Total posts: 749
Humans do all the most interesting shit. That's not to say I don't care about what animals and proteins and stars are doing. But my main area of concern is what we are doing. Now, technically, I'm a transhumanist, which in this context means I think humans could stand to be a lot cooler than they are now. In no way does it discount humanity as it currently stands, because it's still the best there is rn. If I met an alien race today, I would place them at an equal or higher point of interest because 1. they do interesting shit, and 2. I know nothing about them, which makes them more interesting.
Created:
Posted in:
On the automatic loss for FF debates that Intelligence suggested, I don't believe that the points assigned for winning would be that simple. I have definitely gotten different point amounts for different debates, but I'm not sure if it's calculated directly by the point distribution or if the number of votes would matter. Like, if I got one vote 100% in my favor vs. 1 vote 75% in my favor vs. 10 votes 100% in my favor, how many points does one get?
Created:
Posted in:
Arguing about definitions in religion...
That would be called philosophy. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Sidewalker
So you believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absense?
Absence of evidence can be evidence of absence under the right circumstances. Let's say I have a random number generator run 20 times, and of those twenty numbers, all were either 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Technically, this doesn't rule out the possibility of the range of the generator being 1-7, or even 1-100, but it is evidence in favor of it only being 1-6.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
When they refer to the "soul," to what do you believe they're referring?
I believe they are referring to nothing. What they believe I'm not entirely sure, but generally some inherent sense of being independent of your body that lives on after biological death.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@ebuc
It's a setting now on all of them. Instructions in the above link.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
How can one prove one's "soul" to you?
You can't. My first post that you quoted literally said "they're pointing at something that you can't prove is there."
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Athias
It's just another word people use instead of "soul" in this case. I definitely see soul and human more often, but it has come up before.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@RationalMadman
@ebuc
I also use firefox but https is now pretty universal.
Thanks to RM for the link.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
YES, You have that sensation. Yet, its obvious we can have any sort of sensation and them be lies, how do you know you actually did that?
I don't know anything. I said that in my first post. But the nature of reality is that you and I both behave the same given that "sensation." We tie our shoes, or we have a sensory experience that corresponds to our idea of tying our shoes. So clearly you have the same beliefs as I do, even if you wrap them in this weird existential doubt.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
Do you, or do you not, report the sensory experience of tying your shoes after the sensory experience of seeing them untied?
Do not obfuscate. Yes or no, when your senses tell you your shoe is untied, do you perform the action that in your mind is associated with tying your shoes?
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Lemming
Murder though I'd call a bit like gravity,Though only in the sense that a person or society would be likely to structure morality a certain way based on certain conditions.
here is a short web serial partially about an alien society whose evolutionary background actually necessitated murder of immature members of their species as a moral good. Definitely worth a read imo, or there's an audio format as well.
I agree that murder is one of the ones that is likely to arise as a taboo in most moral systems, but that doesn't put it anywhere near the same class of rule as gravity. Gravity isn't likely to arise in a given solar system, it is an essential part of how our universe operates.
Skip to 11:35 or here for the relevant part.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
In the end you could not even prove you can tie your own shoelaces.
The point isn't whether or not there are actual shoelaces getting actually tied. The point is that you tie them anyway. Because your beliefs, like everyone else's, are informed by observation.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
Christian religions say God is completely unconceptualizable, he cant be put into boxes not does he have characteristic or sin like humans. Just because God is "person" doesn't mean he's one like a man or human.
Exodus 20:5
for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God
Number 22:22
God's anger was kindled
Matthew 3:17
And a voice from heaven said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!"
Jealousy, anger, pleasure... seem like human characteristics to me.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@zedvictor4
The potential for a life must be present within the sperm and the egg.
