Tejretics

Thanks for the ideas but I am afraid it's not simple: a lot of new users are not these responsible members that will try to figure everything out before starting a debate, they will be doing whatever they want, often creating rated debates and forfeiting everything and then forgetting about the website the next day. So that's why we have qualifications, it's a way to kinda sandbox the beginners or folks that just want to have fun from those that want to take it to another level doing it with the rating system on. But I do agree that 5 debates for getting the qualification may be too much, I will change that soon and we'll see what happens.

• I used to think that for social sanctions (e.g., removing people from social spaces or “canceling them,” all the way up to more serious social consequences like official reprimands on the job), due process is not necessary for allegations of sexual misconduct, and that false allegations were unbelievably rare. I’ve changed my mind now, and think due process is necessary (although sexual harassment is common and efforts to reduce it are also very important). 
  
• I had a brief period where I thought European countries, as well as many Asian countries, were sensible to ban hate speech. I now think the US system, with First Amendment-level protections, is ideal, and should be implemented across the rest of the world. 
  
• I’ve become a decent bit more “tough-on-crime.” I always used to support efforts to hire police officers, but I now think there’s a reasonable case for higher sentences for violent crimes in countries with relatively low sentences (although with substantial investments aimed at making prison a less shitty place) and substantial investments in the police. That said, I still lean progressive on criminal justice issues (e.g., support significant police reform and banning police unions in most countries, support substantially shorter sentences or no sentences at all for nonviolent crimes). 
  
• I used to think all drugs should be legalized. I now think drug use should be decriminalized, but the sale and production of hard drugs should be illegal. 
  
• I used to be heavily non-interventionist with foreign policy, broadly being anti-war, and in particular, opposing many Western/NATO efforts to get involved in international armed conflicts (such as the War on Terror and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan). More broadly, I used to think U.S. hegemony was unnecessary. I’m now pretty convinced that U.S. hegemony is good, that the U.S. should maintain current levels of military spending, a strong NATO alliance is good, aggressive counterterrorism operations like drone strikes are probably net beneficial, and while, in general, intervention aimed at regime change seems like a bad idea, it was justified in the 2001 case in Afghanistan (despite the Taliban taking back power in 2021).
  
• While I remain very wary about the geopolitical implications of the rise of China (and support efforts to contain its rise in the technology and defense-adjacent sectors specifically, such as semiconductor export controls), I’m happy the rise of China has led to increased foreign aid spending by both the West and China, as well as domestic economic growth that’s lifted millions out of poverty in China itself, and I think a lot of concerns like “debt trap diplomacy” are wrong/exaggerated (although I do think China’s spending abroad has often facilitated White Elephants, like the SGR in Kenya). 
  
• I was pretty convinced that the Washington Consensus was good, and that neoliberalism, broadly construed, was the path for developing countries to go from poverty to prosperity. I’ve become much more well-versed in the literature now, and while I think the Washington Consensus was likely (with high uncertainty) preferable to the alternative of import substitution industrialization, pure free markets and trade don’t cut it -- some degree of industrial policy, specifically export promotion, is often necessary for developing countries to grow, especially through manufacturing. 
  
• That said, in the past few months, I’ve become a bit more pessimistic about the prospects for growth driven by manufacturing exports and infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. This piece by David Ndii offers a compelling argument that the export- and infrastructure-led approach has failed throughout the continent, and the focus should be boosting agricultural productivity. (However, here’s a counterargument by Noah Smith, if you’re interested.) 
  

Democrats in 2008: Women have XX chromosomes.

Ketanji Brown Jackson: I cant define what a woman is; Im not a biologist.

Democrats (most of them): Ya, put her on the Supreme Court cause she’s a black “woman” (who can’t even define what a woman is) and deserves to be on the court just because she’s black.

Democrats: Racism is bad and should constitute a hate crime (even though calling someone the n word is legal under the first amendment)

Ralph Northam and other top Virginia officials: Ya we wore blackface and Klan robes, but that’s fine

Democrats and their media allies: It’s okay, we’ll cover for you and everything will be alright. You can keep your office and shouldn’t have to resign. Just let the news cycle finish

Democrats: We want to forgive student loans

Me: Well what about all the people that worked their asses off to pay back the money they willingly got after signing a contract. Not to mention where are you going to get the money.

Democrats: We care about people who pay thousands for a gender studies degree. Oh and money grows on trees. Big government, yay.

