I'll message him. You think they get 5G in the bunker?

I think Agustino might need a welfare check. He MIA?

I hear the sequel has been cancelled?

It's been a wild four years.

:-!

Well, or that it's a nonsensical concept even if you're not the only person fond of it. In other words, whether it's nonsense has nothing to do with how popular it is. — Terrapin Station

That's not what I was saying though, is it? My point wasn't that it's true because lots of people believe it. My point was that it's not nonsense because clearly other reasonable people can make sense of it - something you have admitted you can't do.

For (b) I didn't say I wasn't issuing a moral stance. That is my moral stance re speech. — Terrapin Station

You said, in other words, that it's morally acceptable for anyone to say anything, no matter how objectionable, because you're a free speech absolutist. I could also be a free speech absolutist, but I could at the same time have extreme moral disagreements with what other people say. You're mixing up two separate things.

For (c), I hate ageism, but otherwise, yes, basically. — Terrapin Station

Does that mean you don't believe in age of consent laws?

I don't have a problem with it because (a) I think that "objectification" concepts are nonsensical, (b) I'm a free speech absolutist, and (c) I'm very pro-(libertine) sex. — Terrapin Station

(a) ah, the I-don't-understand-it-so-it-must-be-bullshit-even-though-other-reasonable-people-get-it stance (b) whether people should be allowed to say anything they like has literally nothing to do with whether certain speech acts are moral or not (c) so this includes using sexual language to talk about kids as if they were adults. Gotcha.

An argument is valid or not. Not (interpersonal) behavior. — Terrapin Station

So you are using it in another one of its senses so as to make it a category error. Regardless, it doesn't really matter whether I use the word 'valid' or 'acceptable' because you've just admitted you don't have an issue with tabloids sexually objectifying kids because there's no objective right or wrong.

Maybe there is less there than one thinks there is. — Bitter Crank

You've been watching too many TED talks.

There's only so much psychopathology masquerading as badphil one can take. It's better for everyone this way, lest I have a Falling Down moment.

Have you presented to me some opposing statistics and I missed them? — Agustino

..no, for reasons you had literally just quoted. Keep up.

That's not at all how I use the word "valid." That use of the word "valid" seems like a category error to me. — Terrapin Station

It clearly isn't if you know what the words valid and category error mean. Is it 'acceptable' for papers to be objectifying female politicians? No. Is it 'acceptable' for papers to be talking about children in sexually suggestive language as if they were adults? No. Unless you have some personal definition of 'valid' peculiar only to you, or you're deliberately using it in another sense to contrive a category error, it's not a category error.

But in any event, I'm fine with anyone focusing on whatever they'd like to focus on. — Terrapin Station

Even if it's the sexual objectification of children in a national tabloid. Wow. This is your brain on moral relativism.

I don't agree that there's anything wrong with that--anymore than there would be to only focus on "what they stand for" and not focus on their legs. It's just two different aspects of them as people. You can't focus on every aspect at any one time, and there are no correct/incorrect aspects to focus on, no objectively more or less important aspects, etc. — Terrapin Station

So if you can't focus on every aspect of the two women all the time, it's just as valid to focus on their legs as it is the political issues at hand because there's no objective right or wrong?

The daily mail is meant to be.. Oh. It would be wrong if the daily mail was meant to be a proper newspaper. But it's utter prurient garbage. Is it 'not wrong' for the daily mail to subtly sexualise children because there's no objective right or wrong? Or is that just another aspect by which one can view children, no more or less valid than any other?

As someone who's radically sceptical of everything except what comes out his own mouth, it's pretty obvious you only accept that article as 'fact' because it supports what you already believe.

The article however does illustrate that lust is so prevalent, it can be taken as the natural condition of mankind. To depart from the natural condition takes effort and education. — Agustino

If you want to know the truth about someone, ask them what they think is true of everyone else.

Ok. Don't become an aphorist.

I don't know what this means.

About me being a Stoic. I did appreciate them once but I find it alienating from what it means to be human - like the way it deals with losing loved ones and the way it (unintentionally) undermines genuine, deeply felt human relationships. I disagree with it for other reasons too.

Fair enough, but you are wrong.

And you claim to be a Stoic — Agustino

Err, citation needed? I know for a fact I've never said that. This is the second time you've insisted I call myself a Stoic, and the second time I've rejected it. At most I was quite influenced by some of their ideas, but that was in 2015.

You really don't get it, do you? Your own logic could have just ended the conversation. But rather than abandon it, you dug your heels in. It's like when I got you to admit that by your own definition you weren't technically a Christian, despite calling yourself one.

