How then are they separable as distinct from each other? We don't have direct access to the minds of other animals. All we have is their external behavior (how they respond to the environment). Again I think we have very different conception of the term ''consciousness''. — TheMadFool

That is actually a big problem. The problem of other minds takes on a new meaning when we start to think about animals. I think it is clear that some animals have consciousness, but the problem is that we cannot know what it is like to be said animals. We have no idea which animals and which behaviors are unconscious reactions and conscious decisions without using specific measures. These measures, like an animal recognizing itself in the mirror, are only available for animals with relatively high mental capabilities, like dolphins and some primates.

Your answer is also one generated by human cognition. If you are saying that all products of human cognition are faulty, then you and your arguments fall into that category. As such, they can be dismissed as easily as you dismiss mine- including the one in which you state human cognition is faulty.

My point is that there is no reason, based on obscure or hidden facts that justify evil, that God cannot reveal it to us based on cognitive limitation, because it was God who knowingly put us in said scenario. Again, we do not even get special assurances from God that everything is happening for a reason and the reason he cannot tell us what this evil is. This anguish from not knowing is an unavoidable evil in and of itself.

Your argument's conclusion is that God exists. Your argument, detailed in the first post and supported throughout the thread, is faulty because I can substitute God for anything, even fictional beings, and your argument proves their existence. Again, I do not have to argue against the existence of God or prove that God does not exist to show that your argument is faulty.

How can I ensure the case to pick each can is perfectly symmetrical and equally appealing in your mind and remains that way as you go through the decision making process?

Can you prove to me that god does not exist? — TheMadFool

I do not need to disprove God to disprove your argument. The merits of an argument stand alone; showing a poor argument for a position does not require one to provide an argument for an opposing position. I can say that God exists and that your argument is bad.

I can't. That's my point. There is no way (at least based in modern science and human ability) to set up a real world Buridan's Ass scenario that is not open to criticism. I would have to set up two exactly compelling options, but I have no way of knowing if anything I present is actually equally compelling. I would need to ensure they remain equal until you make your choice, which is practically, if not actually, impossible. If you think I can, then you misunderstand the words "equally compelling".

You claimed I assumed the premise of an argument. Your quote was still from when I was explaining the thought behind the premise.

Again, I already addressed this. Reread:

The child analogy attacks the first premise of the argument by saying that we are unjustified to make that assertion because the average human is in the same spot with God as a child is with an adult. It claims that humans have limited cognitive capacities that cannot understand the reasons for God to allow such evil. However, this is problematic because the limitations involved between an adult and a child are not required in the relationship between an adult and God. If it is hidden from us but we can understand it, then God can deliver these reasons and we would understand them. If it is apparent but we cannot understand it, then the question emerges as to why God could not give us these necessary cognitive abilities, considering that the anguish of not knowing the reasons for evil is an evil in and of itself. Heck, we do not even get any special reassurances in these cases that there is a reason, but God cannot reveal it to us at the time for whatever specific reason.

The fact is that we do make random choices in our lives. We never get stuck like the ass. I'm sure if you were ever hungry you wouldn't get paralyzed between two boxes of cereals. Fact shows that we are capable of making random choices. — TheMadFool

We make choices between competing options and sometimes those choices are extremely difficult. It does not follow from this fact alone that we have observed an actual situation of two equally compelling choices that Buridan's Ass describes. Nor has it been demonstrated that, even in the hypothetical case it has been shown, the mechanism that does the choice is actually random and not deterministic.

I suggest rereading my post, because you took that statement out of context. I was rephrasing the previous statement. I offered evidence for why this is the case.

You have not given a valid reason. You are attacking a premise of a version of the problem of evil argument against the existence of the god of classical theism.

1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

(Therefore)

3. There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

The argument is valid, so the question is whether it is sound. The crux of the argument is that there is, what appears to be, a lot of senseless violence, pain, suffering, and death that serves no reason or greater good. In other words, there is evil that does nothing. It is not like a doctor performing painful but life-saving emergency surgery or an athlete who has to deal with muscle pain in order to become better on the field. It is things like this:

Example 1: the case of Bambi
“In some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering”

Example 2: the case of Sue
This is an actual event in which a five-year-old girl in Flint, Michigan was severely beaten, raped and then strangled to death early on New Year’s Day in 1986. The case was introduced by Bruce Russell (1989: 123), whose account of it, drawn from a report in the Detroit Free Press of January 3 1986, runs as follows:

