Here's another analogy for you. If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to either shoot a kid or his mum and you shoot the mum does that make you a mysogynyst? Limit people's autonomy sufficiently and they'll be in favour of all sort of things that they really don't want.

It would be hilarious if the ramifications weren't so serious.

face-palm. Now you're doubling down with a false analogy to boot.

Look, no matter how hard you try to spin it, at the end of the day, they chose to vote to leave. No one said anything about leaving for the sake of leaving - that's a complete red herring. The electorate were faced with a choice - the same choice that I had to face! - and they - unlike me! - decided that leaving was a price worth paying. No one forced them into making that decision.

So please, cut the crap. They voted to leave. The majority voted to leave. The will of the people is reflected by the fact that the majority of voters decided that leaving was the better of the two options.

I'll leave it at that, as it feels as though my efforts to get this through to you are in vein. I'm done with your feeble denialism and your attempts to underplay the significance of the results. — S

Feeble denialism? :rofl: You just pull arguments out of your ass and call it logic and aren't even aware of the fallacy you keep repeating.

This

If you want to leave because of x, y, z, then you nevertheless want to leave. — S

is quite simply begging the question. begging the question

Whereas I have a logical argument supported by evidence based research. So let's go again for those who are actually interested in the latest viewpoints.

Suppose people want to pay a) less taxes, b) less contributions to the EU, c) less immigration, d) economic stability and e) Bwiddish patriotism. It's quite obvious that a, b, c and d can be reached through other means than leave, yes?

So if we only ask do you want to remain or leave, people are going to have to weigh to what extent their a, b, c and d are reflected in those options. But what would've happened if the ballot had the following options.

1. Remain and enjoy the trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (covers d)
2. Remain and enjoy the trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (covers d) and agree to the deal Cameron agreed with the EU (covers b and c)
3. Remain and enjoy the trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (covers d) and agree to the deal Cameron agreed with the EU (covers b and c) and use the low interest rate environment to borrow slightly more in the short end of the curve and lower taxes but increasing budgettary uncertainty for later years which might cause a tax hike in later years (covers a)
4. Leave and lose he trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (negative on d) but gain full control over immigration and stop paying EU contributions (covers b and c) important: leave will require negotations with the EU the outcome of which is currently unknown as are the economic effects on the British economy
5. Leave and lose he trade deals the EU has and the access to the EU market (negative on d) but gain full control over immigration and stop paying EU contributions (covers b, c and e) and use the low interest rate environment to borrow slightly more in the short end of the curve and lower taxes but increasing budgettary uncertainty for later years which might cause a tax hike in later years (covers a) important: leave will require negotations with the EU the outcome of which is currently unknown as are the economic effects on the British economy

If weighted voting was included then the above would give some sense of the will of the people on a range of interrelated subjects. Instead they are offered two contextless options without any real means of establishing agreed facts which diminishes the process to whichever political side has its "messaging" best in order. We also see that the "pure" remain option and leave option aren't symmetrical in the number of policy issues they address. Remain only gives us economic stability but leave means those pesky EU bureaucrats get less and the Brits have full control over immigration. Yet, if provided with the full scale of options, we can be quite certain the outcome would be different from what we have now.

In short, leave was a matter of issue voting and not about leaving the EU and this is supported by the research available. The debate now revolves around "whether issue-voting is driven by general EU attitudes or more proposition-specific attitudes" and "what drives EU attitudes (economic/materialist or identity-based concerns)" .

Here's some more background info: http://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-503

Wrong. They don't want to leave because of x, y and z. They want x, y and z and leave was the only option offered on the ballot that got close. You're just phrasing your premises to support your conclusion.

Given the myriad of policy options available to get x, y or z, only offering leave and remain tells us nothing about the number of people wanting to leave for the sake of leaving.

The problem is, that same criticism can be levelled against our representatives in parliament. Boris Johnson, speaking as Foreign Secretary, said that his policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it, and David Davis, speaking as Brexit secretary, said that we could strike a deal whereby we enjoy the exact same benefits that we currently do. — S

We can't protect ourselves from idiots once elected (it's expected the same voices win or in parliament in the end) . We can protect ourselves from badly crafted referenda though, which is why it's so important to realise the stupidity of the type of referenda the leave vote was an example of.

