Comments

  • Ritual: Secular or otherwise


    This thread is a waste of time. Consult a dictionary Sushi.
    You leave me no choice but to put you in my Bad Box for 1 month. I will not respond in any of your threads until you have served our your sentence.
  • Wading Into Trans and Gender Issues
    Is it gender that sports uses to group athletes? Or is it sex?Michael

    Right, an important distinction for this discussion thank you.
    My understanding is gender is the way you feel about your sex, and sex being the biology of how you were born.
    I thought that was the generally understood distinction?
  • Wading Into Trans and Gender Issues
    These things were pretty reliably categorised according to biological sex. Now that's not such a good proxy. So why not base the categorisation on what is actually significant - Fast twitch muscle fibre, testosterone during puberty and whatever....Banno

    Well thats what you are doing when you categorize by sex, as I said all the traits you use would end up being the male ones for many sports. Its a pointless way to do it, and wouldn't protect women or womens sports.
    These factors from being born a male cannot be hand-waved away. Males are evolved for fighting, bone structure, thickness and density…science doesnt have a good way to change these things yet.
    Ok, Maybe common ground. In most combat sports there is a policy of having 2 years of hormone treatments to counteract the significant advantages being born a male gives. Im not convinced this leads to fairness in the sports (the science isnt clear) but it does reduce the potential of egregious harm to women.
    What are your thoughts on that?

    I've no idea.

    I'm amused at the whole issue. What it actually shows is how arbitrary the classifications used in sports are. It's an intellectually muddled area.
    Banno

    Ok, what is it that seems disingenuous?

    The classifications are not arbitrary though, there is very good reasons, solid reasons, for having a men and womens division in many sports.
  • Wading Into Trans and Gender Issues
    The stuff between your legs doesn't make you run faster or kick better.Banno

    I wouldn't imagine so, no. Of course, no ones talking abouts balls but you. Fast twitch muscle fiber, testosterone during puberty and other such factors do however. These things are pretty reliably categorized according to biological sex. Hence it is a useful in categorizing sports.

    More Balls. basing a footy game or wrestling match on body weight or some such would do exactly that.Banno

    Sex is the strongest factor in the development of many of the criteria you would use. You’ve mentioned a bunch already.

    This looks disingenuous.Banno

    Fascinating. What do you imagine my actual interest to be?
  • Wading Into Trans and Gender Issues
    You are missing the point. Sex is only a proxy for innate ability. That's what has caused the problem. Drop sex and find a way to measure innate ability. Then the competition can reward prowess.Banno

    There already are useful ways of measuring innate ability for the purpose of sports, one such way is by sex. Also your way of thinking does nothing to protect women from getting their skulls crushed in a lopsided match up against a trans competitor so it sucks. As I said, that is my primary concern in this topic.
  • Wading Into Trans and Gender Issues
    The point being it's not precise at all. Otherwise this thread would not be here.Banno

    Your suggested criteria match exactly the advantages males have in most sports. Apparently they are precise enough.

    The premiss that sex has dictates prowess has been shown wanting.Banno

    Depends on the sport of course, but males have a very measurable advantage in most of them but especially combat sports.

    Tough shit for sport. their organisation is based on a parochial patriarchic attitude towards people.Banno

    Im not a big sports fan, I dont care which characters win or lose. What I do care about is women getting hurt, and to a lesser degree a fair contest.
    Also, anything with history is patriarchic. So what? Do we throw out everything that started before the rise of feminism?
  • Wading Into Trans and Gender Issues


    Why gender, as opposed to height or bodyweight or muscle mass index or blood testosterone levels?Banno

    You mean the characteristics that males have over females? Thats precisely the things that separate male and female athletics.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    He lives an extra 30 days every time someone says “he’s going to jail” and he doesnt go to jail. Currently clocked at 600 more years.
    But seriously, and Im no Trump guy, but how many times have you steadfastly predicted his downfall and been wrong? Am I misremembering? Is it possible you aren’t clearly thinking it through each time?
  • Bannings
    Jesus. Suicide by mod? I feel like he’s been around a while.
  • Bannings
    What did they say?
  • Your Absolute Truths


