Interesting question as a test case for my argument; that morality is fundamentally a sense - like the aesthetic sense, or a sense of humour. I do not believe morality is an explicit set of God given rules, or laws, but is a sense fostered in the human animal by evolution in a tribal context.

As such - when he married her, he adopted a responsibility for her. He treated a member of his tribe very badly, and failed to support her when she was troubled. She committed the act - and it was an act of violence against herself, but surely it was intended to harm her abuser with implied guilt. That so, one might argue she succeeded insofar as he felt guilty, and he was as morally responsible as he felt himself to be.

Where it gets interesting is, in a world where morality is considered an objective, God given force - as opposed to a subjective sensibility, it seems likely the man would post rationalise, and reject any responsibility for her actions. Whereas, if morality were recognised as a sense, I believe - he could not escape his conscience, and like The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, or Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, his crimes against her would be brought to bear by her suicide.

I don't know that he was stockpiling ammo. His previous conviction was for possession of 13 firearms. Perhaps the ammo was left over - and he just failed to get rid of it. An offence, under the terms of his bail, but not in itself material to this issue. I'll tell you what is odd though - how suddenly, you've come over all law and order, when only last month you were echoing calls to defund the police!!

I asked you for a credible threat emerging from Parler. You say you found one. But Florea didn't attend the event. He mouthed off on Parler - pretending he was attending, pretending he intended violence, pretending he was armed. But read the case notes carefully - HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY WEAPONS when arrested. And he didn't attend the event.

What you're left with is some sad sack, mouthing off on the internet, who had some ammunition in his house he wasn't supposed to have.

What I don't understand is, how you imagine he was doing the movement he pretended to support, any favours? This isn't someone who supports the movement. This is a pretender. A fantasist. A sheep in wolf's clothing. A shit stirring lefty? Quite possibly!

Why not post the abstract?

No. Science isn't a death trap. Science is rightly, both a tool and an instruction manual for use of those tools. We use the tools - however, we don't read the instructions.

Or, in your own terms the 'driver' refuses to learn to drive - ignores science as a road map, and accelerates in pursuit of ideological power and profit.

Interestingly, all this dates back 400 years to the trial of Galileo, 1634 - for the heresy of proving the earth orbits the sun. The effect on subsequent philosophy was to divorce science as an understanding of reality/Creation - from science as a tool.

The Industrial Revolution began 1730, using the tools of science, while science as an understanding of reality remained a heresy - such that, in 1859, Darwin's publication of Origin of Species was met with howls of indignation from the Church.

This dynamic continues even now. In 2008, Craig Venter created artificial life in the lab, and was condemned by certain groups for "playing God." Meanwhile, for lack of recognition as true knowledge of reality, or any moral authority - science continues, whoring itself out to government and industry.

Imagine if the Church had welcomed Galileo as discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation, lent science moral authority as the word of God, and pursued scientific truth. The application of technology would have been in relation to a scientific understanding of reality, and we wouldn't be looking down the double barrelled shotgun of the climate and ecological crisis. Instead, it would have been as if a red carpet unfurled at the feet of man - turning the world into a sustainable prosperous paradise, and confirming God's blessings.

I see. Okay then. Thanks. Bye.

You should have read the case notes more carefully.

Page 3 - top, reads:

"although evidence gathered in this investigation to date indicates that Eduard Florea did not ultimately travel to Washington DC on that date"

This is just some idiot, spouting off on the internet, trying to stir up shit. It wouldn't surprise me at all to discover he was actually a lefty. In the event, police busted his house and found ammunition he wasn't allowed to have because of a previous felony charge - but no weapons. This person is not a credible threat. He's a sad case. Probably mentally ill.