Expectations are an important and healthy thing to have in life, especially politics. Just because people don't live up to them is no reason not to have them. Not placing expectations on people to do better leads to a race to the bottom because being a cunt to people becomes validated, so we end up living in an even shiter state of affairs where there are no moral standards and leverage is all that matters. Politicians can play their little power games if they want, but why should we put up with it? It does us no good because politics will come to be about power and self-interest rather than public service. We as a society set the standard with our votes and our free speech.

Fair enough, I have no problem with that. — Agustino

And therein lies the absurdity of your self-refuting position. That was an easy one to address.

This is an internet forum, you shouldn't have such idealistic expectations. Don't you know shitposting is how internet discussions work in the real world?

Don't have a go at Wayfarer I'm the one who started the circle jerk 8-)

it's a waste of time talking to you. — Wayfarer

I agree, I don't know why I bother. I hope I'm not as insufferable as some of the other pessimists on this forum can be at times. Pessimism seems to turn ones political views into a cynical, hypocritical, right-wing cliche.

Any President out there wants to maintain his power — Agustino

Bloody good job he didn't do anything that could possibly lead to his impeachment then.

I see you're currently enrolled in the Hardcore Realist School of the Pragmatic Realpolitik and insist on letting everyone know how enlightened you are (as if you've discovered some fundamental truth to politics that we idiots have not). Did you just read The Dictators Handbook or something? I'll try this again next week when maybe you'll grant that people should at least try to act ethically while having the power to profoundly influence peoples lives. It's amazing how often you change your tune; I remember you used to boast something about living a moral life above all else. What happened to that? Apparently now it doesn't apply to politics, where arguably it matters the most. Or it at least doesn't apply to your God Emperor. If you accept it so heartily as you clearly do instead of opposing it, this kind of view of politics is a race to the bottom.

How do you think he made it in the business world? By being an idealistic kid? — Agustino

oof, good one. Inheriting a vast amount of wealth and being skilled enough to fall out of a rich vagina probably didn't hold him back.

Wouldn't you have done the same? I would. When you lead a country, everyone needs to know who the boss is — Agustino

Absolutely not. The president is the head of the executive branch - not Emperor. It was at least inexcusably inappropriate (and possibly obstruction of justice) for Trump to demand loyalty from the man who may be investigating him, given the fact that he has the power to fire Comey at will.

This is a perfect example of why I asked Thorongil if he thinks Trump has a good understanding of the law, the constitution, and the meaning of the presidency (I won't even go into Trumps relationship with the truth). Trump doesn't have a bloody clue. He doesn't even have the basic common sense to see the massive, blatant conflict of interest involved in his actions. 'Oh but it's all highly subjective! There are interpretations you see! Policies are all that matter! The Presidents new clothes are magnificent!' Politics melts peoples fucking brains.

Of course you're not taught this stuff in class. Of course. What were you thinking? These are things you learn on the street. — Agustino

I can't believe you say this unironically :-!

I could ask that question on a psychology forum but that doesn't mean it requires a psychological answer does it? It was a simple question so it's a bit dubious you can't make yourself clearer than vague. If don't want to say 'no', I can understand the dissonance. You don't need to deflect, or go on about subjectivity and interpretations. Do you think he has a good understanding of them?

'something something liberal media etc!' incoming.

Could you give a clearer answer? That's far too philosophical an answer to quite a straight forward question. Don't over think it.

Do you think Trump has a good grasp on the truth, the law, the constitution and the meaning of the presidency?

The general consensus is that death always occurs for a technical reason (the heart fails, brain cells die etc...). So potentially, if we could tackle every single cause of death, the human body should have no expiry date. This is now an accepted paradigm to the level that
many companies and research centres define their long term mission as to 'cure death' or 'extend human life indefinitely' (one example of many is Google backed company Calcio). — AXF

This isn't quite accurate.

Why we age is the subject of vigorous debate. The classical view is that ageing happens because of random wear and tear. The newest view holds that ageing is more orderly and genetically programmed. Proponents of this view point out that animals of similar species and exposure to wear and tear have markedly different life spans... The idea that living things shut down instead of wearing down has received substantial support in recent years. Researchers working with the now famous C. elegans (twice in one decade, Nobel Prizes went to scientists doing work on the little nematode) were able, by altering a single gene, to produce worms that live more than twice as long and age more slowly. Scientists have since come up with single-gene alterations that increase the life spans of fruit flies, mice, and yeast. These findings notwithstanding, the preponderance of the evidence is against the idea that our life spans are programmed into us. —

- Being Mortal, Atul Gawande, pp. 31-32.

So it's not quite clear which view is correct. It doesn't seem to be the case that if we tackle the causes of death, then we tackle death itself. Even if we tackle them, we probably still have an expiry date that we won't be able to avoid unless we also manipulate our genes somewhere along the line. The newest research strongly suggests that genes do play some kind of ultimate role, but it isn't quite enough to overturn the evidence for the classical view you mention. I suspect that's only a matter of time, though, until genetic research into the ageing process in humans develops.

fascist











:P

I'd have voted for them if the 'surge' some had predicted had materialised, but it hasn't if the polls are accurate to any degree. My vote would be wasted on the lib dems as my area has been conservative since about 1945 and only labour have a realistic chance of beating them. FPTP is wonderful.

Our Overton window is sufficiently far to the right that Corbyn looks relatively radical compared to the norm. There's also a great deal of media bias against him, which isn't to say he's without fault. I can dig up the studies if you're willing to wait a day or so when I'm not at work.

UKIP and their neoliberal policies are the last thing we need.

If so, then to exist is to be an element in the domain of discourse; roughly, to exist is to be spoken of. — Banno

Something's not right here. Has LGU clockwork oranged Banno?

The more free a market is the more it tends towards corruption and all sorts of harmful inequalities.

Since God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, onle he knows why things happen. Despite the fact that you, or me, as mortal humans might witness many seemingly evil things happen, we just see it that way because we do not have enough perspective towards the future, in reality those seemingly evil acts will turn out to have been good in the future, we just dont know it yet, only God knows it. — rickyk95

I see no reason why God can't achieve these future goods without putting innocent and good people through such gratuitous suffering in the process. He's not bound by any such reason, he can have it both ways if he wants to.

The article made it clear to me that this statistic is itself likely to be baseless fear-mongering that "manipulates our emotions and sells papers/gets clicks." So you ought to take a look at why you're taken in by a story like that but sneer at stories about terrorism. — Thorongil

No, because those statistics are probably bullshit. Again, the article, if you chose to read it, helpfully presents both sides and the "government murders 30k" narrative was pretty well deflated as hyperbolic nonsense. — Thorongil

Err, the statistics are most certainly not "baseless fear-mongering". Unless you think the Office of National Statistics are into that sort of thing (they are "the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and its recognised national statistical institute" and the government cites them regularly on their own website). No one except you is disputing the numbers. You might want to dispute the causes of those numbers, but I apologise for siding with the opinion of researchers, who do this stuff for a living, over yourself and the Conservative government who has a vested interest in denying any responsibility for the numbers (they've literally blamed every other group except themselves for the NHS crisis, so this most recent denial is very predictable and very telling). As the article says, "they examined other possible explanations for the deaths, including data inaccuracies, whether there had been a major epidemic or “environmental shocks” such as wars or natural disasters." If, after your evidently thorough analysis of their methodology and expertise in their field, you have some additional insight into why this research is bullshit, the authors, the peer-reviewers, the media, the government, the general public, and myself would like to hear it.

All that aside, the validity of this particular research is irrelevant to the topic of this thread. I don't need that study to be correct to point out that there are more dangerous things in society than terrorism that we don't equally proportion our attitudes to, or direct our attention or public funding in massive disproportion towards. Quibbling over the study is all beside the point. (Also, I'd appreciate it if you didn't quote my narrative as "government murders 30k". It shows not only that you don't understand my argument (or are at best taking the least charitable interpretation of it, so thanks), but also that you don't know how quotation marks work.)

With regards to the Douglas Murray video: he says that terrorism-death statistics are misleading because they conveniently start counting, for example, the day after 9/11. At no point did I cite statistics that conveniently began 24 hours after 9/11. Here's a chart showing the number of deaths in western Europe and the US going all the way back to 1970 (Source). There are many interesting points in this graph, not least the presence of the Oklahoma city bombing. Let's have the article spell my argument out for you in case you still aren't getting it:

"Even in 2001, the likelihood of an American in the United States being killed in a terrorist attack was less than one in 100,000; in the decade up to 2013 that fell to one in 56m. The chance of being the victim in 2013 of an ordinary homicide in the United States was one in 20,000. Barack Obama was correct when he said earlier this year that the danger of drowning in a bathtub is greater than that of being killed by terrorists. Baths are a one-in-a-million risk. Even if the terrorism deaths in San Bernardino and Orlando were doubled to give an annual death toll, the risk would still be about one in 2.5m." (This except is from this version of the article, which is more concise than the other and subtitled "Putting the recent horrors in perspective". The same excerpt has been slightly reworded in the longer one)

As for Murray's other point; "If there were a movement deliberately making dangerous toasters, or deliberately mis-wiring lawn mowers to make sure they kill their owners, I'd want to know about it. And so would you. And that's what we're dealing with; movements that actively want to do this so of course there's a disproportionate emphasis on that, because that's what matters."