    Whats pedantic is focusing on the word “absolute” instead of the clear intention of the OP. Again, everyone else understood what the OP meant and only the pedant choose not to in favour of belabouring the semantics of a single word.
    Pedant doesnt mean wrong. We all know the strictest definition of “absolute” is as you say. Its just as obvious thats not how the OP was using the term, even offering examples to further clarify. Do you know why nobody else made the point you did? They weren't being pedantic.
    Even after you admitted to understanding what was meant you didnt bother to answer the question. You were only interested in sharing your superior understanding of “absolute” (thanks champ!) with us regardless of any engagement of the OP. Pedantic.
  • Your Absolute Truths
    I think they actually have not been able to answer the question: all things mentioned in the answers as absolute things aren’t absolute at all.Angelo Cannata

    n short, it seems that, when you say “absolute”, you actually mean something like “absolute, but not too much”, “absolute, but not too absolute, not absolutely absolute” :smile: . That’s fine, it just needed to be clarified.Angelo Cannata

    Everybody else understood this without clarification. You didnt, or refused to, understand this because you are being pedantic.
  • Your Absolute Truths


    How do you figure other people were able to answer the question and have dialogue about it if its like impossible to answer?
    Be less pedantic and try reading it again.
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    I don't really want to live but I sort of have to.Darkneos

    No you dont, you can check out any time you’d like. I think if you wanted to be dead you would be. You don’t really want to check out though do you? What you actually want here is attention, to validate your feelings about how unimpressed you are with life as an option.

    Im not one thats going to tell you life is precious or that you have a gift or you have good in your life if you'd just embrace it. I accept you get nothing out of life, that you see nothing special about living and that death/oblivion seems like a better option than living…I’ll concede all that to you right now.
    What your wrong about is that any of those feelings have anything to do with how much life sucks or how much better an option death is. Life isnt the problem, you are.
    Your thoughts are those of a depressed mind. Just because its a common response you get ( get therapy) doesn't mean its wrong. You might need meds or something else that you are unqualified to dismiss as a cure for your little dilemma.
    If youre adamant about depression or other mental illness not being the source of your view here then you’ve already gotten the best advice in the form of a question:

    Are you sure youre doing life right?
    If you truly have nothing worthwhile to live for, then you are actually more free than most other people. With such little attachment to life you have a freedom, a liberation of action, that means you can fill your life with whatever you want. If you cant exercise that freedom, then thats on you, not life.
  • Eat the poor.


    Efficiency is ONE of the goals of the market. Again, efficiency is not mutually exclusive with morality (fair exchange of goods.) Its both.
    Additionally, the markets development is not the same as the markets goals. You subtly shifted some language there.
    You have not shown that markets do not aim for a fair exchange. Who would want a market that didnt aim for fair exchange? Greedy assholes, people who don’t let pesky morality interfere in their money making, yes. Thats a people problem, not a market problem.
  • Eat the poor.


    Some of those rules overlap with morality, so I do not agree that playing by the rules is the most you can morally claim. The fact there are rules in no way entails that there is no morality.
    As to the goal of the system…a free market place aims at a fair (a moral goal) exchange of goods and services. Greedy assholes try to game that system and do their best to make it unfair but this is the fault of greedy assholes not the system itself. After all, if greedy assholes can act immorally in a system then surely good folks can act morally in that same system.
  • Eat the poor.
    So no, there no moral right for that store to claim payment from me, the claim is economic and legal.Benkei

    This is what I was asking about. Why are you denying morality can be a part of it like economics and legality?
    Im not following how your responses answered that.

    Also, when we are talking markets are you intending to claim there is no moral aspect to how it works?
  • Eat the poor.


    Why cant it be economical, legal AND moral. Those are not mutually exclusive so why cant it be all 3? Why are you excluding the moral aspects? It would clearly be morally wrong to steal from the store right?
  • Please help me here....
    Idealism is believing that reality needs minds in order to exist, solipsism is believing that only your own mind exists.
    They differ in the implications of each of those beliefs.
  • Evidence of conscious existence after death.
    You're trading on a conflation between dying and being dead

    1. If dying harms the one who dies, then the one who dies must exist at the time
    2. Dying harms the one who dies
    3. Therefore, the one who dies exists at the time (of dying).

    There: fixed for you. And it is uncontroversial.

    1. If being dead harms the one who is dead, then the one who is dead must exist at the time
    2. Being dead harms the one who is dead
    3. Therefore, the one who is dead exists at the time.

    In this form the argument tells us nothing about whether the dead person exists, so whether the argument is sound or not depends on that big "if" in the first premise. The alternative argument is:

    1. If being dead harms the one who is dead, then the one who is dead must exist at the time
    2. Being dead does not harm the one who is dead
    3. Therefore, the one who is dead does not exist at the time.

    Both valid arguments, both of which cannot be sound, the determination of which is sound depends on knowledge we do not possess.
    Janus

    :100:
    Very nicely broken down, a complete waste of time with Bart but very nicely put.
  • Is refusing to vote a viable political position?


    Ok. So why remain in the dugout? Are you holding out hope that the political system will change? Also, what forces other than voting would result in the changes you want?
    I often think about modern times and how its just the wrong time to be born for people who want to live outside the control of governments and corporations. In yesteryears there were places you could go that weren’t owned by either, a place where you could do your own thing. In the future when we expand to the stars you grab your people and set off for some distant star to do your own thing.
    Today, where do you go that isnt owned by some country or corporation?
  • Is refusing to vote a viable political position?


    True voting isnt synonymous with politics, but I would say its a necessary part of the political system in Canada or the US. Aren’t you opting out of a system based on votes when you refuse to vote? I would compare it to playing baseball but refusing to take the field. Not really playing baseball then. (And likewise the baseball field is not synonymous with baseball).
  • Is refusing to vote a viable political position?


    So…move? It sounds like you want to opt out of the system. Whats the dilemma exactly?
    Is refusing to vote a viable political position? No. Its a position, a moral one perhaps, but its not a political one since it necessarily entails not being political, not participating in the politics.
  • Evolution, creationism, etc?


    Im not sure they do share common purpose. Creationism is an ad hoc justification for biblical writings, an effort to explain contradictions with what science has discovered. Its purpose is in direct opposition to the purpose of science, and its method.
  • Justifying the value of human life
    Well, other people might not want to be treated the exact same way you want to be treated. That’s why the golden rule fails, in my opinion. Better to find out how they want to be treated first of all instead of assuming that everyone wants the same treatment as yourself.NOS4A2

    There may be specific ways of being treated they may not want (not sharing a taste in music or some S&M shit) but pushing that treatment on them would be ignoring the golden rule for other specific ways of being treated (like not having things pushed on you).
    It seems to me the golden rule remains intact. The exception to its merit you described above would only be valid if you ignored the golden rule in the first place. Unless you want to argue that people generally dont mind people making assumptions about how they like to be treated then I think the golden rule demands you do not make such assumptions. So it is as you say we shouldnt make those assumptions but the golden rule has that covered as far as I can tell.
  • Why We Need God. Corollary.


    I guess it made sense but not in the way I intended. Lol
  • Why We Need God. Corollary.