• On balance, Turkey’s continued membership is beneficial to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
  
• The benefits of China’s infrastructure loans to countries in sub-Saharan Africa outweigh the harms.
  
• It would be preferable if the Eastern Bloc countries had formed their own union in 2004, rather than joining or attempting to join the European Union.
  

• The maximum character limit is 10,000 characters. Feel free to set an even lower one if you prefer that and agree to it, but don’t set a higher one. 
  
• Have a maximum of three rounds per debate (once more, to save time and allow the tournament to progress). 
  
• Have a maximum of 72 hours per round.
• The voting period should be 1 week. In exchange, I’ll do my absolute best to vote on every debate in the competition, unless I have some emergency, and I’ll also actively solicit votes for you. 
  

Call me a pragmatist, but the metaphysical existence of god is an unimportant question compared to the ideas that religious ethics helps/hurts society or if the social setting of churches are good/bad for people. 

I disagree in the sense that I think a lot of people don't have an internal "I want to help others" drive. How many people would stop on the side of the road to help someone, for example?

Utilitarianism is a flawed model in the sense it justifies putting some people out intentionally to benefit others. "Enslave the 49% for the 51%" so to say. With all your modifier on it, I expect you to tell me #not_my_util, but that's just my entry level thought. I don't know if a I have a substitute, though I do like virtue ethics. 

This directly conflicts with your concept of future generations have the SAME moral consideration as current generations.

 The one thing in this I'm going to disagree with is "Creating new bad lives is a bad thing", simply because this would justify putting people down because their life is too sad. I'm all for suicide as an option for people (now mental illness and enforcement of optional and not coerced, like in Canada gets messy, but ideally) and people should be able to opt out, however, no one should ever decide if someone else's life was worth living.

I have to disagree with your opinion that employment rates are more impactful than inflation rates.

Employment rates are extremely misleading as they do not show the actual value of time/money. I think I read somewhere that many authoritarian centrally planned regimes like the old soviet union boasted very low unemployment, but it meant very little value for the average person.

Inflation on the other hand DOES have a concrete value and it's a measurable value directly impacting every person affected.

• Right now, combating inflation is, in fact, more important. I support aggressive Fed rate hikes, as well as deficit reduction, in efforts to get inflation down. 
  
• I agree that purely giving people jobs isn’t enough, and improving productivity through long-run economic growth is incredibly important. The US should significantly increase its population, admit 3x more immigrants, make major investments in clean energy R&D, continue to allow fracking, increase R&D spending more generally, and deregulate building housing to increase this productivity. 
  
• That said, full employment -- in an economy that’s already producing a lot like the US -- does give you a lot of things, including higher satisfaction, reduced poverty, better labor protections by employers when workers have more bargaining power, and less crime. The evidence on this is pretty clear and convincing, and, in my view, often worth the risk of a bit of inflation (though not right now, when inflation is so high and unemployment so low). 

Now we might be heading for a recession because of the higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserves to combat inflation. We need a new economic theory.

The default winner should be PRO if nobody votes. 

Hard to understand why  you gave up Hinduism to entertain B Theories.

All your questions and doubts can be answered by Karma. 

Do you pull the lever? Trolley problem. 

Disagree here. I remember being quite the defender of this view on DDO (when I went by SNP1), but I no longer feel it is a justified position. I feel as if too much of the debate has been centered on atheism vs monotheism, but the moment you through polytheism into the discussion it changes things.

Agreed, but I am curious on if you are a compatibilist or hold to more of a libertarian free will? While I do think compatibilism is easier to support, I do have a lot of sympathies for libertarian free will. Our intuitions just scream that some extent of libertarian free will is true.

I tend to think that Aristotelian Virtue Ethics is one of (if not the) best moral theories.

This is where I disagree and think that you have some conflict in your points. if you assign a future person as having as much moral value as a present person, then how do you justify the view that "Creating new happy lives is a good thing, though not as good as making existing people happy. Creating new bad lives is a bad thing (though not as bad, other things equal, as inflicting suffering on existing people)"? I think future people certainly have moral worth, and we should act to look after future generations, but does that give it equal weight to people here today? I do not think so. Future people do not exist (yet) while present people do. I think more moral value is given to things and people that exist than things and people that do not (similar logic as to why theft, murder, etc. is wrong but playing GTA is alright).

