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| graduates in the right area |
| 09.02.05 (4:52 pm) [edit] |
http://instapundit.com/archives/025289.php
Check out the HUGE difference in graduates in important diciplines between asia (high and rapidly rising) and the USA (low). this is probably a leading indicator. the US better get ready to start doing what countries like China tell it to do because they seem to have given up seriously trying to remain the major economic/military etc super power.
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| surprise examination paradox |
| 09.02.05 (1:45 pm) [edit] |
Richard raises the issue of the surprise examination paradox
your teacher tells you (I) she's going to give the class a surprise exam next week, and (ii) you won't be able to work out beforehand on which day it will be. Using this information, you work out that it can't be on Friday (the last day), or else you'd be able to know this as soon as class ended the day before, contrary to the second condition. With Friday excluded from consideration, Thursday is now the last possible day, so we can exclude it by the same reasoning. Similarly for Wednesday, Tuesday, and finally Monday. So you conclude that there cannot be any such exam. This chain of reasoning guarantees that when the teacher finally gives the exam (say, on Wednesday); you're all surprised, just like she said you'd be.
Richard proposes a solution he terms "epistemic confusion", where the statement "you cannot know" throws the listeners into confusion, thereby ensuring that they cannot be confident of their own reasoning or proofs.
This has some merit in a similar way to the examination of surprise I will discuss later but it doesn’t really seem to tie up the loose ends.
Here is an example of the problem working using the preconditions given.
Imagine this: Teacher watches you carefully to see if you show any sign of preparing for the test and if you do then he doesn’t put the test on that day.
Why doesn’t the kid "pretend to be preparing in order to fool the teacher?" well A - the teacher is a bit more experienced at these things - that's why they are the teacher and B- it isn’t worth any rational students time to worry so much about the "surprise" and so little about the test.
Which leaves just one way the strategy doesn’t work - if the students are in a constant state of expectation.
There is no requirement here for the students to be in any particular mental state or use any particular logic - as long as it doesn’t result in them being in a constant state of expectation.
And even better you can imagine a human being able to do it - while guaranteeing "confusion" is rather more demanding a task.
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But as well as this sort of argument there is always a more technical counter to the alternative hypothesis. I.e. why exclusionary logic doesn’t work.
I see the problem lying in the exclusionary principle which is based on contradictions and the use of only part of the available information.
1) You can only say P (=Friday) = zero if you define P (=mon-thurs) as 1 - this is a fundamental part of the problem. The exclusion of Friday is valid only in as far as the same logic does not also exclude other days.
2) On Thursday - you can't BOTH say P (=Friday) is 0 and also "if it is Friday the test is on Friday" because you have declared it CAN'T be Friday therefore there is no meaningful "if". Maths is a bit like 1*(test is on mon-thurs) + 0*(if it is Friday I know it is on Friday). But we can substitute ANYTHING into the zero probability set including things that do or don’t breach the rules of the game particularly since the current inhabitant of that set (which encourages us to define it as 0) clearly does breach the rules of the game anyway as per (1).
All the student has to do is to rationally reject the use of exclusionary logic based on the principle that it provides no useful information (i.e. it rejects all days).
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So that is why it contradicts itself so what happens as we apply it?
It is Friday - We can say the last day possible day is Friday - P=1.00 impossible (unless we get really confused)
It is Thursday P (=Friday) less than P (=Thursday) (otherwise your first step cannot be to exclude Friday) P (=Friday) is thus something less than .5. It is hard to define P (=Thursday)/P (=Friday) because your logic implies both are close to zero relative to any alternative.
This leaves two possibilities -
1) You can follow a policy of P (=tomorrow)/P (=today) = 0 but that requires each day to be infinitely more likely than the next AND it forces you to expect a surprise every day no matter how many millions of days there are.