What's ironic, one of the most brilliant examples of a participative democracy in modern times was the process of the UK pension system review.

Don't be ridiculous. We're still talking about the UK. Context matters.

But it can be, in accordance with my use of the phrase, logic, and established facts. The will of the people is expressed by the majority of voters, and the majority of voters voted to leave, so the will of the people at that time was to leave. — S

I went over that. You can either accept the fact that it isn't the case that those who voted to leave in fact wanted to leave or not. It's not about "a greater detail" of the will of the people it's that in fact we can be certain no majority ever was in favour of leave. We only know that for disparate reasons leave reflected an aspect of people's will that they thought remain didn't provide but without knowing who voted leave for what reason it's up in the air what policies really should be implemented.

That goes without saying. Mostly it was an argument for anyone thinking the referendum was informative in the first place and use it to "uphold the will of the people" to argue against a 2nd referendum, which hasn't become clearer through the vote. You can be against a 2nd referendum but not on the grounds that you're implementing the will of the people by doing so.

What I said was that neither the lies (and as a consequence the failure of the opposition to being out the truth) nor "the will of the people", since that cannot be discerned, are grounds to uphold the result.

You've now moved on to the next argument which is trust in the government. Those people that voted remain and those that changed their minds in the meantime will consider it grounds for more trust. There are plenty of Brits who won't feel betrayed which is exactly why it's still being argued about. So that too isn't conclusive.

For me it's quite simple, if doing the right thing for the most people (UK citizens) means ignoring the vote then so be it. All other considerations be dammed.

What was misplaced is thinking a will of the people can be distilled from the leave result, which you used as an argument to respect the vote. It's inane because if you'd actually be interested in the subject you'd know referenda are terrible instruments for it as they are currently used, which is an established fact in political sciences. That was what my comment pertained to. Your latest post misses the mark yet again.

what's nonsense is starting about legality for the first time while we were debating the ethics of it. The UK doesn't have a law requiring the government to adhere to the outcome so your comment is irrelevant and revealing of your ignorance in this particular case.

It was S that had some inane comments on "the will of the people" which is misplaced considering what we know about how referenda work. And my comments are patronising because I already indicated it is established fact (yes, you can look it up!), provided an alternative recent example and invite you to do some research yourselves. This isn't kindergarten where I have to spell everything out for you.

I'll rephrase: read up on the research in the field. It's boring to talk to people so struggling with knowledge from the 80s.

I'm not going to argue about established facts. Referenda don't work meaningdully the way the leave vote was put. I explained the mechanism why, in practice, it doesn't work and I get "but...". Your buts are uninteresting because theoretical points when reality has shown time and again it works as I described. Do some investigating yourselves.

The electorate understood the option to leave or remain, even if they weren't clear on the finer details or consequences, so I think that these kind of arguments are overstated. — S

Then you should look into the research more. These arguments cannot be repeated and underlined enough because otherwise we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Look into the Dutch referendum on the association treaty with the Ukraine for another clear cut example. Suppose people voted leave because of immigration then it doesn't follow leave was what they wanted. It only tells you that of the available options presented one provided them a vote to stop immigration. But since the reason for their voting isn't known even that information hasn't been provided as a consequence of the referendum. So the referendum tells us nothing. It's just all a big waste of time.

What's clear from the above (again) is that referenda are terrible to gauge voter preferences. Some issues with it:

1. complex problems are reduced to yes/no options (and if you don't know, vote no)
2. it is not realistic to expect regular people to make informed decisions, or as informed as representatives in parliament
3. you can't suggest amendments or improvements to either option
4. considering the complexity behind the actual question, how is "the will of the people" to be interpreted?

Especially on no. 4 there's an extensive discussion. Some say the will of the people needs to be respected. But was a leave vote one against immigration? For sovereignty? Against the EU? Fishing rights? Against the then current UK government? For UKIP? etc. etc.