What I did or didn't do is irrelevant to the questions I posed to you, which you still haven't answered. Try again: Do you think that's PC gone wild? Do we really need to give people promoting violence the ability to reach thousands of likeminded idiots? — Benkei

On reddit there's a thread entitled 'free speech' and people visit that thread and post vile, violent, absurd, sweary, scary things to try and get them removed by the mods, so that then they can say "Ah, ha - I knew you didn't believe in free speech." Until, or unless you can show that there were credible threats emerging from Parler, I don't see any reason to shut it down. I think it unlikely, credible threats would be discussed on an internet notice board, and this is just people - either testing the limits of free speech, or blowing off steam. If there were credible threats, where are the arrests of these potential terrorists? No, this is closing down right wing spaces - in accord with the left wing, politically correct, cancel culture playbook.

It's more like, 'you failed to condemn calls to violence by BLM - so your condemnation of calls to violence on Parler is an hypocrisy' - but it's not a failure to live up to your own standards. Hypocrisy is your standards. Rather, my appeal is to human rights; as in freedom of conscience and expression.

Morality is fundamentally a sense, fostered in human beings by evolution. Evolution occurs in relation to a causal reality - an environment, to which the organism must be correct in its physiology, its behaviour and its intellect in order to survive. Morality is not an explicit set of rules, but more akin to a sense of humour or the aesthetic sense. Moral behaviour was advantageous to the individual within the tribe, and advantageous to the tribe made up of moral individuals.

Moral realism follows when this argument is considered in relation to the Anthropic Principle. From the general idea that "scientific observation of the universe would not be possible if the laws of the universe had been incompatible with the development of sentient life" it can be argued that the universe is moral; in that a moral sense is necessary to the survival of sentient life, fostered in organisms evolving in relation to a causal reality.

Consequently, theism is not necessary to moral realism. Nietzsche was wrong. Nihilism is a mistake that occurs as a consequence of failing to understand that morality is a sense, and not an objective set of God given rules, disproven by undermining religion with science. Rather, religion is an expression of the innate moral sense, and no-one knows if God exists or not.

I have to say, I'm not optimistic. Biden is already $4 trillion in the hole, and he hasn't taken office yet!

Tu quo que? Not so. I advocate for the human rights of freedom of conscience and expression; for everyone, even left wing political correctness liars, bigots and bullies.

Unlike say, BLM?

One person in the group flew into a rage when I said I didn't think understanding Marx was the key to stopping the global warming catastrophe from continuing toward doom. — Bitter Crank

Very astute. I couldn't agree more. To secure the future we have to improve living standards, because poor people breed more - so Marxists would have to share ever less production between ever more people. How would that work? Dictatorial government fencing off unused resources from the starving masses, because of some supposed environmental carrying capacity? The have less-pay more, carbon tax this, stop that approach assumes failure - and merely seeks to eek out our existence, until they pluck up the authoritarian courage for another commie brand genocide.

Fortunately, in reality, resources are a function of the energy available to create them, and there's more energy than we could ever put a dent in, inside the earth. The way to beat the climate change roadblock is pedal to the metal - magma power, carbon extraction and sequestration, hydrogen fuel, desalination and irrigation - spend massive amounts of energy to build a sustainable and prosperous world.

I only need a few billion to get started. Five years I'll have a working facility, producing energy from magma. I'd supply big industrial energy users first - cement, steel, aluminium. Then I'd get into shipping, to deliver energy as hydrogen, to be burnt in traditional power stations. Then I'd go into desalination and irrigation - and I've always been interested in aquaculture. We shouldn't be hunting the oceans, there's too many of us. We need to farm fish. Then, total recycling. Given enough energy landfills are a gold mine. I could sort all this out, and turn a handsome profit doing so.

Thanks. We could all use some luck!

I'll grant that you might be able to simulate a brain, but you still have not told me how you plan to implement a mind. — fishfry

Then you just lost the bet, because the mind is an appearance unto itself - not a reality, but the product of brain processes. The lingering experience of experienced sensation.

The Turing Test is false. I could talk to a child under Turing Test conditions and not think it's human because it doesn't know anything, and answers without a consistent thread of reason. Does that make the child inhuman, or unthinking?