Or you can say P (=tomorrow)/P (=today) is either indeterminate or some rational number in which case the exclusionary principle falls apart. You cannot reject Friday in favour of mon-thursday because you can’t prove mon-thursday is infinitly more likely or even finitely more likely. I suggest exclusion is only possible in a relitivistic sense not in an absolute one. (Relevant particularly if we see surprise relitivisticaly)
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| NZ elections and tax |
| 08.27.05 (9:29 pm) [edit] |
The Lolly scramble of election time has well and truly began.
National and Labour are throwing money around of course national is greater "offender" at the moment but I expect labour with a few billion spare (comparitively) will throw out a couple more lollies.
So what should we do? well frankly from a selfish point of view - vote for the party that offers you the most for the least money. BUT keep in mind that YOU are the one paying for all of this not some imaginary third party.
the most appropriate way to think of this (unless you plan on leaving the country) is to say that every dollar of debt the country accumulates is a debt held by you in direct proportion to the rate at which you would pay tax.
So lets use the following assumptions
1) lets for the moment assume all tax is PAYE (it isnt but other taxes distribute the tax burden in a harder to explain way)
2) lets say the total tax take from PAYE is about $20 billion lets say that permits the government to break even.
3) the total cost of the national tax policy is 2.5 billion per year (give or take).
4) On this assumptiosn tax cust are average 12.5%
HOWEVER
If this is paid by debt then this means each person accumulates their share of 2.5 billion in debt. IE if EVERYONE gets a 12.5% tax cut a person paying 8,000 in tax saves $1,000 BUT they accumulate $1,000 in debt since this is their share of the tax cut that they must repay later on (because a country cannot borrow forever).
If they however get a $2,000 tax cut and someone on a higher income gets a lower tax cut (as a percent) then it represents income redistribution and the person on the higher tax cut gets to pay more.
Well we know hte W4F policy of labour redistributes towars families on low to middle incomes. So does the national tax cut redistribute?
The national tax cuts look like they have a redistibutive component this comes in two parts the first is the tax cut itself - this redistributes in favour of poorer people. and the bigger effect for most peopel is the movement of the tax brackets which redistributes in favour of those people changing brackets PARTICULARLY those around 50,000 per annum.
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| USA and freedom |
| 08.27.05 (9:03 pm) [edit] |
Should the USA impose freedom on other countries?
Putting aside whether such strategies work or not (I note usually they don’t work very well) where they do work should the USA engage in those strategies?
First - I note it is an impoverished definition of freedom to consider freedom to be freedom from the government and to imply that governments or even foreign governments can only reduce freedom. It should theoretically be possible to increace freedom.
Second it is a luxury of people who do not see the big picture to be focused on short term effects and individual events. In the bigger scheme of things as long as the rest of the world has a significantly different view towards tolerance your ability to remain tolerant is in doubt.
This means that you cannot sit next to NAZI Germany and assume that it is someone else’s problem. And it goes much further than that. US citizens should be aware that it is not far in the future when their country will probably fall under the influence of foreign powers. There is two ways this could happen. The first is that a country like china becomes physically stronger than them and starts to impose its will on their foreign policy and encouraging its preferred political system within their country and so forth. Not something many people think about and yet it will occur in maybe a bit less than 50 years. OR via some sort of global democracy where countries with higher populations (such as china) gain influence via that democracy and again can then impose their morals upon US internal affairs (maybe discouraging immoral behaviour of some sort)
This creates a separation between citizens and the government in as far as many citizens just don’t consider long term consequences that they will never live to see, while many leaders will still be concerned about their legacy.
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| Dangerrrr — your pet cat could alter your personality |
| 08.27.05 (8:49 pm) [edit] |
Dangerrrr — your pet cat could alter your personality
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0" title="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0" target="_blank"http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...,,2-1507-824726,00.html
THEY may look like lovable pets but Ireland’s domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people’s personalities.
The startling figures emerge from studies into toxoplasma gondii, a parasite carried by almost all the country’s feline population.