The problem I tend to run into is that most pro-lifers tend to believe in souls (usually instilled in the zygote at fertilization). Some will use words like "conscience" or "humanity," but essentially they're pointing at something that you can't prove is there.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@3RU7AL
@Ehyeh
I was trying to avoid using the word empiricism for the sake of keeping my vocabulary consistent, but empiricism is a fairly accurate summation of how I form beliefs.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
But you actually cant if Kant is right and they're simply phenomena
Once again, because phenomena is observable and actionable, I care infinitely more about it than your noumenon. To compare my current perception of reality to the Matrix, you need to offer me a red pill. Show me the real universe and I'll stop caring so much about this one.
Of course anything you gave me would be much more likely to just be a hallucinogen than an actual red pill.
In absence of a red pill, the Matrix is as close to reality as you can get and I'm fine with that.
There's many benefits to a believe in a appropriate god which maximises personal virtue.
Your arguments so far have only been in favor of a god, with no mention of determining which god it is appropriate to believe in. Virtue and morality are also parts of maps, not the territory. I can't point to the part of the universe where "murder is wrong" is written like I can point at gravity in action.
A belief in God can foster a sense of belonging in the universe (which many nihilists miss out on). It can give purpose to ones actions, most philosophers are actually moral realists, not because its more likely than moral relativism but simply because its good to believe some morals are objective just so we can feel like our actions matter to something.
Don't conflate nihilism and atheism. Just don't. It's lazy and offensive. There are tons of things that matter to me, like my family and winning arguments and sex. Life matters because you value it while you're alive, not in some objective, universal sense, but in the minds of humanity, which is the best part of the universe anyways.
If I can achieve these "benefits" through other means, which I already have, by the way, then your god is once again useless to me.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
And I know the benefit of tying my shoelaces. What is the benefit of believing in God? Because your philosophical arguments don't mention an afterlife or reward for belief or following some golden code of morality.
Created:
Posted in:
If you then hold belief in you being able to actually tie your shoe laces based on pragmatism, there then should be no push back against the idea of god from atheists either.
I can see my shoelaces. Show me God.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
you dont know when you tie your shoelaces you're actually tying them within noumenon and not just phenomena.
if I can't experience it in any way, why does it matter if it exists? The whole idea of noumenon has literally zero effect on how I will live my life, and I guarantee the same for you, because every time you're shoelaces get untied, you tie them just like everyone else, and every time you cross the street, you look both ways, even though the car coming might be "just phenomena."
Just. Like. Every. Other. Person.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
Self consistency is irrelevant if these laws can (in theory) fall apart at any minute. That's the problem of induction, imagine Descartes's evil demon tricking your eyes into seeing your shoelaces as tied through your perception of phenomena but in the noumenon you're actually untying them.
The whole point of self-consistency is that the laws haven't "fallen apart" yet, and they are highly unlikely to ever do so. I'm not saying that observations are foolproof, but they're all I've
got.
If your perception of reality is self-consistent, does it really matter? The map will never fully reflect the territory, so whatever makes sense is basically reality to me. That's about as complicated as my philosophy gets in terms of worldview.
There's very strong scientific and philosophical arguments to the existence (or necessity) of god.
And what "scientific" argument could that be that doesn't fall prey to the same induction problem as my beliefs? You can either reject science altogether on the grounds of induction, or you can admit that observations are the strongest form of evidence for science. So who is the hypocrite here, me or you?
If you think god (at least an infinite concept of god) has "blank spots" you would be incorrect. Its simply by definition impossible to assert or deny in any sort of "blank spot".
I said my map (or perception or model, if you prefer) has blank spots in that I haven't been able to make any observations or inferences about that part of reality. Reality itself has no blank spots, so if God exists, there aren't any blank spots in God, just as there isn't any blank spots in distant galaxies just because we can't see them.