In my view the outcome AND the fact there were lies and people were badly informed are immaterial as the referendum should be totally ignored in light of the fact nobody knows what the fuck the question meant when they voted and nobody knows what it was that the voters voted for or against.

If you really want to have a referendum that means something, you ask the following question: "What's your biggest worry that you think the government should solve?"

Just to avoid confusion; I wasn't so much referring to the referendum per se - which has its flaws for sure - but how the government has pursued Brexit after that (and some of the behaviour by political parties before that).

Two thumbs up. As a Dutchman I'm simply appalled by the amount of misinformation, lying and downright incompetence of the UK government in respect of the Brexit negotiations. It is to me utterly inconceivable some are still banging on about the "Norway option". Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland do not want a fifth party in that treaty with the power to veto against the adoption of EU laws.

There was no way in hell that the EU would offer benefits in the area of the four pillars (freedom of movement of people, capital, goods and services) that equal the benefits EU-membership has as that would result in a Europe á la carte in the long run. The impossibility to stay in the customs union was a given from day 1 and that every other EU-member state would close rank on this was obvious as well. Why the fuck give the UK access to these benefits when they have to pay for it through EU contributions? It's all so pathetically obvious that UK politics in this respect is just cringeworthy.

I hate the UK is leaving, I think they are part of Europe and the EU and despite the technocracy of the EU still believe it is more a force for good than anything else. The UK especially has always traditionally been very good at avoiding the more ridiculous financial regulations were passed due to their experience and knowledge thanks to its financial centre in London. That wisdom will be sorely missed.

You are equating things. You talk about war and terrorists but combating terrorists is something else than war where conscripted soldiers fight each other. The latter involves sovereign states and there's some form of sovereign authority providing legitimacy to the soldiers doing the killing.

In any case, nothing you've written deals with the problem I brought up before that this system will irrevocably kill innocents. This is all the more likely due to the absence of a due process, where the accused has a chance to defend himself and exarcebated by the fact the UN and its courts are political institutions.

I did read it and was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't proposing plain murder. You can guess when I have a problem with the death penalty already what I think about extra-judicial killings, sanctioned by an international body or not.

From my reading of this:

my conception of being responsible, so whoever engages in it, is by definition irresponsible. — Πετροκότσυφας

I thought it wasn't about you but about what it means to be responsible. If you could argue against his persuasive definition of responsible, then you'd probably open up the discussion again. He actually invites you to do that in the next sentence.

It reads a bit like your intention is a fail safe system to administer death penalties. You are skipping whether the death penalty is moral in itself and if so for what sort of crimes. Human justice, however, is fallible and any penalty system will invariable punish innocents. For that reason alone we should never impose the death penalty because it is irreversible and cannot in some sense be renumerated financially.

Additionally, you cannot take life when a life has been lost; that's revenge, not justice.

Finally, it is ineffective as a deterrent. Deterrence is a consequence of the likelihood of being caught and punished. In other words, I don't think there's a good case for the death penalty to begin with.

What part wasn't mature or polite?

Justice is a Form as is beauty, good etc. — Jamesk

No, these have a Form. Justice, beauty and goodness in you and me and in society will always be shadows.

ideal city — Valentinus

Just to nit-pick: Best (ariste) city. The ideal is in the realm of the forms.

n short, justice is personal morality wrote large.
— vulcanlogician

Brilliant explanation and quote. — Jamesk

That depends on how you read it. It can be read as if there is no justice at the personal level and that justice is the aggregate of all personal morality. That would be the wrong way to read it. The city-state is personal morality written large. Justice is but an aspect of the "best polis" and in that respect but an aspect of the best person.

The Guardian is not a reliable source of what happens in reality. It´s very biased, very full of obsessions about race, gender, more race, why whites are evil, more gender, Trump is Hitler, is Christmas islamophobic? let´s vote again on Brexit please, and refugees welcome. It´s more of a pamphlet for driving lefties off the cliff than a source of reliable information. — DiegoT

Translation: The Guardian writes stuff I disagree with.

In fact, usually newspapers are rarely good sources of facts about the world; most they can do is to alert you that something is going on somewhere, so that you do your own investigation. — DiegoT

Translation: In fact, most newspapers write stuff I disagree with and I only trust my own opinion any way.

I think there's a serious problem with The Canary if they trust Ray McGovern on the "forensics" of the Democractic hack. They say:

But forensic evidence has previously pointed to a leak from inside the Democratic Party, not a Russian hack. — The Canary

More details here: Democratic party data was leaked not hacked

This has already been extensively discussed by Michael and me when arguing with Raza in this thread from page 67 onwards.

Maybe it is exploitation. Or it is activism. Or its about the US court system as illustrated by this tragedy. I find it hard to place it.

I remember from my studies (1998-2004) that, based on research in the 90s (and now also since then), the investigative techniques employed by the DA and police didn't work in a lot of cases. The most fundamental problem is that law enforcement and DAs pursue and search for evidence that corroborate their hypothesis instead of trying to find evidence that disproves it. While I was trained (and those that wanted to specialise in the DA work would continue to train for it) to approach investigations in that way, the reality was "old timers" thought they could "smell it" or had a "sixth sense" for who the perps were and who weren't. To this day, the change in culture still hasn't taken fully hold after nearly 20 years of law enforcement and DAs being aware of it in the Netherlands. And the Netherlands is tiny, where such a change should be relatively easy to accomplish.

I'm probably rather biased based on my knowledge as a student and what I now know from former fellow students working in the field. That said, the stuff this documentary bring up fits perfectly with the criticism leveled against investigative techniques since years. I suspect too much of it is true for the convictions having a lot of value.

is that based on what you've seen?

Edit: For instance, I thought the Dassey discussion on coercion in the en banc hearing was interesting. That was split 4-3 against Dassey. It surprised me as it was clear the most important aspects of the murder were fed to him (as recognised in the dissenting opinions). The "details" Dassey offered could just as well been fabrications and aren't corroborated by any other facts. She was stabbed but no knife was found for instance (and I checked, that evidence wasn't left out). Admittedly, it wasn't clear what special care the court in first instance applied to the scrutiny of his testimony and that the split is the result of the AEDPA test of "no reasonable judge could agree", which is a bloody high standard.

Zellner found a lot of new evidence so the denial of the evidentiary hearing was a surprise too. The DA more or less back-pedaling on an earlier agreement for scheduling an evidentiary hearing was in my view unethical.

Season 2 is out. I'm almost done with it.

Any thoughts from the US based lawyers @Ciceronianus the White and @Hanover?

1 is too easy? There aren't any other moral systems out there? Wtf?

The antinatalist argument as I understand it assumes the following:

1. if someone exists he will unavoidably experience bad things (and possibly good things)
2. avoiding that someone experiences something bad, is a good thing
3. avoiding that someone experiences something good, is a neutral thing because he doesn't experience anything bad as a result
4. therefore avoiding that all future persons have any experiences is a good thing

Ways of waylaying antinatalism:

1. Reject utilitarian ethics.
2. Even if it were true that all existing people have suffered at some point, it does not follow that suffering is part of existence.
3. No people means there aren't any people experiencing something so the comparison between "what is" and "what ought to be" for antinatalists is between something and nothing. Since the latter cannot have any qualities the comparison is in fact nonsensical.
4. The antinatalist position is hyperrational but people aren't hyperrational.
5. The antinatalist position argues there's a difference between the "true" estimate of pain we experience and the one we estimate in retrospect (e.g. forgetfullness, romanticism), it thereby ignores natural processes of dealing with suffering and would also like to ignore simple optimism.
6. Memory improves through reinforcement. Most people are positive about their lives, therefore on average positive experiences outweigh negative experiences.
7. While existence is a conditio sine qua non for suffering it isn't the proximate cause. If you have an abusive father, then it isn't existence causing your suffering it's your asshole dad, who is the proximate cause. The solution is to put him in jail.

Born and bred in the USA should leave the USA if they cannot support the U.S. Constitution including all the amendments. — hks

That does not equate this:

There is a gun behind every blade of grass. I am glad.

Anyone who is not glad about that should move to Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore, Wales or someplace else outside the English Speaking World. — hks

Your original comment wasn't about the US Constitution it was about you being glad about guns and people who weren't glad should move according to you. Just some opinion wasting space on this forum then. I wasn't putting any words in your mouth as you're quite capable of making an ass out of yourself without my help. All I was trying to do was helping you figure out the inanity of your position.

I don't get it. sorry.

Anyone who is not glad about that should move to Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore, Wales or someplace else outside the English Speaking World. — hks

Translation: born and bred US citizens shouldn't stay in the USA because they disagree with you.

By that logic, anyone who is glad about guns should move out of the USA so that anti-gun laws can finally be passed.

21. the USA — ssu

The only reason they still get to 21 is because most of the corruption in the US is legal.

Elections are important, but isolated they are meaningless. And they are only a minimum: together with paying taxes, it´s the least a citizen can do to satisfy his duties to the regime. Democracy properly understood in societies with masses of hundreds of millions of citizens, it´s a system that tries to afford as many personal differences as it can without jeopardizing the system, and implements channels for those differences to communicate with the system and contribute updates that in its turn influence the internal and external behaviour of a society.

It is comparable with our living bodies, as our trillions of cells, bacteria, viruses all have their say in the analysis of the state of the whole and its behaviour. Of course, some cells matter more than others, and neurons or bacteria in the gut have a greater influence in our thoughts and emotions than red cells or bacteria on our skin (unless there´s an illness). A system where everybody has the same weight in decisions is not democracy, is an indiferentiated expanse of plankton. That is why elections and taxes must be the bottom level of common participation, but then there are other paths a citizen can use to participate more if s/he is committed more. — DiegoT

What's meaningless is the above two paragraphs.

In these other paths, the United States is traditionally stronger than Western Europe; freedom of speech, economic enterprise, judicial system... — DiegoT

Again a statement based on nothing. What are you banging on about? Western Europe should introduce freedom of speech for corporations? Western Europe should do away with the social security it provides its citizens because it will improve GDP? Western Europe should appoint judges who lie on the record to their highest courts? Exactly what is your point? Or are you just disgruntled because of all the problems in Spain? Or perhaps specifically Catalonia?

Europeans ARE smarter and more educated than Americans. — DiegoT

Berlusconi. Enough said.

Americans still have a better democratic regime than most European countries. — DiegoT

It helps to be specific here. Which European countries are you talking about. The Netherlands has its problems but it's functionally a better democracy than the US. Is the overwhelming overrepresentation of certain US states per capita in the senate democratic? Is it democratic the person with a majority of votes loses an election? Etc.

You're offering up statements pretending they are facts.

What is this, try and get Posty worked up time?

There's a near infinitude of things that one can get worked up over. Why should I care about the Chinese eating dogs or the Japanese killing whales? Not my cup of tea, and even then if I did care, then what could I possibly do about it? — Posty McPostface

There's a near infinitude of things to applaud and be happy about. But it really seems that that isn't your cup of tea as you don't spend time writing about it and instead come here highlighting all the negative shit going on trying to convince yourself you shouldn't care about it.

I'm not fooled. You do care. Just try to find something you care about that you can affect.

Which wasn't the point Πετροκότσυφας was making. He's quite clear that your idea of the meaning of life "sit back and don't be upset" is monstrous and illustrated it by posting something he thinks we should obviously be upset about (eg. animal cruelty).

Talk to the hand...? :chin:

Why start a thread here if you're not willing to discuss the merits of the OP?

To the degree I understand him, Schopensour the philosopher (and the poster) does seem to be writing about topics that are worth discussing. I do think we cram our lives with busyness primarily to avoid facing an inner emptiness, that we create meaning out of nothing to have a story to fill the silence with. Hopefully that is a generally accurate summary. — Jake

I think that's unnecessarily judgmental. What's wrong with creating meaning in an inherently meaningless world? It's lovely, in my view, as it is inherently an act of creation. Human knowledge and progress is a gigantic edifice of meaning imposed by us on reality, cultivated, shared from generation to generation. What other creature is capable of this?