They show that half of humans carry the parasite in their brains and that infected people may undergo slow but crucial changes in their behaviour. Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the “sex kitten” effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun-loving and possibly more promiscuous.
Very interesting eh?
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| Withdrawl |
| 08.27.05 (8:46 pm) [edit] |
Alan Bock makes the case for immediate withdrawal from Iraq
http://antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=7099" title="http://antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=7099" target="_blank"http://antiwar.com/bock/?arti...
making an important point
The argument that now that we’ve intervened we have an obligation to stick around until we’ve made things better has a certain superficial attraction. However, it is almost as certain as that the sun will rise tomorrow that there will always be something imperfect in Iraq – and a strong case can be made that things won’t really start to get better until the U.S. occupation is ended. So it is important for us to attack this line of thinking head-on and make the case persistently that removing U.S. troops from Iraq as soon as possible is the best course available and is not tantamount to surrender and retreat.
People in the US seem so eager to declare themselves defeated - setting impossible goals and then inevitably failing to reach that goal. But it is a pretty odd world where victory can be defined as having another army come in crush your army in a few days and wipe out your organization and then leave.
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| Theism and materialism |
| 08.27.05 (8:44 pm) [edit] |
Maverick Philosopher examines a debate between materialism and theism.
Theism is arguably superior to materialism because it explains more with less. Its explanation is relatively simple whereas that of materialism must postulate innumerable separate objects that just happen to have the same powers as each other.
The problem with this logic is a common one in the theism materialism debate. Most examples of theism are VERY poor predictors of events. This means they provide very little information about why a particular event happened and we are using a very weak definition of the word "explanation" that implies considerable lack of knowledge.
Materialism on the other hand has very complex rules but is extremely powerful predictor of events. This means the sort of "explanation" it provides is vastly more powerful than most examples of theism.
This means you cannot use Occam's razor to argue that theism explains more with less any more than you can argue "stuff happens" is the ultimate theory that should replace any other because it is simple and explains everything.
In the quotes in the post God is invoked as the reason why sub atomic particles behave in a normal way and this is deemed to be a good argument since it is simple. However actually this theory just adds (at least) one unit of complexity (god) without adding any testable explanitory power (unless someone cares to explain the test and then make it). Worse yet one would then have to explain why god chose to make it work that way (as opposed to any other - and "that is the only way" is not a valid explination unless you can prove that).
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| women vs men in IQ |
| 08.27.05 (8:42 pm) [edit] |
Jim treacher notes men are smarter than women (curious since women seem to do better in school then again I guess most of them are less distracted by the good looking women)
"A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests...
As intelligence scores among the study group rose, the academics say they found a widening gap between the sexes.
There were twice as many men with IQ scores of 125, for example, a level said to correspond with people getting first-class degrees.
At scores of 155, associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman."
I have to agree with Jim, treacher here - MENSA meetings do tend to be full of men.
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| The Carter-Rees Argument |
| 08.26.05 (6:23 pm) [edit] |
This argument - similar to the Pascal's wager argument - is another philosophical proposal based on the assumption that we are in a situation of very low information and must try to develop ways of knowing that side step the need to actually observe anything.
The argument works as follows - we (you and I) are humans - we could theoretically have been born at any time in the history of humanity but we were born during this last century 1900-2000. This seems a little odd since
A) It is a fairly special time in human history regarding our discovery of all sorts of laws of physics
And also that our population is rapidly expanding.
The latter doesn’t sound like much of a problem until you realise that the number of humans alive now is not al that far from the total number that have ever lived.
IF the world was to end in 100 years one could say statistically any human is likely to be born into the 1900-2100 time frame - and thus our existence here is not at all surprising.
A depressing theory to be sure, but does it have any value? Before you reject it consider it in the context of my next post on the anthropological principle.
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| The anthropic principle |
| 08.26.05 (6:21 pm) [edit] |
The anthropic principle works as follows.
The earth and its potential to support life rely upon a huge number of variables such as the existence of a reasonable sized star in the vicinity and the size of its orbit etc.
They are so unlikely that there is a good argument they should never occur in a single universe and worse yet it is amazing the universe obeys rules that permit life in itself.
the Anthropic Principle solves this problem by arguing that we should expect to be surprised by this because no matter how rare the rules are that allow humans to exist every human that ever exists will be faces with the same odd set of surprising rules. I.e. that
"What we observe about in the universe is restricted by the requirement of our existence as observers"
One could also try to tack the slightly religious interpretation of quantum mechanics onto this and say that the universe exists in order to create an observer that will make that universe's wave function collapse (i.e. to make it real).
The solutions that do not deal with the Anthropic Principle in an at least semi mystical way must use other unobserved and potentially unobservable theories such as multiple universes, rather similar to all the other arguments in this "pure logic" bases set I have covered in recent posts.
So does the observer (or even a "final observer") collapse the wave function? Or is pure luck? Or infinite universes? Most importantly on what do you base your oppinion?
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| The Kalam cosmological argument |
| 08.26.05 (6:19 pm) [edit] |
The Kalam cosmological argument argues that big bang theory of the universe means that the universe had a beginning, and it therefore requires a cause.
i.e.
1. Everything that had a beginning had a cause
2. The universe had a beginning
3. Therefore the universe had a cause
This is very weak since the big bang is the event least likely to require a cause according to normal physics - however modern physics indicates it may, nevertheless, have actually had a cause - totally negating the reference to the big bang in the argument. The alternate theory must offer something that is less likely to require a cause and ascribing that role to a god is nonsense.
Why?
Well
1) Time has no meaning before matter existed therefore there was not only no matter to be god over - there was also no "time" to do that god activity in.
2) implying god existed before the big bang is to imply god is part of time and there is any meaning to saying he existed "before" something - that is a fundamental limit on his power - one you can make but may well have interesting implications since if god is governed by time he should also be governed by space (space time duality) and therefore things like entropy and so forth.
The philosophical way around that is to say he exists outside of time and thus exists during every event (in sense) but not "before" or "after" time since that has no meaning.
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| The problem of evil |
| 08.26.05 (6:18 pm) [edit] |
The argument goes
• If God can prevent evil, but doesn't, then He isn't all-loving.
• If God intends to prevent evil, but cannot, then He isn't omnipotent.
• If God both intends to prevent evil and is capable of doing so, then how can evil exist?
This is pretty bullet proof given a few unstated assumptions
Some religious groups then may argue
"This argument ignores the fact that God will get rid of evil in the future.
There is a Hell for the bad and a Heaven for the good."
This however is a very weak argument. The first flaw involves how they have ignored the timeless nature of god and worse yet the time related nature of humans.
For a "timeless god" anything that happens that is evil goes on his balance sheet as an evil event that he could have prevented it doesn’t matter if he fixes it later because from his point of view present and future are equivalent.
From a human point of view it is even worse sincere may live purely in the evil time one might also question if that is fair.
The real counters to this argument are more unsettling to many religious people.
1) We don’t understand what gods will is - i.e. he actually may wish to cause suffering. He however remains "all-loving" in a sense because despite the fact he doesn’t do what is good for us all the time he may
A) Give us heaven in the end - which may dwarf everything else he does
B) Love you despite hurting you (cold comfort of course)
C) Define his own actions as good (as the final arbiter)
It raises the question of whether we can ever do evil - but you could still never be able to disobey but still be punished for your intentions - i.e. a murder might kill another murderer but since his intent was murder not some sort of civic duty or self preservation he can still go to jail.
2) Maybe he is not omnipotent - this fits well with reality in as far as we don’t see much in the way of godly exceptions to rules - either he REALLY likes rules or he doesn’t have spare energy to go around fixing everything. He could still however be pretty powerful. It could also reflect a balance of powers between two "gods". In other words a relative but not absolute limitation.
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| Fermi paradox |
| 08.26.05 (6:16 pm) [edit] |
Why have we not yet received communication from outer space?
There are two main theories - one is the rare earth theory - one that in its more extreme forms uses the anthropological principle combined potentially with the concept of multiple universes.
The second theory is "phase transition" which argues there has not been enough time for aliens to reach us. The problem with this theory is that if there is anyone else in the galaxy it is likely they are only about 50 million light years from us. BUT it is hard to argue that if lets say mammals not dinosaurs had taken off 265 million years ago we could not - all things going right - have had 65 million years of mammal evolution and be 200 million years ahead of where we are now.
Furthermore humans will be visible to all other aliens in the galaxy of similar technology if not now then in a few hundred years and we will be able to see them also. It won’t be long after that that we can detect planets that have life in the solar system.
This means that if there are aliens that are more advanced than us they are already on their way sending either a message or a ship. But even this underestimates the aliens.
If you were an alien race exploring space you would probably not wait for the light signal - you would probably send a space ship to every plausible planet and investigate it for resources, colonization, communication or other purposes. This would mean there would be a wave heading out from any race more than 1000 odd years ahead of current humans going not too far from the speed of light investigating planets sending back signals etc. there would be little point hiding from a more primitive species so you would probably notice these ships besides the concern would be meeting a more advanced and dangerous species - one where you would want warning and a "buffer zone" where the speed of light limitation would give you time to devise a strategy.
The fact we have not noticed anything like this indicates there is nothing we will be able to see in space that is more advanced than us (there could be a lag of lets say 1000 years plus some function of the distance of course but in the big scheme of things this is not much).
The Phase transition theory is supported by the Carter-Rees arguments in that In temporal terms, it is the interval 9.3* 10^9 years ago to 1000 x 10^9 in the future that is a valid time in which life can evolve - this means we are quite near the beginning of this period and could have out run the other species in fact the Carter-Rees argument implies we have indeed done that. or more weakly the principle of mediocraty implies we should not assume we are specially lucky.
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| philosophy |
| 08.26.05 (6:14 pm) [edit] |
A new take on a quote from Weinberg
With or without philosophy, good people can do good things and bad people can do bad things, but for good people to do bad things - that takes philosophy.
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| Inflation |
| 08.17.05 (9:30 am) [edit] |
Waves of gravity are expelled from matter - but it is better to see this as waves of space. An object creates the universe in such a way as to make there more ways to fall towards it than away from it - this means there is a sort of diffusion towards things.
Inflation describes how the universe expands faster than it should logically do - disobeying the speed of light apparently.
Now what if it is not space that is expanding but matter that is shrinking? Let’s say that in order to create gravity each fundamental particle must send off a little bit of itself something it has been doing since the beginning of the universe. most fundamental properties of this particle will change as it does this - for example it will become less massive have less energy etc and any two individual particles that are close will tend to very slowly adjust to the new equilibrium (if they were in an equilibrium to start off). But at the same time distances between objects that are very far will seem to accelerate into the distance.
Red shift can thus be created not by us getting further away but more fundamentally by us getting smaller relative to the waves.
The energy from this action can therefore be released into space giving a sort of latent energy of space a quantity that has been suggested by many physicists.
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| Maths with infinity |
| 08.13.05 (12:29 pm) [edit] |
When you take a maths class you will be taught by the teacher that infinity divided by infinity is not 1, they may say there is no answer or that that it is indeterminate.
Actually that is just lazy logic. Infinity is not a "number" per se, it is a class of numbers as a result a specific example divided by another specific example does have an answer we just don’t know what it is until you explain more detail.
It is basically the same as me asking you what is the answer to "a number I just thought of divided by another number I just thought of" (by the way the answer was 2).
Thus the terminology that we use "infinity" obscures information. Thus infinity times 2 is infinity but it is not THE SAME infinity. In maths it may be next to impossible to identify these infinities and thus we may say the answer is indeterminate but this is not a function of infinity it is a function of us not knowing the question.
Here is a link that explains it a bit
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/problems/parkinson10 .26.html" title="http://mathforum.org/dr.math/problems/parkinson10 .26.html" target="_blank"http://mathforum.org/dr.math/...
I understand at times cancelling of infinity is used very carefully to solve advanced physics problems.
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| Philosophy errors |
| 08.12.05 (6:39 pm) [edit] |
Richard from Philosophy Et cetera considers himself and a hypothetical Robot
Our behaviours both have physical causes, but they are different physical causes. Maybe mine are of the right type to give rise to consciousness, whereas Bichard's [the robot] aren't.
It is valid for you to exclude the robot because it can’t do something you can do (at the risk of being arbitrary - so one would hope the thing was pretty significant, and I note, usually very poor definitions are used) but that implies the robot does something different to you.
A problem however arises where one indicates that a robot might do all the same things as you exactly - and hten be denied conciousness regardless of the process. the problem is that we have all the evidence that it is conscious as we have for the individual which it is similar to except that it is a machine. For a logical external actor to deny it the status of consciousness they would have to also deny the human that status. Unless they use one of a number of flawed pieces of logic
the first is the "understanding" argument that I will detail as follows.
The "understanding" argument is an implied argument one that one often finds in the justice system and in religion.
There is a complex system and you declare that if you can understand it is let say "not conscious" and if you can understand it is "conscious". In this example a simple computer program "if see LION then take action RUN" is likely to be viewed as not concious while a mysterious object doing exactly the same thing may well be.
Similarly in religion this is used to define a "god of the gaps" - if you can’t understand it, then it is god if you can, it is nature
In the legal system it takes another form again where peoplewonder if htey can understand a criminal - for example if he had a bad up bringing or if there was some reason why he might have been so angry that he comitted a crime. Under htis argument - if you can understand it, then it is OK ... if you can't, it is "evil"
The problem is that understanding is in internal to you and basically a function of how smart and well educated you are - so how can it be valid for judging individuals and facts (or robots for that matter).
There are some other twists of logic people may use here
one is to define consciousness arbitrarily as "what I have" or "what I and every natural born human has" in which case you can deny a conscious robot that can exceed you on every test as a result of him just not being identical (in every aspect) to you. However this is "conclusion by definition" - your definition of convenience defines what your conclusion will be.
Furthermore when Richard says
Our behaviours both have physical causes, but they are different physical causes. Maybe mine are of the right type to give rise to consciousness, whereas Richard’s aren't.
he usues another flawed argument - common amongst philosophers
the tool of defining a hypothetical that is potentially impossible and then marvelling at the fact that it is possible as a result of your hypothetical. tautology strikes again.
for example I might say imagine if two things are pulled towards the earth - but one thing is pulled towards the earth by a different but absolutely identical force to gravity on the same trajectory but you look and find that that one is being effected by gravity while the other is being effected by another force - therefore you cannot say that if something obeys gravity it is being effected by gravity.
Now I guess you can say "yeah that’s true" but few people are using that hypothetical to dispute gravity.
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| Doctors |
| 08.08.05 (8:21 pm) [edit] |
I went to the doctor recently.
We have subsidized doctor’s visits for pregnancy - the government pays the doctors a fixed subsidy and the doctors are not allowed to charge for the visit.
I found it very interesting to see the doctor’s attitude towards providing the service.
He mumbled something about how the government was a nanny state and that he only got paid half of his usual very high fees when consulting to pregnant patients - he then proceeded to mention a few of the basic pieces of information that one needs when one is pregnant - rather less detail than I got from my sister and really requiring no more expertise than that of your local chemist store assistant. He made no effort to provide any customer service and clearly intentionally did not have additional information in his surgery.
