffering that affects an actual person, then do not procreate that person who will be affected by being born and who will experience unknown suffering. — schopenhauer1

If you think that conclusion follows, then you need to restudy logic.

All Bartricks is saying is that you CAN'T give consent prior to birth. Birth causes unknown suffering. Ergo, DON'T give birth since consent is impossible. He is saying the default decision in this case should be no birth. — schopenhauer1

I can read. The conclusion doesn't follow, consent is an irrelevant category error, and repeating things in all caps doesn't help.

A small child is incapable of giving consent, but it is still wrong to do things to that child that will affect it for the rest of its life — Bartricks

Yes, because of the consequences of the action.

and wrong in no small part BECASUE it has not consented to them. — Bartricks

No, because they can't consent, because consent is inapplicable. It's a category error.

so, just to be clear, you are denying that the fact a person will be seriously affected by an act and cannot consent to it is NOT a moral negative most of the time? Because that is just absurd.

It clearly IS a moral negative most of the time. For instance whenever we have - for other moral reasons - to impose something on someone without their prior consent it is almost invariably regrettable. That is, it would have been better if somehow, per impossible, we could have got it.

Take procreation acts themselves - would it notake be better if they could be consented to? — Bartricks

Impossible hypotheticals won't help you. It's impossible. And it therefore makes no sense. Consent is a legitimate concern in legitimate cases, but not in illegitimate cases where consent is a category error.

no, it is default wrong to coerce someone - and default wrong to deceive someone - because the nature of the act is such that it cannot be consented to (as Kanot pointed out ). Perhaps that's the wrong analysis but it'd be absurd to deny it's plausibility. And thats also the nature of procreation acts, so they are default wrong too, or at least it is extremely plausible that they are. — Bartricks

No. It isn't plausible at all because it doesn't make any sense, as I've explained. Just as it doesn't make any sense to talk about consent in relation to bananas. It's a simple category error. A fallacy.

The phrase "dumbing down" is just an emotionally charged way of saying "simplifying" or "putting clearer".

I was pointing out that there are lots of acts of where the nature of the act in qustion is such as to make consent impossible. Such acts are still clearly default wrong and default wrong due to the fact the other person does not consent. — Bartricks

You weren't "pointing that out", because it isn't true. I explained why consent is irrelevant, including in the example you gave which you thought supported your assertion, but actually doesn't.

Thus the idea that the impossibility of getting consent somehow makes it okay to go ahead is patently false. — Bartricks

No, that wasn't the argument. That it's okay is based on other reasons. I was just refuting the argument about lack of consent on the basis that consent is irrelevant.

Yet wars don't rise from the existence of hate speech. Hate speech or it's variants can be used in propaganda, yet the idea that hate speech being a reason for wars is silly.

Just look how many places the US has bombed without any hate speech against the people of those countries. — ssu

Exceptions don't demonstrate that there isn't a link between hate speech and, ultimately, in some cases even war. The history of anti-Semitism in Germany, which obviously peaked in the Nazi era, and which included what would now be classed as hate speech, undoubtedly played a part in the events which lead to the Second World War.

No need to call the cops. I'll hand myself in later today.

As I said yesterday, I kind of admire the conservatives who stood up against him. I wish those spineless gutless congressional republicans would do the same to T. — Wayfarer

Yes, this was brilliant.

No, you're wrong. If it's impossible to get consent, then consent is completely irrelevant. I'm not suggesting that coercion isn't wrong, but it's wrong because you're deceiving someone for nefarious ends, not because you haven't gotten consent.

And no, just in case anyone is thinking it, that's not analogous to having a child, except the part about it being impossible to get consent from the child, and that consent in that sense is irrelevant.

Do S and riclauer find Janus' explanation clear? Clearer? — Coben

Definitely clearer.

Perhaps this was clear in context back there that he was working with Kant's ideas. Did S miss that? — Coben

No. This is Mww we're talking about, after all.

Why would I, when no one asked me for it. And usually no one asks, for one of two reasons: no one cares enough, or, it’s so much easier to make fun of the writer, then to query for an understanding of the written. — Mww

I don't think that we should have to ask. I think that you should write clearer in the first place to avoid that scenario. If something is excessively unclear in wording, seemingly deliberately as a matter of style, then that puts me off asking for a clarification, because then it might just be more of the same.

And making fun of it is almost a given. Can't let an opportunity like that slip away.

I would love to hear some predictions about what will happen, particularly (but not exclusively) from UK residents. Not what you want to happen, but what you actually think will happen both short term and long term. — Relativist

I'm from England, and I really have no idea, but here goes. There'll be an extension, then a slightly modified version of the withdrawal agreement, which won't get through parliament. Then there'll be a vote of no confidence, and an alternative government. If it goes to a general election, I'm not sure anyone can win a majority.

I don't see how Brexit can happen on 31 Oct, though. No-deal is about to become banned by law, May's deal was voted down three times, and Johnson doesn't look like having anything like an alternative proposal. — Wayfarer

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that my preference was to leave on the 31st of October. That was some dark humour suggesting that my preference was for Boris to be dead in a ditch.

I meant the British in general. — NOS4A2

Yeah, we do. We're exercising it right now.

Cause of death: electile dysfunction. — Baden

Seems a fitting way to go for Mr. Johnson.

I've read it a few times. — Coben

Would you like an aspirin?

I think the hyphen in the middle of correctness might be considered a warning sign. — Coben

:lol:

Could you edit in a link to the context. And it did make me laugh and my eyelids got heavy reading it. — Coben

The username under the quote is a link to the discussion. You'll also find my brilliant parody.

A suggestion: turn the thread into case studies. While reading other threads come back with what you consider obfuscatory language in a quote, plus a link so we can see the context. I doubt we will all agree, but I think specifics will tease out at least the different criteria. And we can actually test out the critieria.

One criterion seems to be: there is a simpler way to say it. We can see if the examples pass this test. For example. — Coben

Here is my submission:

On the idea of the correct-ness of concepts:

Concepts are nothing but half a relational proposition, from which a cognition becomes possible, the other half herein being beyond the scope. Whether or not a concept relates to its object is the purview of judgement. It follows that any error in cognition, or even if a cognition can be given, is the fault of judgement, and has nothing to do with whether or not the concept in use is correct in itself, but only has to do with whether or not it is itself the correct concept to use. — Mww

It's one of those passages that you can read three or four times over, and yet still be like: what the fuck is he saying?