• Thought experiments. My favorite one, adapted from Derek Parfit, is: if I drop a glass bottle in a woods, that would be irresponsible regardless of whether a child that injures themselves on it gets the injury  tomorrow, 100 years, or 500 years from now. Similarly, having a positive rate of pure time preference would mean -- at some point in the future -- the survival of humanity ends up less important than, say, me enjoying a pizza right now. 
  
• According to B theories of time, people in the future do exist right now, because time is just an extension of space -- which is likely true if you take special relativity seriously. In that sense, treating future generations worse is morally equivalent to treating people who’re far away from you worse, and I don’t find that a just conclusion. 
  
• It seems like it’s discrimination against an immutable characteristic. I don’t think you should be disadvantaged just because of when you were born, a characteristic you don’t choose, in decisions made by people in the past. 

Have you seen Nolan's The Dark Knight? Surely, right? I think it's a powerful critique of utilitarianism and illustration of the idea I'm trying to get at. So Joker is sort of a victim of trolley problem/utilitarian thinking. All his games are around that. The two boats for example, one filled with civilians, the other criminals. In the end, he turns the good lawyer, Harvey Dent, to his madness. 

I've always kinda thought of effective altruism as euthaniastic sort of thinking. It strips the soul and humanity right out of doing good. So give to some efficient charity rather the beggar on the street. What's the point in that? The end of pain and life and humanity. I give to the beggar on the street and I share humanity with him. 

If you're up to it, would you want to pm back and forth about what it is like in India? I'd love to learn about your home country and culture and such. I know that you don't speak for all Indians, obviously, but it would be cool to learn about India and how it compares to the United States.

Have you been affected by the caste system by Indian immigrants in positions of power here in America?

And (sorry for two questions here) what is your opinion of the caste system and oppression of people according to their genetic background that is in India and is now in Silicon Valley?

I also have a similar one about if you have experiences of structural or systemic racism here in the the U.S. if you'll permit me to ask 3 questions lol.

What are your thoughts on inheritance/generational wealth 

I’ve always thought the “you’re selfish for doing good things because you enjoy it” thing championed by Ayn Rand was a little too cyclical. Like okay sure someone might enjoy working at a soup kitchen or feels good about doing it…that just makes them a good person. There’s a little too much focus on mental state which is always a black box for other people instead of action. 

I go back and forth on the latter two between being a hardcore technologist and a reactionary Luddite lol. But ultimately I come back to that for good or for ill that technology is coming. It’s worthless to fight the inevitable. But I agree I’m pretty scared of what could happen if it’s not done correctly. Especially biotech stuff 

I agree with you an animal welfare. Factory farming is an abomination and it’ll be remembered that way. I have no doubt. The demand for meat is pretty much insatiable and I don’t see that culturally changing but I’m hopeful there are some changes that could be made. Almost all farms used to have flocks of animals that would graze on fallow fields and refertilize them, now it’s just monoculture and chemical fertilizers.  Could we slowly revert back to that without causing mass starvation I’ve got no clue

Where do you see the world in 50 years generally? 

• Climate change is a serious problem, but won’t radically change the world. It’ll probably have effects more concentrated in developing countries, and the effects will probably look more like the scale of bad infectious diseases now, like tropical diseases. It will be very bad for the global poor, but it won’t be enough to seriously set back overall progress on poverty and global health. 
  
• Extreme poverty will keep going down. For major parts of the world -- most of it -- the standard of living will increase quite a bit. 
  
• Populations will grow a bit, but growth will be a lot slower than before. Developed countries will have pretty heavily aging populations at this point. 
  
• African countries will have started reindustrializing quite a bit. India’s growth will continue to be services-driven, unfortunately. 
  
• We’ll probably have had another COVID-size pandemic (or a bigger one) by the time 50 years pass. It’ll probably kill more people than COVID. Might be bacterial due to antimicrobial resistance, but I think a viral pandemic remains more likely. 
  
• AI will be getting vastly more important in developed countries. I’m not sure if it will have started displacing a massive number of people yet, but certainly things will be getting weird and it’ll occupy a major fraction of the political discourse. 
  
• I’d say something like a 40% chance we see at least one nuclear weapon launched as an act of war. 
  
• China will have likely attempted an annexation of Taiwan 50 years from now. If a peaceful annexation was not successful, it would have tried to mount a military invasion. I have no idea what the likelihood of success is.