A biological machine. You seem to agree that there is something special about biology, about life. No computer is alive. You seem to be offering talking points that support my view and not yours. — fishfry

I am acknowledging the premise that brains are machines, in order to make the distinction between software and hardware - between the binary substrate of a computer, and the simulation of a brain running as software - and the academic difference between thinking machines and thinking computer programs.

I see you are so very keen to respond, you didn't read the argument I made before responding to it, a bit at a time. How very machine like of you!

You don't get wet when you run a simulation of a hurricane. — fishfry

That's true, but thought isn't a physical reality, is it? It is processing and generating ideas. Ideas don't have physical substance. I cannot expect a simulation of a hurricane to generate real rain. I can expect a simulation of a brain to generate real thoughts.

I hope I don't have to belabor this point, but perhaps I do since you fell into exactly that confusion. — fishfry

lol.

I disagree. Computers will be around as long as civilisation remains. Maybe, in a century, the only humans left will be living in the ruins of civilisation - and all the computers will be doorstops and plant-pots. But while there's civilisation, there will be computers, and assuming continued development - I wouldn't bet against true AI; that is, genuine, conscious thinking machines, or something so similar, it's impossible to tell the difference.

Ultimately, a rationalist has to suppose that the brain is a machine - a biological machine, capable of thinking. Simulating a brain does not seem impossible, even if that were a brain running on a binary, or quantum computer. It's like, when I was young, computers were:

10 Print "I am a thinking machine."
20 GOTO 10

I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine. I am a thinking machine.

That is already one level above the binary substrate.

00001010001

Then Bill Gates invented the Windows operating system as another level atop the C++ programming language, and personal computing took off. Thinking along these lines, I suspect someone will simulate a brain, and it will run like an operating system. The computer itself will not think. Rather, software simulating the brain will think, but the difference is academic.

What is the problem?

The problem is that people don't understand scientific method, or the truth value of the knowledge established thereby. This is based on a 400 year old mistake; that is, Galileo's trial for heresy, for proving Earth orbits the sun. As a consequence of that trial, science has never been recognised as the means to establish valid knowledge of reality/Creation, nor accorded any moral worth or authority; but decried as a heresy, has been reduced to a mere tool - employed in service to the ideological ends of military and industrial power, but otherwise ignored.

A scientific understanding of reality is externalised by the ideological conceptions of reality; religion, nation state, capitalism, by which people parse the world, and from which people draw their identities and purposes.

Those who understand science, philosophically, methodologically, and meaningfully, are speaking a different language to the ideologically indoctrinated, superstitious masses. I'm not talking here about scientific jargon, but the underlying conceptual philosophy.

Consider for example, the concept of entropy - as it relates to sustainability, and the apparent plan to power the modern world with windmills. Entropy implies that any designed structure, like civilisation, requires the expenditure of energy to maintain it, or it will inevitably fall apart. And yet the plan is to have considerably less energy to spend. How could anyone who values a scientific understanding of reality appropriately, think that's a good idea? People just don't think in terms of a scientific understanding of reality. They're ideologues.

"the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation."

I could understand perhaps, creating a simulation of the universe - in terms of its physical, chemical and biological properties, to see if it evolved life... but ancestors?

I could understand, perhaps, creating a simulation of a brain - and wonder if a sufficiently detailed simulation of a brain might think.

The universe, the brain - there's a subjective/objective necessity to those concepts, but ancestors? Why?

Did Bostrom have daddy issues, or am I missing the point?

Yeah, that's funny. Almost as funny as synthesis saying Marx was a brilliant economist. He wasn't an economist. There's nothing in his writings about what would replace the cash nexus in capitalism, or therefore how to obviate self interest and the market.

In The German Ideology (1845-46) Marx wrote about the end of the division of labor which would enable: “in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.“

How's that for a Marxist joke?

Not enough Marx Jox around. — Bitter Crank

The history of all hitherto existing Marx jox has been censored by neo marxists as politically incorrect!

Question: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? — Bitter Crank

Marx takes the bulb out of the package, Trotsky unscrews the old bulb and then Stalin kills everyone so they won't need a lightbulb.

What do you think you have argued here - that Amazon and Apple should not respond to their customer's concerns? — Banno

Given that political correctness is a dictatorial dogma, yes, I think Amazon and Google and everyone else, should refuse to tolerate intolerant left wing, political correctness bigots and bullies, and insist on human rights like freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

That there ought be some control on Apple and Amazon, so that folk can have free speech? — Banno

They can act as they see fit, but they won't have my business.

But I thought there was this "invisible hand" that you said would make things work... after all, presumably Parler can get someone else to host it, if it is a decent player in the free market... — Banno

There is; and it will if people abandon google/apple/amazon in significant numbers, they'll suffer economically.

Yes, those companies are capitalist - but it can hardly have escaped your notice that there's a pandemic of political correctness going around - infecting the West, and killing our fundamental values, not least free speech. What you may not know is that the disease originates with the left. It's a left wing plague - caught by capitalist companies.

How long is it?

I get what you're saying in the opening post, and agree - if what you're saying is that Marxism wasn't great to begin with, but the Frankfurt School, cross pollination with Critical Theory was disastrous. The first hypothesis may be the most human, but in my view - the last is the most accurate. Champagne socialists laughing as the world burns.

It wasn't facebook that hosted Parler, as far as I know, nor Amazon. It was google. But it was left wing political correctness nutters moaning about people enjoying free speech that got it closed down.

edit: correction - apparently Amazon provided "the online tools to run the app" - but it was amazon, google and apple together, that stuck the knife in. Not facebook.

It's fascinating that you would write two paragraphs that have nothing to do with what I wrote. — Echarmion

Just trying to help!

I'd never heard of Parler before it was de-platformed by left wing, political correctness nutters who have no interest in free speech, but only want to hear their own opinions parroted back to them. That so, the question isn't what I'm doing on a philosophy forum, it's what are all you lefties doing here?

Left wing philosophies are utterly incoherent, by which I mean subjectivism, critical theory, post-modernism and neo marxism. If you want to discuss any of these, or indeed, my own philosophy - which is objectivist, evolutionary, structuralist, moral realist, capitalist - and intended to secure a sustainable future - I'll be only too happy to oblige you.

Adam Smith described it as an invisible hand. It would be madness of the highest order to dispense with it.
— counterpunch

And Adam Smith was referring to God. He was a religious person, and it's not exactly subtle. — Echarmion

Adam Smith? Wealth of Nations? 1776? Thought God was producing and distributing goods and services? Did he? If you say so dude! I thought he thought it was the rationally self interest economic decisions of individuals in a free market. But God, you say? Well I never!

The thing is, though, that there has always been an over-arching authority since capitalism began. Capitalism developed under historically strong states. — Echarmion

It's fascinating that you would comment on something you don't understand at all. The distinction here is between a capitalist economy and a communist economy. In a capitalist economy, people are free to own things, and employ their capital as they see fit. "It is not by the goodwill of the butcher or baker that I have my supper, but by their regard to their own self interest." It's distributed economic decision making - and as if by an invisible hand, the self interested actions of individuals conspire to produce the goods and services people want and need.

In a communist, command economy - people are not free to own things. The state owns everything, and plans economic production. A centralised authority making decisions about what to produce and how goods are distributed. Consequently, communists can't allow people freedom. People must do what they're told, because they too are factors of production. You must do the job you're assigned, not one you would choose. People cannot have freedom of political opinion, or freedom of speech. There is one party, it owns everything and tolerates no opposition - because the state is responsible for production. Communism has never worked. It is responsible for genocides in Russia and China, ten times worse than Hitler.

that the Invisible Hand at the heart of capitalism is a miracle that affords personal and political freedom
— counterpunch

Do you mean a literal miracle, i.e. an act of God? Do you consider the literal hand of God to be involved in the market? — Echarmion

No. I don't suggest there's anything supernatural going on, but it's strange and wonderful how the rationally self interested actions of individuals conspire to produce and distribute the goods and services people want and need without any over-arching authority. Adam Smith described it as an invisible hand. It would be madness of the highest order to dispense with it.

