AMA (YYW)

Author: coal

Posts

Total: 664
coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
Ask me anything.  No doxxing.  

It's been a while since I've done one of these.
Uther-Penguin
Uther-Penguin's avatar
Debates: 1
Posts: 59
0
0
5
Uther-Penguin's avatar
Uther-Penguin
0
0
5
You aint YYW, I dont see a palm tree avatar.
KingLaddy01
KingLaddy01's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 411
0
1
2
KingLaddy01's avatar
KingLaddy01
0
1
2
-->
@Uther-Penguin
You ain't UtherPenguin. Haven't seen Ibn Taymiyyah or that odd looking moose.
KingLaddy01
KingLaddy01's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 411
0
1
2
KingLaddy01's avatar
KingLaddy01
0
1
2
Why does your avatar and name have to be so dark and sinister?

Thoughts on DART?

Can you concede that we conservatives have won America over in the long run? (We will win more elections within 40 years.)

What crimes do you feel should result in stricter ramifications?

Do you not see the irony in the definition of "illiberal"?

Thoughts on the deity of a man in my avatar? 
RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
-->
@KingLaddy01
You aren't Cody_Franklin because you're not. ;)
RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
-->
@coal
Do you feel deep down that you're a nasty, sadistic person?
RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
I am actually curious about the answer you give to this.
coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@Uther-Penguin
Nope, this is YYW.
Vader
Vader's avatar
Debates: 30
Posts: 14,430
5
8
11
Vader's avatar
Vader
5
8
11
Are you actually YYW and how can you prove?
coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@KingLaddy01
>Why does your avatar and name have to be so dark and sinister?

I would disagree that my avatar or name on here are either dark or sinister. 

>Thoughts on DART?

Without question better than what DDO is now, but that's a bar so low it might even be impossible to trip over. 

I think that the userbase here is too young to justify my sticking around long, though. 

>Can you concede that we conservatives have won America over in the long run? (We will win more elections within 40 years.)

Conservatives have not won America.  Trump has less than 6 months before he is impeached, and once that happens the neocons will be back in power. 

>What crimes do you feel should result in stricter ramifications?

Very few.  America has the opposite problem.  Our criminal justice system is harsh, and more arbitrary than a lot of people realize.  Lessening the degree to which there are "strict" ramifications for most crimes (especially drug crimes) would be the way to go. 

As well, I think we as a society have to have a serious conversation about the realities of the role police play in the lives of youths, from the suburbs to the cities.  

>Do you not see the irony in the definition of "illiberal"?

No.

>Thoughts on the deity of a man in my avatar? 

If Ben Shapiro was gay, I'd hook up with him. 

coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@RationalMadman
>Do you feel deep down that you're a nasty, sadistic person?

I am probably one of the most merciful and forgiving people you'll encounter. 

coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@Vader
>Are you actually YYW and how can you prove?

Sort of silly to think that I'd have to prove that I am who I say I am, but that said given the recent fake Airmax profile that's understandable to ask.

In light of that, though, the tedium of posting "proof" sufficient on this website would be greater than the utility of you all having the assurance that I am not an imposter. 

So, you've got three options:

1. Get a hangout going, like in the evening and we talk.
2. Email me.
3. Facebook.

lol

Vader
Vader's avatar
Debates: 30
Posts: 14,430
5
8
11
Vader's avatar
Vader
5
8
11
-->
@coal
You can quote things by clicking the quotes like this

I believe you. I don't google hangout that much so I will give you the Benefit of Doubt as I never really talked to you during DDO
KingLaddy01
KingLaddy01's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 411
0
1
2
KingLaddy01's avatar
KingLaddy01
0
1
2
Lessening the degree to which there are "strict" ramifications for most crimes (especially drug crimes) would be the way to go. 
I can somewhat connect with you on this. I concur that the war on drugs is immoral and retarded. I do however, believe that the death penalty should be legal across the board, and should be appertained to underage rapists. Those people deserve a special place in hell.

RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
And how will that stop them wanting to rape or rehabilitate them to contribute to society and others? How will that encourage them to confess and/or seek therapy and tell the therapist the one of a select few things that a therapist must always snitch on people for?