The girl’s mother was living with her boyfriend, another man who was unemployed, her two children, and her 9-month old infant fathered by the boyfriend. On New Year’s Eve, all three adults were drinking at a bar near the woman’s home. The boyfriend had been taking drugs and drinking heavily. He was asked to leave the bar at 8:00 p.m. After several reappearances, he finally stayed away for good at about 9:30 p.m. The woman and the unemployed man remained at the bar until 2:00 a.m. at which time the woman went home and the man to a party at a neighbor’s home. Perhaps out of jealousy, the boyfriend attacked the woman when she walked into the house. Her brother was there and broke up the fight by hitting the boyfriend who was passed out and slumped over a table when the brother left. Later the boyfriend attacked the woman again, and this time she knocked him unconscious. After checking the children, she went to bed. Later the woman’s 5-year old girl went downstairs to go to the bathroom. The unemployed man returned from the party at 3:45 a.m. and found the 5-year old dead. She had been raped, severely beaten over most of her body and strangled to death by the boyfriend.

Both examples are taken from the link in my first post. Even if it were the case that we could argue for some justifiable good in both of these cases based on a ton of extra information, it becomes extremely problematic when we consider all of the cases that are similar in nature, considering we would have to believe in every single case, there is a very good explanation for it.

The child analogy attacks the first premise of the argument by saying that we are unjustified to make that assertion because the average human is in the same spot with God as a child is with an adult. It claims that humans have limited cognitive capacities that cannot understand the reasons for God to allow such evil. However, this is problematic because the limitations involved between an adult and a child are not required in the relationship between an adult and God. If it is hidden from us but we can understand it, then God can deliver these reasons and we would understand them. If it is apparent but we cannot understand it, then the question emerges as to why God could not give us these necessary cognitive abilities, considering that the anguish of not knowing the reasons for evil is an evil in and of itself. Heck, we do not even get any special reassurances in these cases that there is a reason, but God cannot reveal it to us at the time for whatever specific reason.

Again, your reason to reject Premise 1 is based on a faulty analogy. Therefore, it is not a good reason without you explaining what is specifically wrong with the line of thought I presented.

Notice how we went from "the nature of God's plan is obscure to us" to "God must withhold knowledge from us in order to protect us".

First, we must differentiate between outright lying to a child and lessening the blow of a truth. We may not be able to tell the child everything about life, but it does mean we should outright lie to a child.

However, this is irrelevant: the same exact issue I said before comes up: lack of ability on God's part cannot be used as an excuse, nor can some mental limitation on our part to understand, comprehend, and deal with the reasons for gratuitous evil exist (or heck, to, bring the problem of divine hiddeness into the mix, why a lot of us do not see God's presence of his existence at all).

http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-evi/#SH3c

Look at the skeptical theist responses and the replies to them (this particular analogy is not fully addressed, but the lines of thinking are similiar and it is a good place to start). Your argument is faulty because it ignores vast differences between the relationship between God and man and the relationship between man and child. Namely: we cannot explain certain things to children because we lack the capacity to explain and the child lacks the capacity to understand. God, however, is omnipotent and omniscient, so it is not for lack of ability that God could not explain things to us and the fact that we cannot comprehend God's ways should not be a problem because God did not need to make it that way.

First, we do not know how consciousness works. However, not understanding the perfect interworkings of something does not prevent up

As to the general point, "what is consciousness", I do not know. It seems to be some sort of awareness, but we run into some problems. For example, I would say machines have awareness of things, but machines are not conscious.

The "awareness of self" condition also runs into problems when we try to attribute consciousness to things because what exactly does awareness entail in this case? Distinction from other things?

I think every religion and most ethical theories have concluded that endless pleasure or the pursuit of pleasure for pleasures sake is misleading to the path of happiness. — Question

No arguments here.

The words I mentioned are the evidence. They make sense only in a quantified universe. — TheMadFool

What is the quantity of happiness, how do we go about measuring it, and how can we see the accuracy of quantification? Again, I feel no need to pull out a calculator when someone says "I like hockey more than football".

Also, not seeing anything with color.