I guess the last thing I can say is that the best thing you can do is make your beliefs pay rent. Every belief you have should inform your expectations of how reality will be in future observations. To reuse the shoelace example, if I had a belief of [untied-shoelaces] regardless of the actual state of my shoelaces, then that belief is no better than having zero knowledge about the state of my shoelaces. Scribbling "unknowable mystery" or "here be dragons" on all the blank spots of my map is at best only as useful as the same map with blanks. Chances are good that it would actually inhibit my ability to investigate those blank spots in the future.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Ehyeh
To address the original post, yes, technically every belief is taken on faith that the evidence of your own senses and the reported experiences of others are reflective of reality. For instance, when I look down and see my shoelaces, the signals interpreted from my optic nerve tell me that my shoelaces are untied. Technically, that is the only evidence I have. The difference is that such beliefs can be tested for self-consistency. If I trip more often after getting the brain signal of [untied-shoelaces] than not, then that is a good indication of that signal being accurate to some part of reality. Because the rules are self-consistent, you can use science to suss them out, like guessing the rules to a game by playing it. [1][2]
That being said, your senses can trick you. The map is not the territory. An optical illusion will give you an actively wrong perception of reality, but you can usually look at it from another angle or something in order to correct your mistaken beliefs.
The problem with the idea of God or a god is that there isn't any part of my map I can point to that would indicate such an entity in reality. There are blank spots (definitely way more blank than not, given the scale of the universe and of quantum scaling) that could theoretically have God in them, like the beginning of the universe, but there isn't even the shadow of something on my map that would bias me towards God (especially any specific religion's God) existing as an anthropomorphic, sentient entity.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@ebuc
90+% of people will never have their identity stolen, and there are a lot of easy ways to avoid ransomware, such as setting your browser to https only (this can even be done on mobile) and not clicking on sketchy links.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@ebuc
My step-son an IT professional, says VPN is for paranoid people. I'm not sure I agree with him. I like the idea of having a VPN.
I would say that most people shouldn't worry about security, but the ability to access other countries' Netflix, etc., is nice.
Created:
-->
@Shila
I'm sorry, but no. I am not accepting "miracles still happen but no one notices them because of cellphones" as an answer. First of all, we got nearly 2000 years without geological scale miracles before cell phones were invented, and second, even people who are engrossed in their phones look up, especially if we're talking something as big as destroying a city with fire and brimstone or turning rivers into blood. That's not even bringing in the other 24% that don't have them, or satellite imagery recording the event.
Created:
Posted in:
I just noticed that nearly 20% of the debates on this site are RM
Created:
-->
@Oldschoolpancakedummy
Why do you think that giant miracles like Elijah calling down fire and the parting of the Red Sea don't happen anymore?
Created:
I think debateisland had some formal options but I mostly went to the "discussion" threads. Otherwise no.
Created:
Posted in:
I haven't thought about backwardseden for over a year. That brings back some memories...
Created:
debate.org is mostly trolls and no longer maintained so far as I can tell.
debateisland.com is almost exclusively religious debates
Kialo looked pretty good but it's been awhile since I looked at it.
artikulate.in was an India based site with largely civil discussion but it appears to be down or gone.
Created:
-->
@Wylted
As someone who's currently learning French and took some German in high school, I agree that it's annoying. However the gender of words in languages like French and German is very different from the gender of pronouns in English. Pronouns in english such as she refer to visible sexual characteristics. Historically this was just called "sex" as in the phrase "the fairer sex." At some point people decided that saying sex was bad so they borrowed the word gender from French grammar, which originally only referred to the nouns and stuff like "Das" and "Der" that you're familiar with from German.
French is worse by the way. Not only are there different articles and pronouns for gender, you also have to account for whether it is singular or plural. For instance, in German, "mein Hund" and the plural "mein Hunde" use the same possessive pronoun, whereas in French you have to pluralise the possessive. "me chien" becomes "mes chiens".
Created:
I guess some people just like being wrong.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Stephen
All witches are women. The equivalent for a man is a Warlock.
I'd be willing to bet at least 5% of people in 2022 identifying as witches or Wicca also identify as nonbinary or otherwise gender-nonconforming.
Created:
-->
@TWS1405
There is NO “unknown” gender.
I'm not talking about social gender norms in the slightest. I'm talking about a circumstance where a person's biological sex is unknown to you for any reason. For instance, on this website you have no idea what anyone's biological sex is, though it is reasonable to assume that the vast majority of them are male. If you were talking in a discord chat with Towel23, you would call them "they" unless they gave some indication of whether they were male or female. It would be similar if you saw them from a distance, or in a low res picture, or in darkness. If the perceived gender isn't immediately obvious, use they, not he or she.