What escape to they have, what salvation or way to stop being what they are? People who seek retribution are not inherently evil, people who ignore rehabilitation are either scum or are stupid, depending on the reasoning.
KingLaddy01
KingLaddy01's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 411
0
1
2
KingLaddy01's avatar
KingLaddy01
0
1
2
*child rapists 


RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
And how will that stop them wanting to rape or rehabilitate them to contribute to society and others? How will that encourage them to confess and/or seek therapy and tell the therapist the one of a select few things that a therapist must always snitch on people for?

What escape to they have, what salvation or way to stop being what they are? People who seek retribution are not inherently evil, people who ignore rehabilitation are either scum or are stupid, depending on the reasoning


KingLaddy01
KingLaddy01's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 411
0
1
2
KingLaddy01's avatar
KingLaddy01
0
1
2
It is more chiefly an issue of punishing a horrible sort of people than rehabilitation and prevention. You can't live in a large society where rape and murder drop to zero. 

I think the possibility of being brought to justice in the form of death will certainly not make potential child rapists want the law to pursue them, lol. It may not decrease by a considerable margin, but at least we are doing our finest in wiping these shit stains off of America. Fuck them if they make that choice. They were in total control and have guided themselves into their own downward spiral. I say let them have it.
KingLaddy01
KingLaddy01's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 411
0
1
2
KingLaddy01's avatar
KingLaddy01
0
1
2
People are often impulsive and do not get help, but at least your Uncle Tony might not do more than get it on for your 9 year old sister, as horrid as that is. If he puts his dick in her, then fuck him. He has no value as a human being.

It is the same reason I believe that we should discrimimate against pedophiles to an extent. There are more than a healthy amount of them and I cannot condone it.


secularmerlin
secularmerlin's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 7,093
3
3
3
secularmerlin's avatar
secularmerlin
3
3
3
-->
@coal
I always start with what do you believe and why.
RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
-->
@secularmerlin
You never asked me that on mine.
secularmerlin
secularmerlin's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 7,093
3
3
3
secularmerlin's avatar
secularmerlin
3
3
3
-->
@RationalMadman
By all means what do you believe and why?
RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
-->
@secularmerlin
That would both be hijacking his thread and doing my own a disservice if I answered it here.
secularmerlin
secularmerlin's avatar
Debates: 0
Posts: 7,093
3
3
3
secularmerlin's avatar
secularmerlin
3
3
3
-->
@RationalMadman
Very well you may get in touch with me if you change your mind. I am only a pm away.
coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@KingLaddy01
>I can somewhat connect with you on this. I concur that the war on drugs is immoral and retarded. I do however, believe that the death penalty should be legal across the board, and should be appertained to underage rapists. Those people deserve a special place in hell.

So as you may recall from my DDO days, I believe the death penalty should be abolished for all cases.  The salient question isn't "what does a person who has engaged in [ (x) type of criminal behavior ] deserve?"  Rather, the question is "what is appropriate for government to do in defense of the society?"  If we begin from the proposition that all men are created equally, and that groups of men can't have more rights than individuals... then what right does a government (i.e., group of men) have to take life, if no man individually ever had that right? 

The obvious answer is none, so the government shouldn't be killing people for crimes. 

It turns out as well that the death penalty doesn't reduce crime, may actually make crime rates worse, undermines confidence in the judicial system among groups of people most likely to commit crimes, and is applied in profoundly racially disproportionate ways.  Further, it also turns out that probably about 1/5 of all executions (conservative estimate) in the United States alone have been of innocent people for myriad reasons (faulty evidence, mistaken memories, outright lies, and the list goes on).  

Procedural failings alone should be independently sufficient for people to reach the conclusion that "killing people for crimes isn't something the government really ought to be doing".

But, the story gets even darker when you start to apply the death penalty to situations like drug trafficking (Trump's stupid idea) or rape.  We have to begin from the obvious position that not all crimes are equally bad; thus, some crimes are worse than others.  Ok.  So, now given that some crimes are worse than others, how do we rank order them from worst to least worst? 