These points aren't an argument against anything I've said, it's just a restatement of your position, which I've argued against since as lacking objectivity. If anything, my argument is a direct counter to both yours and DM's claims, and I could similarly accuse DM of letting the fear of terrorism get the better of him.

Looking at the numbers, I'm actually beginning to understand even less why we should be more concerned about terrorist intentions and the resulting deaths over non-terrorist related deaths. Can you explain what makes intentions matter more than the actual relative ineffectiveness of terrorism when compared with other, more dangerous causes of death that we aren't even comparably concerned about in our day to day lives? Somehow, you think intentions make up the several-dozen thousand-fold difference and then some. How? What is it about it being deliberate that matters so much? Surely all deaths of normal citizens are equally bad.

In 2001, when compared to 2013, you were more than 5 times more likely to die from homicide than a terrorist attack (I couldn't find the regular homicide rate for 2001). So another question is, why is the latter a bigger problem than the former, even though homicides are just as intentional as terrorist murders?

I'd also like to hear which side of the gun ownership/2nd amendment debate you fall on, just in case you're secretly a massive hypocrite across these two issues.

Here's some more evidence in case you wish to trot out Douglas Murray again to make your case for you: "Foreign-born terrorists who entered the country, either as immigrants or tourists, were responsible for 88 percent (or 3,024) of the 3,432 murders caused by terrorists on U.S. soil from 1975 through the end of 2015." (Source).

A choice quote: "Including those murdered in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), the chance of an American perishing in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil that was committed by a foreigner over the 41-year period studied here is 1 in 3.6 million per year. The hazard posed by foreigners who entered on different visa categories varies considerably. For instance, the chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year while the chance of being murdered in an attack committed by an illegal immigrant is an astronomical 1 in 10.9 billion per year. By contrast, the chance of being murdered by a tourist on a B visa, the most common tourist visa, is 1 in 3.9 million per year."

Wow, an unnecessary and rank smear against conservatives. — Thorongil

If you took that as a smear, that says more about how you view conservatives than about how I do. I don't derive any moral judgement from that. It's a fairly well known fact that conservative minds have a more in-group/out-group mentality (this is why nationalism and tribalism occur more on the right, and the lefts 'openness to experience' renders them less sceptical of out-group individuals). That, coupled with a high degree of risk-aversion (due to a desire for stability, which can often be at the expense of those at the bottom if tradition is threatened) and a perceived high-risk threat coming from predominantly foreign, or at least minority, enemy (terrorists), results in a degree of unwarranted hysteria if you don't look at, or choose to ignore, the numbers. The medias role in whipping up hysteria shouldn't need to be spelled out.

There is literally article after article after article (I've come across even more while researching for this post) of cool-headed risk-analysis that implores people to regain some perspective when thinking about the risk of terrorism to them and their families. But you choose to overlook all that just because terrorists have bad intentions?

You come in here and make the point with far fewer words than I did and in a fraction of the time it took for me to write my post. Git.

Of course intentions matter, which is why terrorism is a bigger problem than road traffic accidents despite causing fewer fatalities. But intentions matter less than you think. The point of statistics is to put matters into perspective. Which is why I brought up the (predictable) 30,000 deaths due to deliberate NHS cuts. One issue is scary, it manipulates our emotions and sells papers/gets clicks, the other is boring old government policy, and a lot more cognitively taxing to fully understand. Of course intentions are relevant, and they can be taken into consideration when judging how bad terrorism is relative to other issues going on in society. But the sheer magnitude of the loss of life of 30,000 people, and the actual harm and suffering caused, makes those deaths worse overall for society than the terroristic intentions, or even the harm caused by terrorism, we faced that year. Do you agree? I don't see how you couldn't without at the same time admitting your objectivity is compromised.

Smearing 90 odd bodies across the street under a lorry is disgusting, both visually and morally speaking. But it's precisely because of the graphic nature of these crimes that they have more of a cognitive and emotional impact on us - even though the loss of life is far outweighed elsewhere in a more invisible fashion despite causing no less harm and suffering on society. It's easier to direct anger, fear, and scepticism towards a tangible human enemy (especially if they're a minority and you're a conservative, and if the media keeps the enemy constantly in mind) than towards a disease, or some other uninteresting cause of death. There are other plausible reasons behind this "false sense of insecurity" - see next link.

50 people dead from a terrorist attack is 'morally worse' than 50 people dead from a disease. But it doesn't follow, for example, that the US should spend 250,000 times more per death on terrorism than strokes ($500,000,000 vs $2000 each). Nor does it follow than it's a bigger threat to us. Nor does it follow that it's worse for society overall in a non-moral sense.

"Although the number of high-fatality attacks has dramatically gone up, annual deaths from terrorism have decreased just as dramatically."