[r

I believe words of comparison like ''more'', ''most'', ''least'', ''greater'', ''braver'', etc. are indications of the need to quantify all aspects of experience. — TheMadFool

But why? You have not provided evidence for this. All these words indicate is that we like making relationships between things. Saying, "I like hockey more than football" is just an expression of preference: it indicates no desire to quantify pleasure in any numerical sense. We also know that there are aspects of experience that cannot be quantified, neither in any specific sense (emotions) and even in theory: I cannot quantify "blue".

I don't see why 1 would have the better life than 2, if 2 see his life as if it was the life of 1. The quality of your life is in your mind, like everything else, I mean it is simple science not even philosophy. — Hamtatro

Which would you prefer: the life of 1) or the life of 2)? I prefer 1), and I would venture most would agree with me.

Also, I do not like people using the word "science" to describe what effectively is philosophy. I've had enough of that on this site.

Hedonism is about happiness not about the number of great or bad things that happens to you. Its all about how people see their lives not about how they actually are. — Hamtatro

Hedonism is about pleasurable experiences and painful experiences. It may not necessarily break down into utilitarianism (though I find it hard not to go there), but it remains that ultimately, pleasure is good and pain is bad. Something that happens to you that is painful is bad under hedonism and something that happens to you that is pleasurable is good for you under hedonism. People's perception of their quality of life may influence how they handle pleasure and pain, but it does not ultimately determine whether they life was of good quality or not. A person who is in serious pain in every waking moment but judges their life to be of relatively good quality does not appear to have a good life. This is not to say that people living with serious pain cannot have good lives or that their lives are necessarily worse than those without such pain. However, it is odd to say that one's perception of life is all that matters and the actual content of their life is irrelevant. Especially given my third point:

This idea sounds like the kind of jokes that people do to make fun of philosophy haha . And anyway your third point is false. — Hamtatro

It is not a joke. There is serious discussion to be had about how much pleasure there really is in life, and whether we can seriously lead it. Take, for instance, nostalgia. Nostalgia occurs when we look at the past and recall all the happy moments and fondly remember those times. However, we know that people tend to forget all the bad things when they look back on the past. They tend to forget the painful moments, the long stretches of repetitively mundane and pointless actions, and can effectively fabricate a false past. With this in mind and other pieces of evidence (like how memories are reconstructions the past and that they can go very wrong), we have reason to believe that people are not necessarily good judges of how good their lives actually are. There is a book called Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence by David Benatar which has received attention and uses this point to argue for anti-natalism and voluntary extinction of the human race.

We can look at the pessimists, existentialists, the Stoics; heck, even Epicureans, and they were hedonists. We see a line of thought: popular notions of happiness are faulty and we need to find a way of living beyond such notions.

Well, your English is a bit weird with odd sentence structures, so it is a bit hard to read.

If you are arguing for hedonism, the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain, I do not think that you have an argument. First, the whole arguing for hedonism and setting that up as the goal in life, as others in the thread have pointed out, creates the paradoxical situation where we seek pleasure but cannot find it directly. At best, even though maximizing pleasure might be the ultimate reason behind what we do, we might have automatically value certain things because they are the only things necessary and sufficient to achieve happiness. Second, there is the deceived businessman scenario, in which we have two people: 1) a businessman who has a loving family and a good career who is happy, and 2) a businessman who has a loveless family and a bad career, but believes he has a loving family and a good career, so he has the same exact amount of happiness as the businessman in 1). It appears that 1) has the better life, but, if 1) has the better life, then hedonism is false. Third, there is the problem that others alluded to and that I have scratched the surface on personally: no matter how you shake it, life has a greater level of pain than of pleasure. If this is true, then, under hedonism, we run into serious challenges.

Against your argument about depression, it appears to state that depressed people are not really depressed because they have not committed suicide and that they ought to. However, if my third point is true, then they shouldn't necessarily kill themselves, because it is not as if the non-depressed person has it better. Also, as you said, life is not rational, nor are all the decisions we make. I would actually venture to say that there can often be an irrational aspect to a depressed person. Depression is, at the clinical level, a disorder. Even when we drift into non-clinical depression, we may still find some of the same problems as with clinical depression: a cyclic continuation of sadness that prevents the depressed from obtaining things that help with sadness, which causes more sadness, which prevents the depressed from obtaining things that helps with sadness, and so on.

