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K_Michael

A member since

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Total topics: 28

For those unfamiliar, Schelling points are points that people naturally converge to without any communication. An example would be two people being told to meet each other in New York, if you go to Grand Central Station or the Empire State Building at noon, you have a decent chance of meeting someone given that same instruction. This even occurs in nature, as butterflies will all travel to the highest points of local elevation to find mates.

In theories of when a fetus becomes  a person, two options become immediately obvious; conception, and birth. There are others, the Biblical concept of quickening, the point of fetus viability, that many people have used.

I'd like to hear people's ideas, are there any others that I'm missing? What are the best arguments for each? How would these translate to an AI or sufficiently advanced animal gaining personhood?
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Philosophy
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I don't use twitter a whole lot but was curious if anyone has opinions.
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Current events
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I was recently thinking about the undelivered speech written by William Safire for Richard Nixon to deliver if the Apollo 13 mission failed.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.
I think its a very stirring speech and was wondering if anyone has similar media that they would like to share, especially if it inspires hope and pride in the human spirit.
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Artistic expressions
12 8
Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it already.
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Show business
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I had the idea of a specific debate style that people could try where they had to write their arguments without reading their opponents' (possibly enforced by having both parties finish before the one publishing). This would force you to try to anticipate any arguments your opponent may make and just make as many arguments as possible.
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DebateArt.com
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Can anyone attest to (and link) a debate where someone actually used 30,000 characters in one round? I don't know if there are any and I definitely don't remember seeing one myself . 
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DebateArt.com
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I was looking at the leaderboard and the different sorting methods. I noticed that RationalMadman by far has the most wins, over twice as much as Oromagi, who is second in this category, but he is also 2nd place for number of losses, with only Type1,  a notorious troll in the history of DArt, having more losses. So while Oromagi is 1st in points, and RationalMadman 9th, it seems like the best strategy to get a lot of wins is to simply engage in tons of debates, rather than carefully picking a few debates.
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DebateArt.com
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Pollution, food shortages/distribution problems, unemployment, poverty.

Couldn't a decrease in population make it a lot easier to solve these problems?

For instance, the amount of farmland it takes to maintain livestock is much larger than the area it would take to feed the human race directly. However, this would put millions of people out of a job where there is already too many unemployed. If we had less people, then we could feed the population without putting people out of jobs.

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Science and Nature
22 8
Why shouldn't books be rated for the depiction of graphic, unsettling, or mature content in a similar way to movies?
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Artistic expressions
14 9
For the site developers or anyone who is really smart:
What is the method behind what debates show up on the quality debates sidebar? Are they chosen by a person, an algorithm, or what?
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DebateArt.com
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was the first one. It more or less failed due to lack of participation. This was nearly a year ago so I thought it would be fun to try it again. Bsh1 is banned but I would be willing to organize/judge or participate, depending on if anyone else would like to try their hand at organizing it.
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DebateArt.com
13 7
I'm getting tired of debate topics not matching the title of the debate. 
As an example, 
The title is "It is Impossible to Ban Experimenting on/of Animals"
but the claim by the Instigator is that "animal experimentation is essential to progress as a society."
these to sentences do not have the same meeting, and it is really annoying for the title to say one thing, and then have the opponent try to debate a different thing entirely.
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DebateArt.com
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Suppose that when the Romans started persecuting the Christians, they actually managed to eliminate every single Christian and their ideology. How would history evolve from there? 
A few things off the top of my head.

The schism between East and West Roman Empire would not have occurred, or at least, not for the same reason. 


Europe would be primarily a polytheistic culture adopting new gods to its panteon as it encountered other religions.

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Religion
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I understand honoring the full term of any existing copyrights, but should anyone besides the author or artist be able to continue to profit like that?



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Artistic expressions
7 4
I legitimately forgot about this site for a little bit.
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Personal
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Happy birthday to me...
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Miscellaneous
2 2
Anybody have an idea on when or if Ralph will be back?
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DebateArt.com
9 6
This will be like the debates, except more than two people will have to agree. I want to see the ten most liked animes of DebateArt.com.

So. In order to keep this organized. Each person may suggest ONE anime until we have ten. THEN people can say which ones of the ten they disagree with, along with alternatives and why they disagree.

My one anime is My Hero Academia.
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Show business
24 14
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DebateArt.com
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Specifically, how do points in a debate translate to leaderboard points?
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DebateArt.com
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This statement is false.
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Philosophy
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I'm assuming so. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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DebateArt.com
43 11
I disagree.
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Philosophy
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Whether you believe in evolution or not, I want to hear your views on how humanity, social constructs, etc., have affected the influence of evolution.

This is actually for a kind of research, so the more answers, the better.
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Society
18 7
Mine is the raven because it lives in my area and is so intelligent.
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Science and Nature
42 22
I'm interested what you all think.
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Show business
52 15
A lot of people on this site came here seeking an alternative to DDO for multiple reasons, including trolls, inactive moderators, and site bugs. But every now and then, DDO can still have a meaningful debate. Should I leave it behind or no? I'm especially interested in what other DDO veterans did/do.

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DebateArt.com
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