Traffic and most drug violations probably fall into the category of "least worst".  The intentional killing of another person with malicious intent (or for those lawyers here, malice aforethoght) is probably the worst there is.  Now, we've got to make the additional decision of whether rape is as bad as murder, or less bad.  It's obviously less bad than murder.  A raped victim still is alive, despite whatever post-occurrence trauma they may experience.  But, a person who has been successfully murdered is, as the term implies, quite dead.  So, murder is worse than rape.

Ok.  Having decided that murder is worse than rape, now we've got to decide "given that murder is worse than rape, can we as a society treat those crimes the same?" 

Maybe.  Maybe someone who rapes someone else deserves to be executed.  Fair enough, but that's not the salient inquiry.  What a person "deserves" is not the same thing as "what society CAN DO TO THEM" in response to some particular crime or set of crimes.   Lets explore this further.  Suppose we have the same penalty for rape and murder.   Then what?  What's the incentive NOT to murder the person you raped? 

Maybe you're just the sort of fiend who would only rape someone but murder really isn't up your sleeve of particular evil you're inclined to visit on the world of your own independent volition.  But, now the state says that you're going to be executed for rape just as if you would if you're caught for murder.  What then?  Well, you might be so inclined to murder your victim to prevent that person from ever testifying against you... after all, you're in the same situation whether you murder them or not in terms of legal liability. 

This result we obviously wish to avoid, which is why we don't execute rapists... even if we're buying into the incredibly bad idea that the government should be in the business of killing people as punishment for crimes... which we obviously shouldn't be. 

So, that's what I think about that. 



coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@RationalMadman
>And how will that stop them wanting to rape or rehabilitate them to contribute to society and others? How will that encourage them to confess and/or seek therapy and tell the therapist the one of a select few things that a therapist must always snitch on people for? What escape to they have, what salvation or way to stop being what they are? People who seek retribution are not inherently evil, people who ignore rehabilitation are either scum or are stupid, depending on the reasoning

First of all, the fact that someone does one crime once doesn't mean that they're inclined to do it again. 

This is the idiotic assumption that Bentham's supposed utilitarian theory of justice based on "rehabilitation" presumes.  The idea of rehabilitation is that someone who engages in some sort of criminal activity has obviously dangerous propensities that society ought to redress.  How do you know of their dangerous propensity? Their prior criminal act, of course.  So, in order to deal with that we've to to do something.  (Note: the rehabilitation people also assume the necessity of prison, which is equally stupid, but that's another point for another day.)  The only thing that the rehabilitation types seem to have figured out is prison plus something else (usually education or what have you, all garbage) is the way to go.  Therefore, we only lock people up to the point that they're no longer a threat.

There is "some" logic to this, in the sense that MOST of the people who commit crimes are younger males (16 to 35 or so), and by locking them up until they're 40 or so, maybe longer, hopefully by then they've sorted themselves out enough that they're no longer inclined to go out and rob a bodega again.  We know, for example, that people tend to become more stable and less impulsive as they get older.  We've known that since Freud (scientifically at least, really we've known it since we were in caves).  

But, that's just about where the logic ends. 

It turns out that there are loads of factors that affect criminal behavior, many of them dependent on the individual, but many NOT dependent on the individual as well.  There's virtually zero credible scientific literature establishing anything even approximating a "criminal predisposition" beyond the incredibly weak and undeveloped research on things like the warrior gene.  There's even less research on personality; though some of the stuff out there is good, most of it is complete garbage (and the more political psychology gets, the more garbage its research tends to become).  

So like when Bentham was talking about structuring the criminal justice system in such a way as to address criminals' "nature" he didn't have a damn bit of evidence behind what he was saying beyond his own highly speculative pontification (if you would even consider that "evidence").  Normative nonsense like that isn't really a good way to structure societies or ascertain how society ought to respond to criminal behavior, when you can't even establish the truth of that school of thought's most basic assumption (i.e., that there is such a thing as a criminal predisposition) in the first place. 

Given all of that, suggesting "therapy" to someone seems like a really stupid idea too. 

That's not to denigrate therapy.  Even criminals may benefit from therapy...  Many people have lots of problems, criminals probably do too, and it very well may be that a lot of those environmental or at least non-inherent factors (society, poverty, context, etc.) cause or contribute to a person's decision to do something illegal, therapy might help them contend with those factors in a more socially productive way.  