I don't really see how the Democrats are going to pull out of this one. The problem is one of dissatisfaction. It doesn't matter how things go: Barack Obama and his policies (whether they be good or bad) are collectively seen as bad by those with tendencies towards the right and people in the center tend to be indifferent. The Democrats do not really have a platform, at least not on the big issues: security and economy. Well, they do, but they do not have an explanation of anything new or why their current ideas are better than the oppositions.

Economic Policy- What will they do? They need to argue for more demand-side economic policies. Without that, any policy the Dems put out is for nothing.

Security- What are the plans to deal with the drug trade? What the plans to deal with terrorism? This later one is especially important. There is no way to assess the effectiveness of any anti-terrorist policy because we would need to be able to look at the total rate of actual attacks versus attacks prevented. Short of the Muslim terrorist equivalent of Red Dawn, we are not going to know how effective Trump's terrorist policies are going to be. Obviously, that was hyperbole, but there would need to be enough terrorist attacks that greatly surpassed those under Obama in scope and number to even have an angle with this one.

Demographics- What group or demographic can the Dems appeal to, like Donald Trump appealed to the general working class?

Media- This is the big problem. The Dems need direct media coverage of specific hot-button topics on their platform. I do not recall any of that during the general election. I recall a few ads, but nothing that seriously combated the very direct and simple policies of Trump: secure borders, stricter immigration enforcement to combat terrorism, protectionist trade policies to support manufacturing. The Dems need very specific policies like this.

And I've explained that this is an illusion of choice. There's no way reason and logic can solve this conundrum. It has to be a random selection. — TheMadFool

Or it could be that the ass cannot make a decision or its mind has a built-in deterministic way of dealing with situations like this.

Wouldn't saving everybody be the best solution? — TheMadFool

Trolley problems are set up so that way you are faced with a dilemma: you must either kill one person or let five people die. We would like to save everyone, but the thought experiment says we cannot and that we have to make a decision between the two options. Any attempt to weasel your way out by creating some scenario in which everyone lives will be explained away in the thought experiment.

No, you have not. Read the replies again. They explain the issue the thought experiment brings up: how do we choose between two equal choices when we have no reason to choose one over the other? You are getting caught up on the details of thought experiment itself. You are like the person who hears the trolley problem and tries to find some reason to stop the trolley without killing anyone, when the real point is asking whether it is better to kill one person or let five people die.

What does that mean, particularly knowledge?

This is all about the definition of mind. If you define mind in as that of a human, then, obviously, animals do not have minds. However, this is nothing unexpected.

I just want to let you know that I have not had time to sit down and do a proper response. I still want to respond.

No. You are just making assertions that do not make sense with what we know about reality, as well things that don't make much sense. The only good idea is that societies tend to treat those with mental issues and those who are different poorly and that we should make sure that what we label disorders are not just people who are different- not exactly a revelation.

But make no mistake, there are disorders: traits that create signifigant problems for the person as they try to live. A person with chronic depression whose psychologists consider it a good day when they can get dressed. A person with ADHD has issues focusing in general, which can create issues in various pursuits.

Perhaps my language was not the clearest. Allow me to explain.

We start with meanings first, or the "content" of the word, before we get to the label. The "content" is what is the word refers to: whether that is an object, feeling, idea, and so on. For example, the content of the word "square" is a specific shape. What matters is the shape itself; the name itself is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that we ultimately understand that when I say "square", people understand what I am referring to. "Square" operates as a label for the content (in this case, a specific shape). The word "blue" has content: it refers to something. You referenced something that is normally considered blue, but that is not what "blue" is exactly, as "blue" refers to a color that is on many different things. It is also possible to imagine our vision being nothing but "blue" for a while, similar to staring at a piece of blue paper until it is all that you see. "Blue" can either refer the physical interaction of light waves and objects that produce the color we call "blue", the qualia we see when we certain objects, like the sky, or something else. However, we are simply agreeing on what a word means. From there, we can evaluate the truth value of the claim, "the sky is blue". Potentially, we all have different qualia of what we collectively call the color "blue" and simply agree to call whatever that is "blue".

Once we establish what "blue" is, we can evaluate the truth value of the claim, "the sky is blue." Again, I'm not sure what you are saying. Whatever we say "blue" is, we are simply agreeing on terms. Our beliefs on the truth value of the proposition, "the sky is blue", are not related to the actual truth value of the claim. The only way it is possible is if it becomes true by definition "the color of the sky, but then we are doing nothing but stating a definition. My belief is not really influencing the statement- I am simply naming a color I see.