You can be annoyed at the government but you should not let it effect the quality of medical care you provide. Maybe I am supposed to be annoyed at the state for not paying him enough to make him happy but I can’t get far past the fact that he is a doctor who intentionally provided a poor service I am just thinking. Negligence...
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| Dismissing the opposition |
| 08.08.05 (12:36 am) [edit] |
(In a recent debate on the treaty of Waitangi Muerk and I noted that I/S at NoRightTurn follows a policy of dismissing and demonizing his political opponents rather than trying to understand them as I noted
"The problem is it is clear that you are so dismissive of other opinions that if you were wrong there would be no way you could tell."
There is no need for him to agree just to understand.
Muerk provided a very interesting article on a similar topic.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CABCA .htm" title="http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CABCA .htm" target="_blank"http://www.spiked-online.com/...
How the supporters of the political elites (and the political elites in private spend so much time be-littling sectors of society that cannot be used to support causes.
"In the Sixties, critics of populism pointed the finger at 'hard hats' and 'materialist' working people. Today in the USA, such attitudes are expressed through terms like 'Nascar Dads', 'Valley Girls, 'Joe six-pack' or 'rednecks'... The pathological roots of backward attitudes is to be found in the poor quality of parenting experienced by Lakoff's stereotype conservative.
In the UK, Nascar dads have a different name. They are dismissed as 'chavs', 'white van men', 'Worcester Women' or 'tabloid readers'. Since these are people who cannot be mobilised for progressive causes, the best course of action is to try to isolate them and minimise their influence upon society.
It is not just the left that works in this manner of course but at times one side will demonize another and at other times the opposite will be predominant. It would appear that it is the left that is busy doing most of the demonizing and the least amount of understanding."
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| Arguing |
| 08.08.05 (12:33 am) [edit] |
Volokh makes the good point that I made a few days ago regarding NoRightTurn's postings
I've seen lots of people, left, right, or elsewhere, make the same mistake: Just because they think their adversaries are wrong in one way (e.g., propose an unsound view of the Constitution), they feel free to just throw a barrage of epithets at them -- their arguments are criminal, frivolous, pro-terrorist, dishonest, corrupt, Nazi, or what have you. And then, when a third party defends the targets against the unfair criticisms, the critics seem upset. How can you defend these bad people? They're clearly wrong!
Well, that our adversaries are wrong doesn't justify our making wrong (and unfair) arguments ourselves.
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| Arguing with people FAIRLY |
| 08.08.05 (12:10 am) [edit] |
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| Is porn and video violence good for children? |
| 08.08.05 (12:05 am) [edit] |
Happily I am still getting lots of page views - soo..
Is porn and video violence good for children?
American teenagers are doing better than they've done in decades by trying to figure out why that might be. Teen pregnancy is down, along with teen crime, drug use, and many other social ills.
After that column came out, it occurred to me that I had the answer: Porn and videogames. That's what's making American teens healthier.
It should have been obvious.
After all, one of the great changes in teenagers' social environments over the past decade or so has been far greater exposure to explicit pornography, via the Internet, and violence, via videogames.
More virtual sex and violence would seem to go along with less real sex and violence.
While he says this in part in jest I think he may well have a point, it would seem the two things may well be related. They made such easy targets in their early years with people following the usual logic that anything they dislike or think is immoral must have bad consequences and side effects. But is that true? It would seem at worst there is a negligible connection.
I have a strong suspicion that while some "high moral" people may be dissuaded from engaging in these activities or admitting to these activities by society the net effect of them is probably more as suggested by this article.
The world is a complex place.
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| Stats for the tblog |
| 01.01.05 (12:54 am) [edit] |
This blog had 10814 views
Not bad. for only a few months.
and just over 350 comment.
of course some ofthose were my replies to others comments.
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| 12.15.04 (10:14 am) [edit] |
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