I have to admit I was otherwise engaged in the year 2000, by personal matters. But never before 2016 have I been aware of claims the process was rigged, or a widespread refusal to accept the result. It's difficult to make heads or tails of that photograph, but given Gore/Lieberman lost, I'm guessing they're the one's weeping about counting all the votes. Again, Dems. So...

that elections have been manipulated has been a long lasting topic in the US. — ssu

No it hasn't. Gerrymandering aside, there was up until 2016 - a general belief in the integrity of the process and a tradition of coming together after elections. A widespread belief that the election was rigged, and howls of "not my president" after an election is something Democrats cooked up in 2016, and now, blame Trump supporters for believing.

I'll say it again, I don't know if the election was a fraud. But it seems to me profoundly unjust to hound people, disgrace and prosecute them - for seeking to defend democracy from what they had been told by both sides, was a flawed and fraudulent process. The Dems can't wash their hands of what they instigated, in the blood of patriots.

Nearly Half Of Democrats Think The 2016 Election Was ‘Rigged’

NOVEMBER 18, 2016 By Sean Davis

Nearly half of Democrats think the 2016 presidential election was “rigged,” according to a new poll released this week by YouGov. The poll found that a whopping 42 percent of Democrats believe the election was rigged. Only 58 percent of Democrats responded that Donald Trump was “legitimately” elected on Nov. 8.

https://thefederalist.com/2016/11/18/nearly-half-democrats-think-election-rigged/

Yet somehow, in 2020 - it's all proper and above board. I don't know what the truth of the matter is, but I know this, the Democrats started it. We can deduce from this fact that either the Democrats were lying in 2016 - or that now, they don't care that the election was a fraud because they won. So, which is it? Or maybe, it's that Trump - fixed the electoral process, and then, with typical modesty, declined to take credit for it??

"The worst thing about your comment is that you are a white privileged male" — fdrake

In other words, your opinion has no validity because you're white. Which is exactly what I said the concept of white privilege achieves - de-platforming white people based solely on skin colour!

I don't know if the tabloids attacked Meghan, or if they did, why they did so. I don't read tabloid newspapers. But I doubt it was racism. The tabloids may have been critical of Meghan - after all, from what little I know, she refused to play the princess. But Rachel Boyle is imparting a motive for that criticism, saying it's motivated by racism. That's a matter of opinion. Fox disagrees, he doesn't believe it's motivated by racism, and he gets told, in essence, your opinion has no validity because you're white.

You wanted examples:

give me a list of events in which white men were deplatformed for being white men, — fdrake

- you got one. And what do you do with it? You agree that he's a white privileged male and that his opinion has no legitimacy, and then say in the same fucking breath, that that doesn't happen.

Considering that the role racism played in how tabloids treated Megan had some evidence for it, it shouldn't've been dismissed outright, and certainly not in Fox's hyperbolic and posturing tone. He head-desked at the very idea that being white in the UK doesn't get you exposed to racism much and thus your perspective may not have a good barometer for racism's presence and extent. — fdrake

It does happen. You're doing it right here. How can you deny it?

The worst part about engaging in good faith with people like yourself is that I actually have to fucking check your sources just in case what you're saying is right. All that to avoid filterbubbling myself. — fdrake

I don't understand this passage. I assure you I am neither dishonest nor stupid. I am engaging in good faith. I don't tell lies, and nor am I blinkered by prejudice - like you are. Also, what the fuck is a filterbubble? I think I get it from context, but I'd rather you spare me the lefty buzzwords and use plain English if it's all the same to you!

