It's not just a motivation but in their by-laws which they submit to register their business. — ralfy

do you mean, to make a profit for their shareholders?

arrogance isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of 'do-gooders'

I think there are different types of people who might be seen as do-gooders.

It depends on their motivation for what they are doing....the type I am dubious about are those who try to do it for 'blownie points'...with society or whatever their god might be etc...
Because of this motivation I do kind of feel these people might often do more harm than good.

Then there are the virtue signallers....enough said.

People who try to make the world better for more general reasons, might be ok...they should be honest with themselves and to others etc...that it makes them feel good...or they are driven by guilt....etc.

Then again, perhaps he knows everything, but his knowledge is not infinite...


Because there are only a finite number of things that can be known. — Banno

God only has to know all the digits of pi, for his knowledge to be infinite....there are many other things to know as well.

I partly think science has been infested with financial considerations. It is perhaps easier to apply for research funding, if you have a mainstream research application, which leads to more materialistic research and mindset.......this cycle just promotes materialistic thinking in the scientific community...it's hard I would think for scientists to even break out of this mould in even materialistic research if the reseatch goes at all against the mainstream views......shame really.

some guy keeps writing to my local paper blaming MPs in the UK parliament; they didn't turn up to a climate change debate....well why would they,?,,,any attempt to change things would meet such negativity from the media and thus encourage the public in their natural inclination to do nothing, as it costs more, that any MP who rocks the boat would end up not being an MP for long.

I think with most people's general inclination to take the path of least resistance, means that any real solution has to come from science....ie solid renewable energy, like oilgae, and efficient effective CO2 sequestration...nothing else will do it....people are under the illusion that they have great will power, and a real democracy...they have piss weak versions of those I'm afraid, so it's science of whatever nature chucks at us.

I quite like the idea of doing it properly, ie with no drugs, and reading up of body building nutritional needs....I think some people buy those huge tubs of whey protein and somehow think by eating that that they will put on muscle bulk....I wonder if they know how much protein in grams that they really need, in order to build up muscle within a certain body building regime.

I've let myself go to much to really get into it now, but I sort of wish I had gone down that road in the past just to see where it might have lead.

I have often seen sceptics put a lot of things down to confirmation bias...or which ever term it is, where a person remembers co-incidences, and forgets the rest.


This process is true, eg I have noticed that when I meet someone and say they have a car of a certain make and colour, I then start to see lots of the same make of car with the same colour, going down the roads...I assume this is some kind of recognition bias, and not an increase in the presence of those makes of car.

But when it involves certain things like thinking of someone, and then a few minutes later they ring you up, I think this can only happen so many times before it becomes quite improbable that this is down to coincidence, or conformation bias....

Like the OP said, there comes a time when someone would have to go into denial about the personal evidence in order to dismiss it...this is a shame....especially if it happens to a scientist..the whole point of science is to be open and curious about how the universe works, and not to try to make the evidence fit their preconceived view of how it works.

We discover or verify new things about them, like for example Hawking radiation, from observation — Paul

how has Hawking radiation been observed?

I know there was some experiment using something where the speed of light was reduced , to generate a pseudo event horizon, or something....but that wasn't actually Hawking radiation.

Any stellar black hole will produce so little radiation that it wouldn't even be measurable if one was within a million miles of one, as far as I know.

well is the mainstream idea of black-holes differentiable to incipient(ie not quite forms) collapsing stars, by tests and evidence? Is it falsifiable?

If it isn't I would say it's more maths that science.

I believe the universe started as a corruption of a previous state...whatever that corruption was it seems to have made two but interacting forces and states..on the one had you have the so called material system, and on the other hand you have the non-corrupted system(which is sometimes known as the supernatural)...these systems can interact, and I do believe some of this earlier interaction formed the first self-reproducing cells....cells were then imbued with both systems, which then went on to evolve....I read that some of the earlier cells who were just dividing, tended to be around their nearest relatives, and clumping together, they found those cells that favoured clumping together and working together had a better survival rate, and this is how the first multicellular life forms came about, and those clumps went on to evolve into the higher life forms, still imbued with both systems.

I suspect there are some aspects of culture which are actually in decay; decaying in a grand structure that is being built by science and applied technology.....

For thousands of years, cultures have had to depend on their sophistication to predict and tackle problems that come along, but in these ages, it might seem easier to let problems arise, and then try to deal with them with modern technology. This might have allowed culture to become lazy..The arts seems to have taken a different route to science on their way to Scotland, as it were.

Indeed I thing this sliding back has had a bad effect on science too...there are ideas in science that need to be challenged, but culture has atrophied to the extent that it isn't even able to see that there are problems in science, let along tackle them.

My pet hobby-horse is the idea that space-time can be so curved that light is unable to escape an area of space. This might seem wonderful for those people who love the maths..although they don't love the maths enough to come up with a more complex model that would address certain issues with this model; that would be too difficult...culture should be in a position to say 'light??..you mean you think the universe would allow light to be a prisoner of time and space??'..
That shouldn't sit well with a healthy culture, or the arts, or religion....yet people will just accept TV science advocates that that is the case...and accept other materialistic points of view.

The arts has been led away by big money, and science is leading culture away in the direction of materialism...and people can watch culture rot, on their brand new flashy iphone, if they want.

obviously I didn't mean out time dimension, but another sort of time-like sequence or order of thoughts...

Like I said, we can;t know what the answer would be, or even if the question is relevant, and like I said we are limited to the human experience.....so I would apply that to statements that you were making, about god having infinite knowledge etc...it's all guesswork really.

God's knowledge cannot be limited in any way. Period. Lest he not be a true God. — Kenshi

I don't like to ask this question, but suppose that God has thoughts, and exists in a kind of time sequence dimension.....does he know what he will think in his future?

I think the answer is that we just can't know the answer to this question, but it shows that our ideas about what God knows and doesn't know are all so limited to the human experience....

God's knowledge could be infinite, but that wouldn't necessarily mean he knows everything..he could just know all the digits of the number pi.

oh yea you can have some understanding of a feeling pertaining to an experience, but that doesn't really give you any certainty that you are right. I would say we can be fairly sure about our own feelings and experiences.....including for the starving person,...well more sure than someone who just tries to understand.

I think to have an objective view of reality one would also need a subjective view, of anyone who had one...these two are contradictory positions. God cannot have the subjective experience of a starving person in a poor part of the world, however he might try, or think he understands that person.

Yea but a starving person isn't God, so how could God understand that perspective?

I think in society there maybe the approach that what is useful, is therefore the truth....as sort of utilitarian approach to truth.

But what is useful for one set of people won't always be useful for another set of people.

And as I said in another thread, there doesn't seem to be a way to determine an object truth*, so truth will always be subjective, and people can use this idea to arrive at my first statement, and just go along with the idea that what is useful is truth, although there are ways to arrive at a more objective truth by looking at evidence, this can be inconvenient for some, and they therefore might say that what isn't useful, or is indeed counter to their group, is therefore no the truth...which you see with climate change deniers.

* and even using terms like 'objective reality' and 'objective truth' these are terms that risk being see as objective statements, and if one is claiming that there can be no objective reality, then one can't make objective claims about it.....so what we are often left with is accepting ideas as useful, or ideas which aren't useful, as statements of truth.....and people often base their thinking on what is useful to them, their self interest...so often opt for ideas that are useful for them and call them truths..

It would be far more honest for most people to say they base their philosophies on the bases of what is useful to them personally, what is useful for their own survival, and not try to claim these positions are based upon some vague definition of truth.

Is the concept of truth linked to the concept of objective reality?
If so Idon't think objective reality is possible even if you include the concept of god.
God couldn't know what it was like to be a starving person in a poor part of the world, or know what it was like to be a rich person living in Beverly Hills...so he would just be an observer with his subjective reality in a similar way that other beings were.
So I would say that truth was always subjective and arrived at based upon person reference frames.

one problem with time travel could be called 'the carbon problem'...which is that a guy goes back in time 50 years, and while there breaths out many molecules of co2, which then enter the carbon cycle and end up in some wheat that gets turned into bread that the guy eats 50years later, so these carbon atoms are in a non ending cycle, so where would they have come from?

I do believe that information can travel back and forth through time though.

well even if one could time travel, I guess you wouldn't be able to impart your knowledge to an inventor.

You might, however, be able to go back in time and try to kill Hitler, and fail, but in the process really piss him off, to the extent that he forms the Third Reich.

Are you being antagonistic? I am basically saying that all humans are humans. There are not subspecies. The term “race” is commonly used out of it’s scientific context. That is all I was saying. — I like sushi

I think a term can have a scientific context as well as a cultural one, like the word 'theory'; science doesn't own that word, or related use.
I asked the question about the DRC, because it is my feeling that the people there really would think of you as belonging to a different race, away from all the western discussion about whether there is such a thing as race.

why would they be interested in where you are from..?

so you think if a 'white' person from the west stood in a crowded market in DRC, or any such country in Africa and stated that there is no such thing as race, and had a placard that said similar, that you'd get general agreement from the people there?

But doesn't that ignore the fact that the ability for different species to mate usually occurs only because the two already shared a historical genetic bond, as in the case of donkeys and horses? — Hanover

maybe the two never really separated that much...I posted a video of monkeys using boars as a kind of taxi service, so maybe the hybridizing goes back a long way....might explain the behaviour of some taxi drivers... :D

This article seems to suggest that a man fucked a pig that created a pig centaur and that pig centaur is us. Do I have this right? — Hanover

I think it is suggesting that boars and monkeys met like ships in the night, ..a long time ago, and the offspring were hybrids, that later became human.

well taking your lottery example. if person 1 is lying and person 2 is lying, then they seem equal, if you don't know whether they are lying or not.

I don't know that I even understand what your post is talking about, I just saw the word "maybe" too often and thought this isn't going anywhere. — Judaka

yes, I find it best to be vague when I am not sure. 'maybe' just means I suggest it for debate.

Too often people are too sure of themselves..

Lots of theory wax, not exactly a wise way to try to understand something. I recommend watching the video linked earlier in this comment to get a better understanding of the alt-right. — Judaka

I'm always open to criticism, and often change my mind on things.
I don't mind if you poke a hole or two in any of my posts, and I will see if I can counter the poke, or agree with it.

I dunno; what will happen if they start mating with pigs?

there'll be ponkeys and migs everywhere.

In biological terms there is no plurality of human race, but their is a cultural plurality of “cultural races”. — I like sushi

I have no idea what the reaction there would be(assuming you are 'white') if you made this statement in an African country, say the DRC, in a crowded street. What do you think?

Which leaves us with a massively complex theory stacking improbabilities that does not have any predictive power, nor is it more general than the accepted version. In other words, we have a bad theory. — Echarmion

yes maybe it boils down to 'pictures or it didn't happen' ! :D

I'm a big fan of Coke, I drink quite a lot of it(the diet kind)..........they have really hit on a winner in terms of dollar of profit per dollar used in manufacture....all they have to do is not blow their good luck away somehow.

Most companies don't exist on such an easy profit margin..

The Cola Coca company might indeed come to and end or have to diversify if people are one day able to make any chemical cocktail they like in their own homes, with eg nanotechnology.

so they kind of optimise their behaviour to make as much profit they can that isn't based upon a more nuanced philosophy?

Surely it would be in a business's best interest to want to exist beyond the people alive today...?

No, none of those strategies deal with the environment, unless it’s in their interests. — Brett

so are you saying what happens to the environment and the society around them has no bearing on the long-term interests of a business?

I didn't say the had no idea what they were doing, but take the options you mentioned; they seem a bit like they might be limited, and I don't really see them as much of a broader philosophy.

for example, non of the strategies you mentioned deal with the effect that the business might have on the environment. Non of them deal with the effect they might have on the society they operate in.

yes, I remember on another forum a thread had a questionnaire that put one on that compass. There was one person who seemed very proud as to how far left, and libertarian he was, and I do really think he may have been answering some of the questions just to put him further on the chart in that way....not just for the questionnaire, but for his general view of himself..

To the extent that such people's views are fed back into the definition of 'left' and 'libertarian' to redefine those scales, the system is flawed.

I would say this person was perhaps a bit more authoritarian in reality, but there he was defining himself, and so the authoritarian scale system to some extent, as libertarian...

I think he was smart enough to realise this might be the case, and tailored his actions to be more libertarian due to this....rather than be the storming norman of the left. :D

This would cause war with the robots and possibly end humanity. A robot would have to attempt to imprison everybody in the equivalent of padded zoo cell to keep them safe. Pregnancy would be prevented since it carries the significant chance of harm. — noAxioms

yea, the thing I like about the aspect of the 'first law of robotics' isn't how useful or not it would actually be, in a robotic run world, it is just how I think that a lot of people try to use the idea of not taking action as leaving them without responsibility..
If say I was made aware that a zombie apocalypses had begun or at least there were a few zombies wandering about, but decided 'nah can't be bothered to report that to the police.'', then that wouldn't leave me without responsibility,

They might make decisions that they'll come to regret, but big companies do have people whose jobs it is to analyze mountains of data--about their own business, about other businesses in their industry, about consumers, about other industries, about stock markets, about governments and economics in general, about other political, scientific, cultural trends, etc. They also involve other companies, organizations, etc. in this. — Terrapin Station

yes, they usually will have a lot of people who are highly trained in things like statistics, and probabilities etc, but what is the overarching philosophy as to how they use this information?

I know that a lot of people who work at say the Financial Times will have read widely about economic philosophies etc reading books like The Communist Manifesto etc, ..but do big companies actually have a wider philosophy as to how they fit into the rest of the world, and how best to proceed regarding the future?

If it is just about making profits in the short or long term, then maybe that wouldn't really even qualify as a philosophy...it would be more akin to an animal going around the countryside looking for food, as compared to a human learning how to grow crops and make food, which would be like a philosophy of food production, compared to the animal's more instinctual behaviour of opportunism.

If a group partially defines itself by race, then maybe they feel that there are issues to do with race that aren't being addressed.

Maybe they feel frightened and alienated by the presence of other racial groups; maybe this fear leads to a kind of hatred. And then this apparent hatred is used as a way to dismiss their group. Which then feeds back into the feeling that racial issues are not being addressed.

So by dismissing these groups, someone is kind of helping to fuel these groups to become more angry, and so more extreme, when I think a better approach would be to try to address the issues these groups might have with racial differences.

By discussing racial issues people in society might end up exposing their real feelings around race, which might be a frightening prospect for them...imagine going through life trying to show everyone that they aren't at all racist, and in the process of honest discussion, they show themselves up to have some pretty strong feelings on the subject, which would usually show them to be racists....slightly embarrassing eh..?

So I suspect it is quite often closet racists who like to dismiss some groups of people, in order to reduce the chance of honest discussion...and they might use terms like 'hate'...to do this...implying that hatred somehow means that someone isn't worthy of taking seriously, is somehow less human..

Maybe ideally, some of these closet racists might like to round up these 'haters' and...well maybe have them all killed..??

Sound familiar?

It would be interesting maybe to discuss what some people would actually like to have done with any groups, including groups that partially define themselves by race.