Created:
-->
@TWS1405
There is NO need for a so-called "neutral" gender term.
Even if you don't support nonbinary people's desire to use other pronouns, what do you use when the gender is legitimately unknown? Personally, I default to they and have ever since I was a child because I was told it was really rude to call a boy she or vice versa.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@ebuc
Actually the most educational thing I've seen on this site. Props for having the balls to discuss it here even if it doesn't get any traction.
Created:
-->
@Wylted
If you can't be bothered to learn specifics, just say Asian. At least that way you're still right. Better to demonstrate some general knowledge than say something specific and be wrong.
Created:
Posted in:
A better solution to selectively sterilizing certain groups would be to reversibly sterilize all males before puberty. Only men who really want kids will go through the trouble of getting the paperwork and procedure done to reverse it. This can be compared to similar opt-out policies in organ donor designations.
Created:
-->
@RationalMadman
Which part? "They " catching on?
Created:
I'm not opposed to a new pronoun, I just wanted to note that "they" has already been used as singular for a longer time than "you" and "you" is widely accepted. Clearly the change from plural to plural/singular isn't insurmountable, and while there is always the growing pains as culture resists change and edge cases are decided, it often happens anyways.
I personally think they is more likely to catch on as the most common nonbinary pronoun over currently proposed alernatives such as xe/xem or ze/zir.
Created:
-->
@PREZ-HILTON
The Japanese took this to the extreme by the way by having females do feet binding to signal that status
The practice of foot binding was actually Chinese.
Created:
-->
@RationalMadman
Ye/You/Your/Yours used to be plural in English as well. Thee/thou/thine were the "correct" singular 2nd person until the 17th century. By contrast, the first known use of the singular they was in the 14th century, in the Middle English translation of William and the Werewolf.
Created:
Posted in:
-->
@Vici
this game is cool and for the capatalist whilst mafia is for silly socialists
Can I get an explanation why mafia is for socialists? (As neither a mafia player or a socialist)
Created:
Posted in:
Weirdest thing about DALL-E 2 that I've come across is that it's practically impossible to get it to make a centaur. It almost always generates a person standing next to or riding a horse.
Created:
-->
@ADreamOfLiberty
That's true, but then you get into what counts as improvement. To my aesthetics there is almost nothing you can do to a healthy body to make it look better. If it's not a healthy body the best way to make it look better is to make it healthy.
That's why I put "improve it" in quotes before. I guess I didn't say it explicitly in my previous comment but I (and I assume most people with tattoos) don't view them as specific improvements. I used the bonsai tree specifically as an example because by most of the metrics of what makes a healthy, normal tree a tree, it will have actually worsened. I personally like the aesthetics of tattoos because I know there's usually deep personal meaning for each of them, and they each provide and opportunity to learn about that person and also because it presents a way for me to start talking to them as someone with social anxiety. Most people I've spoke to were happy to share the meaning of their tattoos, and were more friendly after I expressed interest in them.
I also think that most people with tattoos are very aware that their tattoos make a lot of people perceive them as uglier (mostly because of Karens and boomers who tell them they'd be prettier without tattoos). They knew that they were making a tradeoff when they got the tattoo. If anything, that sacrifice of conventional beauty makes their tattoos even more meaningful (and therefore to me, more beautiful than something that could be easily removed/reversed).
the symbolism to me can be very different from what people who get tattoos or piercings think
This is one of the reasons I like to ask people about their tattoos. Piercings tend to be less meaningful and more aesthetic, but I usually like them unless they're hollow gauges over a certain size because they do edge into the territory of being actively dangerous and impractical, as well as completely irreversible.
it's not as if there aren't plenty of options to make personal statements with clothing and hairstyle.