The bigger thing is that there is exactly zero evidence that therapy has any impact a person's "criminal predisposition" (which, again, there's also no evidence that there is a such thing as a criminal predisposition, but if we buy into the normative idea that there is, then we can meaningfully assess the fledgling research between "therapy" and "committing further crimes").  All the evidence out there shows no relationship between the two things; though most of the research out there can't even agree what those two things are (damn hard to scientifically define normative concepts, after all). 

So, yeah... I'm skeptical of basically everything you said there, though less because YOU said it than because those assumptions are the wholly ill founded a priori assumptions that people in the West have about criminology (which is pretty much a pseudoscience in its entirety) in general. 




RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
-->
@coal
It's hilarious how you don't realise that every single scientific research finding you bring forth in your almighty rage utterly supports the side of rehabilitation, including debunking the importance of the warrior gene and all of it.

You don't realise which side you're on and that's what I already knew, but feel free to talk away against the Progressive movement you used to be on and support with passion.
coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@secularmerlin
>I always start with what do you believe and why.

It's tempting to use ideological descriptors as a shorthand, but given the virtual certainty of people misapprehending what I mean when I say things like "libertarian" or "socialist" or "hawk", it's just easier in the long run to explain specific positions on individual issues rather than try to explain the grander notions of why I believe what I believe.

Domestic issues: 

Individuals are the fundamental social unit without regard to belonging or not belonging to any characteristic-based group.  Regard for the individual and his/her rights is what any society trying to figure out how it ought to work ought to begin.  Generally, (as Rawls wrote), all people should have the maximal amount of individual freedom consistent with all others being able to enjoy a similar level of freedom.  When I said "similar level" I did not say "equal level".  Society has no business ensuring equality of outcomes, but merely roughly equal equality of opportunity.  

The application of that theory to specific issues translates into something that tends to resemble what most call "libertarianism" on the social front.  Let all the gays marry, legalize all the drugs, that kind of thing.  On the economic front, it translates loosely into something resembling a mixed market social economy in which there exists a threshold of material security below which no member of a society will fall.  So, everyone gets health care paid for by tax dollars because that maximizes the aggregated social good.  No one is denied health care.  All children everywhere get fed and none go to bed hungry, ever.  People get basic housing.  None of this pathological Reagan trickle down sorcery or welfare queen bullshit. 

(Note: I love the idea of a universal basic income, as a way to replace most "safety net" type programs like food stamps, or what have you.  I think Republicans who want to drug test food stamp recipients are generally short sighted, bad people.) 

Foreign Policy:

It is the case that the international system, regardless of the existence or non-existence of international agreements (e.g., NAFTA) or structures (e.g., NATO, EU, etc.) that may suggest otherwise, is fundamentally an anarchy.  It is also the case that the United States has more relative power of all relevant kinds than the combination of nearly its next five rivals down.  

Given that, we have two choices: engage with the world, or decline to engage with the world.  Obviously we are going to engage with the world, for all the obvious reasons (like relatively affordable consumer goods, increased material wealth and conditions, improved technological developments in the way of medical research, etc.).  But, if we're going to engage the question of "how" remains open.

The "how" we should engage is where things get controversial.  I believe the United States should ensure peace in the world.  I believe that in the absence of the US's affirmative engagement with the world, peace to the degree it has been enjoyed roughly since the end of WWII and certainly since 1991 is less likely.

There are obviously many problems.  Bush 43's invasion of Iraq certainly comes to mind, there.  But, the historical record shows that where the US is weak chaos results.  This is bad for everyone, but it is especially bad for the United States.  Therefore, we've got to do what we can to pevent that. 

coal
coal's avatar
Debates: 6
Posts: 1,950
3
3
9
coal's avatar
coal
3
3
9
-->
@RationalMadman
I have no idea what you're talking about.  It would be a mistake to presume I favor things I have not said I favor.  For example, the fact that rehabilitation is stupid doesn't mean I support retribution.  I do not.  Retribution is at least as stupid, if not more so. 

To give you a taste, I'd abolish every for profit prison in the country.  Every last one.  


RationalMadman
RationalMadman's avatar
Debates: 556
Posts: 19,354
10
11
11
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
10
11
11
-->
@coal
And replace them with?