I do not see the case for the claim that the belief in something is somehow evidence for the truth of that belief.

I apologize if I am not making my position more clearly. I would have issues explaining something like this in real life, let alone over the internet.

I'm not entirely sure what your point is. Yes, if we called "blue" by another name or used "blue" to refer to something else than we usually use it, then "the sky is blue" would be false. However, changing defenitions and what the word refers to is irrelevant. What matters is the content of what "blue" refers to. The content is what matters, not the language we use to describe the content.

Generally, the fact that people believe something is nuetral. It may, at best, serve as very minor evidence or an indication of something that requires further study. Rather, the justification of evidence comes from realiable judgement. In the case of the color of the sky, people's senses are generally reliable enough to cast reliable judgement on the color of something they see everyday.

That's a discussion in itself. Each religion makes unique claims, so you would technically have to one by one and show how they are false (though you could probably make arguments that apply to a good number at once).

However, I know that, at most, one religion is true. I know that people can be motivated by false beliefs. My goal is not to disprove God or disprove a religion. It is to show that saying religion exists and people follow religion is not evidence of that religion being true. The same goes for God. There might be a knockdown argument for the existence of God; that does not mean other arguments are necessarily good.

I am saying that, regardless of everything else, your argument is bad. Belief in something is not evidence of that belief's truth.

If you can, try to find a book called Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick.The book is political and he argues for a libertarian minimal state, but a part close to the beginning deals with classical utlitarianism.

Utilitarianism is a system of morality. Classical utilitarianism claims that what is good ultimately comes down to what is pleasurable and what is bad ultimately comes down to what is painful/not-pleasurable. The question of whether it is a good system of morality is up for debate. I honestly think it fails.

The state is actually where we can find much of the criticism of utilitarianism and what its tenets imply. The utilitarian conception of rights appears to leave rights in a much weaker state. Rights only have an instrumental application to utilitarianism. This leads to an awkward scenario where you only have the parameters of rights you have because not having them would lead to less happiness. In other words, your freedom of speech is not based on any innate principles about the relationship between man and the state, but based on potentially messing up and inadvertently causing more pain than happiness. Utilitarianism holds that if your speech is ever deemed too hurtful and obviously so, that it should ban it because there is no moral reason not to ban it and every moral reason to ban it.

For the observation of religious belief?

Directly, people's beliefs. People believe that their religion is true, and they act on their beliefs. Even if the beliefs are actually false, people still follow them so long as they believe them to be true. How did people get these beliefs? That's an open question, but here is a possible idea:

You have to remember that our philosophical god of classical theism was easily not the gods and goddesses people worshiped early in human history. The human need for closure, human fear of the unknown, the tendency to see agency when there is not, and the want to explain forces we did not understand can lead to people postulating forces outside of their control, forces that were aware and conscious. From there, it simply morphed in grew into religions as people tried to control those forces of nature, or, at the very least, understand them. Ever notice how pagan gods act like people and that the sacrifices they want are very human in nature, even though we have no reason to believe gods would be interested in the same stuff we are? In short, people, for whatever reason, may have made gods up and religions simply developed overtime, becoming ingrained in most societies.

Also, important to note, that there is often a big issue with the limits of understanding. "I'm not sure" is a healthy response to certain situations where we really do not know much. Social development and practice of early humans is a question of exploration. There are a lot of things we do not know.

If you're talking about some other observation, that would have to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

What rules of logic did you use to get from 1) to 2)? They appear to be saying difference things.

Statement 2 doesn't seem to make sense. Try rewriting it in a way that makes it easier to discuss it with logic.

The entire field of how we know is epistemology. This is a philosophical field all on its own and we can spend generations talking about it. I'm going to ignore things like skepticism in my response, because, if I don't, we will go nowhere and be unable to do anything.

Let's look at it in a more scientific way:

I can directly observe stones. I can see a stone, hold it, throw it, and such. Unless I have reason to believe my senses are faulty to the point of insanity, I can say I see and touch it. This is a bad example to use as analogies with things like god, which as we cannot go down the street and find at a riverbed. I can directly observe rocks to exist. What we are talking about is how we know things that we cannot directly see actually exist.

In the things we cannot directly see, we must start from observations, make hypotheses, and then eliminate those hypotheses until only one remains. We eliminate those hypotheses by looking for evidence and observations that would falsify those observations from being true. We falsify the hypotheses until only one remains.