I think you'll find that people with tattoos express themselves plenty through clothes and hair, probably more than other people do. For me it goes back to the permanence of the tattoo that makes it a more meaningful signal. If you had to choose one shirt that you would have to wear for the rest of your life (assume it's a magic shirt so you didn't have to worry about stink, stains, or wear and tear), you would want to put a lot of thought into what that shirt says about you to other people and yourself. That's what a tattoo is.
when I think of tattoos as they are used by say Polynesian traditions I don't feel any repulsion at all.
Ok, so I think you just have a divide on the reasons for tattoos then, bc Polynesian culture have tattoos for a lot of the same reasons as regular Western tattoos. I'm not an expert so some of these may be inaccurate or overly general but here's a little I know on Maori tattoos.
First of all, in general all tattooing is linked to mana or prestige. The head is the most sacred part of the body, so ta moko is reserved for the face only and for Maori of high social status. This is similar to western culture in that most people with tattoos view them with pride. It's also associated with coming of age in both cultures, though in western culture it's only because that's when you can do it without parental permission.
- Moko tattoos are used to denote History (i.e. personal lineage and acts you've done in your life) You could compare this to a person of Irish heritage getting a Celtic rune or motif as a tattoo, or to something like my girlfriend's tattoo, which represents defeating that part of her life to her.
- Koru tattoos denote a loving relationship in your life. This is similar to getting a tattoo when a loved one dies. It doesn't have to be a name, it's just something that makes you think of them. In Maori culture it isn't specifically associated with death but western culture has this weird thing where you only do stuff to remember people after they die.
- Pikorua is a newer design that denotes an eternal bond. It wasn't possible with older technology, so this practice is post-Old World contact with Polynesian culture. This is like getting matching tattoos with your significant other from what I can understand. This one is also often made in some form of jewelry, but I can't tell if that's new or not based on what little research I've done.
I think another part of why you're okay with Polynesian culture tattoos is that they are more aesthetically pleasing to you. The designs are mostly abstract, often symmetrical or repetitive, and are always in the same places, where as western tattoos can range from someone's favorite cartoon character to saying "Cum gutter"around their genitals.
the giant lip stretching ornaments
Yeah those are going into the territory of actually distorting the human form and actively harming you. I would put these alongside corsets and Chinese footbinding, as things that I can't get behind because they force harm on people just to meet the same expectations as others. The main difference is that I don't think the African lip gauge thingies are a beauty thing so much as a status signal for rich people. In that respect they're kinda similar to ripped jeans in that they're actively sabotaging themselves to say, I'm so rich I don't need pants or lips that work properly. I could be entirely off-base on that one though and I'm a little researched out for the day, so I'll leave it at that.
Created:
Posted in:
The universe is expanding into...
UR MOM gg get rekt
Created:
-->
@Greyparrot
To me it shows a broken person who doesn't have a clear purpose. It's an outward sign of inner turmoil.
That might be the exact point they were trying to make with the tattoo in the first place. My girlfriend has a tattoo on her thigh from where she attempted suicide because she wants to remember the hurt she went through in that period of her life. Tattoos are a costly signal to others that the person with the tattoo valued the message of the tattoo so much that they had it indelibly pressed to the limited canvas of their own body. You could compare it to the r/place canvas in that the limited space makes everything on it more meaningful. I don't have any tattoos right now, but I intend to get at least one someday when I have the spare money.
A lot of my feelings on tattoos and piercings related to my transhumanism but I'm not going to get into that right now.
Created:
-->
@ADreamOfLiberty
I don't have to believe in god to see that your body is an incredible and naturally beautiful thing. Thinking you can improve it with artistic whims and wounds communicates that you don't agree.
Saying that something is naturally beautiful and trying to "improve it" are not mutually exclusive.
A carpenter can chop down a beautiful tree and make beautiful things out of it. And tattoos and piercings aren't nearly so destructive. It would be more akin to a bonsai artist shaping the tree's growth into a specific aesthetic. He's still perverting nature's intent with that tree; it will never grow as big as it was supposed to and he had to cut branches away and confine it so it couldn't grow regularly. He harms the tree and makes something beautiful.
Created: