Comments

  • In Another Person’s Shoes
    It might take many years for one whose only impetus is to finally become honest, but in the scenario you mention one who already had honest beliefs could change them as rapidly as reality, itself, changes. One could suspends his beliefs and wait before forming new ones.
  • In Another Person’s Shoes
    If reality contradicts your beliefs then you change them or expect them to be ridiculed.
  • In Another Person’s Shoes
    Note: An argument against the impossibility of the situation is redundant as the point is to come to some semblance of an understanding of views that seem utterly beyond our personal perspectives. — I like sushi

    While the entire situation is impossible what's interesting is that the part that considers that many would maintain their views despite the dynamics changing unexpectedly is plausible. One just assumes, and probably correctly, that most scientists and those who follow them have little understanding of the things they speak about and such submission towards those proclaimed to be authorities that the complete absence of evidence of all things scientific wouldn't cause them to reevaluate their views.
  • What determines who I am?
    You're person A with perspective a and you refer to yourself with words like "me" and "mine" for various reasons, one reason may be simply so that even if people don't know your name they'll know you're referring to yourself.
  • Ethics of Vegetarianism/Meat Eating
    TheMadFool, there are hardly any instincts in a person towards preservation of his species, rather instincts towards preserving some level of genetic grouping within the species that he belongs to. Outside of procreation, one may argue that even that isn't very significant relative to specific instincts towards self-survival, and self-actualization. Also, these instincts aren't primitive, because as humans evolved to various levels of sophistication as social beings capable of an exchange of thoughts, their instincts evolved to accommodate such new sophisticated interactions.
  • The Future of Humanity
    s there any intrinsic difference between our world and a simulated one (i.e. The Experience Machine)? I cannot think of any, so why do we not all want that? Is it just the status quo bias, or is there some other desire than pleasure that is keeping us from devoting all of our resources to the development of such a system? — Spencer Lutz

    It seems that enormous resources are being devoted to it. Likely fully immersive VR boxes will be mass produced within 20 years and most people will be encouraged to spend their lives in them, creating a massive decrease in the human population - excepting if more overt means to eliminate and control people aren't implemented first. While most will probably prefer living in them with the large number of possible simulated lives that would be available, they probably won't be very good at allowing one to forget they're in one.
    Assume that one day a machine is made that could fool one, and that they are flawless both in design and in how they're maintained. There is still a good reasons to avoid them.
    All people continue from their own respective line of ancestors, and it's unlikely one can be anything but at constant conflict with oneself if one doesn't honor them in some way. They didn't just struggle to continue a line, but to continue a line of like-people in the face of those who'd integrate them into their own bloodlines and culture.
    Consider the drive to create modern technology, it's not something many have, rather many have drives that only lead to incidental involvement with it's creation. Look at the general impetus among larger world cultures as something accumulative, meaning not something associated with individual bloodlines. Therefore, modern technology can be seen as an imposition on one's bloodline. To live in a machine is one of the most subversive ways one can live in that regard, something antagonistic to honoring one's ancestors.
  • What will happen after we invent every technology that we currently desire?
    Eugen, likely a large percentage, maybe most, people throughout history have not wanted more technology than they already had and when someone in their tribe invented something new they'd either oppose it or accept it as a important means to an end, but with hesitation.
  • Ethics of Vegetarianism/Meat Eating
    Personally, I do eat meat - and it seems like any defense of eating meat is necessarily speciesist - i.e. it elevates and considers humans as just inherently more important than other animals. It seems funny to me than an accusation of someone being a "speciest" (sp?) is considered a serious accusation....[/

    It is a serious enough accusation, but not from those who claim the categorization of animals is their primary focus of value and emphasis, in other words those who strived to be less discriminatory than humanists, but from those who favor being more discriminatory than humanists, and so are open about their primary focus of value and emphasize being categorizations within the human species.

    An animalist could rightly claim that a meat eating humanist's value system arbitrarily focuses on his own species, but it's not much of a criticism coming from one who also has an arbitrary value system.

    A species is a breeding type, meaning it's the total of all individuals who have genes which are compatible with each others' in terms of breeding. That the human species is composed of groups that have less genetic divergence than many other notable species isn't necessarily and argument in favor of valuing it as a collective entity in a way that discourages divergence through universal ethical standards.
    One could argue that a healthy species is a more diverse species and so advocate uneven ethical standards to achieve that purpose.
  • When will we get over pot?
    Cannabis, is a unifying drug, if we are going to pin it down as a social net good or evil. It makes people more friendly (without schizophrenia or other anxiety disorder retro-post-18 y/o's). — Shawn

    One might wonder if the major impetus behind the effort to legalize recreation marijuana was populistic or based on other interests. Assuming it was a populistic effort consider if the motives were ever much more than pure hedonistic desire.
    When a rational person wishes to push legal changes, he takes the time to understand the political culture related to the issue, then looks to see what the costs and benefits would be. Even assuming those opposed to legalized recreation marijuana are irrational in their own regard, they're still voters to be contended with.
    One might assume that claims, which are presumably largely true, about how marijuana can be a great aid to people with certain illness have convinced those once opposed to marijuana in general to vote in favor of medical marijuana. What those people then saw is that medical marijuana legalization efforts were Trojan horses to implement recreational marijuana.
    Consider how many states that start with legalized medical marijuana later legalize recreational marijuana. It's reasonable to assume that those people often now feel rightly to have been betrayed and those who sympathize with them in states that have yet to legalize medical marijuana have been be less likely to vote in favor it.
    Basically, the push for the legalization of recreation marijuana has been either at the expense of the push for medical marijuana, or at least with the reckless disregard for it, and that helps shed light on exactly how unifying a drug it is.

    and is a net GDP generator — Shawn

    What has happened with the legalization of medical marijuana in some American states is that now there are corporations that are imitating tobacco corporations in the way they push regulations to the limit, promote propaganda in favor of their product and attempt to silence opposition. While this may be standard for corporations which sell other products, that people advocated their existence as a lesser evil without much caution doesn't speak well towards their motives.
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