That's the extremely bare-bones version of it. In your example, you have not eliminated alternative hypotheses to God actually causing belief. I have shown how we do not need an actual god to exist in order to explain religious behavior because people are motivated by false beliefs all the time.

How do you know god-beliefs are false or true for that matter? Your counter-objections to my argument is a circular one. You're already assuming god doesn't exist. — TheMadFool

My argument does not aim to disprove God, it aims to disprove the argument you presented: God exists because many humans worship God and follow the rules of a religion. I am saying that your argument for God is bad. I said nothing on the other arguments for God's existence or even the actual existence for God. Those remain open questions.

I am saying that we do not require god to explain human religious behavior. We already know people can be motivated and act on beliefs that are false. Therefore, the truth of the content of a belief is irrelevant in explaining behavior. The person only needs to believe their religion is true in order to perform all the prayers and religious practices they do; the religion itself does not need to be true. Therefore, God's existence is irrelevant to the observation of religious behavior. Because religious behavior does not require God to explain it, you cannot use religious behavior as proof of God's existence. Again, God may actually exist, but God does not need to exist in order to explain the observation.

Sure, whatever. I'm going to go with the understanding of doctors and other medical scientists, who are aware that there are germs in the body that do not cause disease and actually study the stuff, over some guy on the internet who I'm sure would not mind having a bunch of viruses and bacteria germ theory holds contain deadly diseases injected into him and would not seek medical help because modern medicine is based on germ theory.

I assume you are an anti-vaccine guy too, right?

I am accounting for those religious observations. I'm saying that the hypothesis you are arguing for is unfounded and that the explanation for the religious behavior we observe can easily just be false belief in gods. My point about Islam and Christianity was to indicate that people can be highly motivated and base their lives around false beliefs, beliefs in things that are not actually there. People have died from the caste system in India; not because the caste system is true, but because people believe the caste system to be true and act accordingly. People can believe and pray to myths; it does not mean the myths actually exist independent of people's minds. a god does not need to exist for people to pray to it, as we clearly see by all the necessarily false religions in the world. Therefore, we do not require a god to exist in our hypothesis explaining religious behavior.

Germs exist independent of people's minds though. Even if you do not believe germ theory, you still get sick from bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms. If you think demons possessing you cause you to get severely ill and get an exorcism to cure your illness, you are still going to be sick because the underlying cause of your illness is still present. If germ theory was not true, methods we developed to prevent the spread of germ-based illnesses and kill germs in the body would not stop the spread, development, and existence of observed illnesses. The hypotheses surrounding germ theory require that germs actually exist; I cannot develop an alternative set of hypotheses that illnesses are caused by a belief in germs to explain the observations we see in medical science.

This is just my experience: people gifted or capable at one form of communication are not automatically capable in another medium of communication. People who write well and sound interesting in written text can easily be the worst orators with the worst voice and delivery. People who speak well are not necessarily good at writing. I feel that in-person debates with allotted time structures would take the focus away from the arguments themselves and transform them into points about style and delivery, though this might favor people who talk better than they write. Also, prep for auditory debate takes time. Unless you have a lot of innate talent, you have to do some prep work in order to not sound like a buffoon, which I'm not sure most people have time to do.

There are also some kinks that would need to be worked out, like how the first person to speak would have to spend part of their allotted time to just introduce the topic and offer some loose background info. Also, how exactly would the participants do this? Google Hangout?

Perhaps I should note that there is nothing wrong with doing historical speculation. I was more replying towards people like @m-theory brought up, who make claims about how things would have been better or worse if event x had not happened.

Historical speculation on alternate histories beyond very immediate and obvious effects carries approximately the same weight as my friends and I arguing over which comic book character would win in a fight. In fact, the predictions about fighting comic book characters would probably be more accurate as there is a much more tightly controlled environment within fiction than in reality.

We cannot say to any degree of certainty that democracy would be worse or better off or that the world would be more or less stable because we have no way of knowing how global history would have played out. Going into the 20th century, the U.S. started playing a major role in global affairs. We cannot even speculate whether Britian would be able to supress Germany in WW1 or WW2 because the world landscape would be so different. Take, for instance, whether the world would be overrun by Marxists. There might not habe even been Marxists because Marx might not even have been born, his would-be grandfather killed by a German whose family would have normally moved to the U.S.