White privilege is a concept that delegitimises opinions based on skin colour. The infamous example is that of Lawrence Fox on Question Time - told by a woman in the audience that he couldn't have an opinion on the British Royal family because he's white. How the FUCK are you so purblind to what's going on in the name of political correctness?

We all want much the same things. The question is how we bring that about. Do you really believe that de-platforming straight white males is a way to bring about greater tolerance and understanding? Do you really believe we can eek out our existence by wearing second hand clothes, not eating meat, and sailing across the Atlantic? Do you really believe we can have a Green Industrial Revolution while simultaneously disenfranchising business?

What Corbyn's Labour party (within a Party) fail to realise is that the Invisible Hand at the heart of capitalism is a miracle that affords personal and political freedom - while producing and distributing the goods and services people want and need, without authoritarian government deciding what is produced, and who gets what and when.

Without that magical coordination of the self interested economic decisions of people in a free market, all decision making is invested in government, and one aged, charismatic leader you worship like a God, or get de-platformed - often, quite literally. There's a reason Communism so often runs to genocide. There's a reason Communism always fails to produce the idealist, equalitarian plenty it aspires to at its birth. It's not what you want. We want much the same things. It's how you would aim to bring it about. Corbyn's left of Clause IV rhetoric gives me chills. Political correctness gives me chills. I see gulags in your future.

Wheels are round for a reason!

What do you mean by cost? Price to the consumer? Development costs? Environmental cost? Or just 'cost' as a synonym for implications?

I'm assuming counterpunch is one of those hereditary working class people who got educated (possibly when tuition was free!), then aged only to have the Labour party; traditionally worker-populist; betray 'em. But considering he's advocated here for a neoliberal (public-private partnership expanding) figurehead for Labour by my reckoning he's advocating for exactly the kind of Labour politics that destroyed their reputation in 2008 — fdrake

It's strange how you can be so astute in some respects, and so purblind in others. I was raised in a working class household. I left school, worked in construction and demolition - and attended university as a mature student. I'm the first generation in my family to attend university. I studied sociology and politics. My major concerns upon graduating were not political or sociological - but philosophical and environmental.

Put simply, I discovered, humankind is headed for extinction - not because of capitalist greed, but because we have a mistaken relationship to science. Science is not just a tool; it's a means to establish valid knowledge of reality/Creation - and it's an increasingly valid and coherent understanding of reality. We are headed for extinction because we fail to understand this, and abuse science by applying it for ideological ends. That said, we cannot secure a sustainable future by tearing down the churches, banks and borders because "it's not true" - we have to get there from here!

Your left wing, anti-capitalist, pay more-have less, carbon tax this, stop that, windmills and solar panels idea of sustainability won't work. It's based on Malthusian pessimism - disproven by 200 years of improved living standards despite a growing population, and the lie of limits to growth. Resources, in fact, are a function of the energy available to create them - not some fixed quantity being used up, that might run out. To secure the future we need massive amounts of clean energy, sufficient to create the resources we need, by extracting carbon from the air and burying it, and desalinating water to irrigate land for agriculture and habitation. We need improved living standards - not impoverishment imposed by left wing authoritarian government, not least because poor people tend to breed more.

The energy is available in the interior of the earth. Based on many years of practical construction/demolition experience - I believe it is possible to tap into that energy by drilling through hot volcanic rock, lining the bore hole with pipes and pumping water through, to produce steam to drive turbines, to produce massive, constant, clean, base load electricity. Given that energy, capitalism will be sustainable - and we can look forward to wealthy sustainable markets, and population levelling off at around 12bn people by the year 2100. Without that energy, we cannot secure the future.

It's for these reasons, as much as solidarity with my working class origins - that I point out the left's purblind insanities, Here we're talking about political correctness, but I'd rather be talking about sustainability. Biden's Green New Deal - Europe's Green New Deal, are based on appeasing the same brand of left wing emotional reasoning that informs political correctness. It's all "How dare you?" - and no regard for the facts. It's all self-righteous authoritarianism - and no physics.