    Like a fish needs another set of gills :wink:

    Edited to make sense.
  • What happened before the Big Bang?
    Big bang only shows how to derive our current universe from that situation. Says nothing about what happened before.Jackson

    I agree with you, Im just not sure what answer you are looking for with “what if”…we would have to adjust our models in physics I would think, lest we lose out on some potential insight the before universe might provide for our current one.
    I mention parallel universes as another possibility about where big bangs fit in the universe. There could be big bangs happening within big bangs.
  • What happened before the Big Bang?
    Our universe today is derived from this event. What if there were other universes before that?Jackson

    Or parallel universes to this one, sure. I dont see why not but “what if?”?
    Ya suppose if there were other universes before this one we would need to adjust our models? They would be incorrect? What are you getting at?
  • What happened before the Big Bang?
    This perennial "what if" assumes that, in contemporary physics terms, there is "time" independent of – "before" – spacetime, which seems as conceptually incoherent as "north of the North Pole" (i.e. edge of a sphere, torus, loop, etc). And if we do away with "spacetime", for the sake of discussion, we then lose more than a century of physical and cosmological grounds to even discuss "the expanding universe" and its retrodicted BB. What does an event mean "before" spacetime? – is the implication of that old "what if".180 Proof

    Why couldn't there be more than one instance of space time? If it starts with a big bang then ends with something else then why couldn't each such space/time “bubble” be its own thing? Time space could have its own instances of time space within it, like the way time flows differently with different gravitational forces.
  • Bannings


    How do you figure?
  • Does anyone know the name of this concept?
    It is an equivocation fallacy, or a Suppressed correlative fallacy.
  • The meaning and significance of faith
    all we can say is that god thought it wise to issue the rule.Moses

    Ok, thanks for the convo.
  • The meaning and significance of faith
    there is a difference between the written law and the implementation of that law.Moses

    Indeed, and I addressed this already and why its not a valid defence for your position.

    Why should the authority matter? This is a philosophy forum. Unless you're trying to get into theology. Then it would be the Talmud. ↪Moses

    You said commandments can be overridden…says you? What justification do you have for the claim that commandments (gods commandments no less!) can be overridden? By who? Where is this written?
  • The meaning and significance of faith
    Commandments in that section of leviticus are not absolute in the sense that they must be followed under all circumstances and across all times. Commandments can be overridden.Moses

    According to what authority?
    Anyway, that doesnt excuse a contradiction so you have still to do.
  • The meaning and significance of faith
    The most straight-off description of the laws in leviticus is that they are laws. they are laws from god. if you want to say that they were issued with divine wisdom then fine. I usually think of wisdom as more bigger picture than just e.g. a law, but this isn't a major point IMO. The Bible is undoubtedly against homosexuality, but the application of that is a different matter. I don't see why we're getting so hung up on this word 'wisdom.'Moses

    It is your claims about the wisdom of the bible we are discussing is it not?
    Anyway, the point is that if they are laws from god and god is wise then so too should his laws be wise, right? But you said that stoning gays isnt wise so Im just observing that this is a contradiction, and to one of my original points you are left ignoring it or rectifying it with the wisdom of the bible.

    Typically when I think of wisdom I think of practical timeless advice, not commandments. But God does possess infinite wisdom according to the book.Moses

    I think that leads to contradiction, even through a biblical lense.
  • The meaning and significance of faith
    L

    Ok but then you are talking about a rule/law with no wisdom in it aren’t you?

    Edited to add:
    Also, you DID say it was a judgement from god. Isnt god wise?
  • The meaning and significance of faith


    I understand, I’m just choosing something specific so we have direct context for this discussion.
    Ok, so if it isnt part of the wisdom then I wonder A) what is it then? And B) why is it in the bible?
    I think we have to do A) first, but could be wrong.
  • The meaning and significance of faith


    Is the bibles edict to kill people who are gay part of its wisdom?
    Im not asking about whether the edict can be proved in a religious court, I AM asking whether the edict is part of the bibles “wisdom”…well Im asking more than that but lets just focus in and not get distracted, as you yourself suggested.
    So is the edict to kill gay people part of the bibles wisdom? Is it wise to stone gay people to death?