Tejretics

Other than your own inability to deal with the internal appreciation of the processes of enforced death.

After all, a natural existence is no guarantee of non-gratuitous suffering.

The US has super low tax rates, though. The projected social security funding gap can be eliminated very easily by a payroll tax increase of about 1% and removing the tax ceiling (rn the payroll tax ends at about $140k.) I remember when I first read this article I was surprised at how much more could be raised through modest tax increases that would be unlikely to hurt the economy: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/putting-numbers-to-a-tax-increase-for-the-rich.amp.html

I also see no evidence at all that poor immigrants create a net fiscal surplus…it doesn’t seem possible since the US has a budget deficit. Unfortunately your source is paywalled so I can’t read it but the methodology has to be absolutely tortured to get that result. The US has a budget deficit, has had one for some time, and is expected to have one indefinitely so the median citizen regardless of status can’t have a positive NPV (does anyone else feel gross talking about human beings like this? Lol.) I would bet that this study conveniently didn’t allocate costs like military spending, interest payments on debt, etc to taxpayers, or pulls some other funny trick like not considering the cost of any children they might have. 

I appreciate the well-thought-out response. It will take me a moment to write a rebuttal to it. I won't have access to my computer for 2 days, and I start working this week. Expect a response by Wednesday night

I severely disagree. Democrats are going to gain power for the next century with the agenda they hold. If you’re arguing after a 100 years things will change that’s fine, but by that time I argue they will have ruined the nation - if it even exists.

I don't want to sound rude, but you want massively increased immigration plus a universal child allowance (and multiple other entitlements)?

• If additional immigrants have a similar composition to current U.S. immigrants (i.e. if the number increased while the screening methods remained the same), then the net present value (over the long term, including their children and other descendants) to the U.S. government of one more immigrant is $259,000.
  
• Some low-skilled immigrants are net positive, while others are net negative. Low-skilled immigrants who finished high school but didn’t go to college add a net present value (per immigrant) of $49,000 per immigrant. For those who didn’t finish high school, it’s more negative (-$117,000 per immigrant). However, I’m not advocating open borders or entirely randomizing who is let in either – if you take a weighted average of the net present values of people who are let in if you double or even triple immigration, my guess is it would come out positive. This is particularly the case for younger immigrants – even immigrants who didn’t finish high school under the age of 25 have a positive net present value. 
  

The taxes or new debt that would be needed to fund these programs would be catastrophic.

You seem to be a supporter of a one party state lol

I don't think an AGI can hack. Hacking is very logical and knowledge-based; intelligence alone isn't enough. Without training, nobody can hack, not even an ASI.

• A hard constraint on it successfully accomplishing that task is whether it survives.
  
• It could interpret the tasks in ways that are catastrophic, because the best way to accomplish a lot of human problems will involve killing or harming lots of people if you don’t have a moral conscience. 

Cutting out the meme ideologies, I essentially went from libertarian to moderate conservative to a socially far-right, ultra-nationalist, protectionist, capitalist. (Essentially the complete opposite of you)

Don't know much about you, but I remember you being a good debater. How have you been?

What are you majoring in? You picked a good year to take as a gap..

I am good. Got married last year, career is going well…things are looking up for the most part 

Any rule you wish others to follow you must be willing to follow yourself.

I support the abolishment of the filibuster.  DC should become part of Maryland and not be a state.  I think PR should become a state (so I'm not rejecting statehood on political ideology). Why do you support the repeal of the electoral college?  The common argument is, "One person; one vote.  Represent everybody the same".  However this idea taken to its logical conclusion would abolish the senate as well because the Senate represents people from small states more per person.

I support open borders on the grounds that it is the easiest way to get out of debt.

If you support clean energy, buy solar panels. I want solar panels but don't believe they should be forced. Don't force people who don't want to pay for clean energy to pay for it through subsidies. I would say the same thing for fossil fuels.

War on poverty failed.

I hope all the people advocating for animal rights are vegetarians or vegans otherwise this is hypocritical.

When you say you’re for redistribution what do you mean by that? A global wealth tax or what? 

Maybe because on a surface level it does challenge some orthodoxies as some economics stuff is pretty counter intuitive (like price gouging being a good thing) but is overall a pretty shallow and immature ideology (imo)

I was kind of hinting at it but I think what really causes political orientation a lot of times is the insane culture war America is engaged in, and has been for some time. As someone from India it makes sense that you wouldn’t have a deep seated affiliation with any particular US “tribe” and are capable of just thinking about the issue and coming to your conclusion.

Also how have you been doing 

• AI systems are already becoming a lot more general. Consider GPT-3 and AlphaGo/AlphaZero, for example – the tasks they perform or the types of learning they engage in are significantly less narrow than we’d typically associate with narrow AI. 
  
• The main bottleneck to progress in AI so far has been computational power. The cost of computational power is reducing a lot, and systems are close to reaching the computing power of the human brain. Ajeya Cotra of Open Philanthropy used a biological anchor framework to determine how much computing power and algorithmic advances are required for an AI to be as general as human brains, and forecasts an ~80% chance of transformative artificial intelligence by 2100. 
  
• Most ML and computer science researchers think AGI is possible, and surveys find that they expect human-level artificial intelligence in the next 100 years with consistently >50% probability. 
  

• Before we make the decision to turn it off, and before it does anything that would cause us to want to turn it off, an AGI could use the internet and copy itself onto many different servers. You could not give an AGI internet access, but that would substantially limit how useful an AGI is – for example, many creators who’d want to make money with an advanced AI system (e.g. through fast-reacting algorithms on the stock market) would have the incentive to give it access to the internet. 
  
• It could anticipate that we would want to turn it off under particular circumstances, and communicate in ways that cause researchers to give it more time, computing resources, and training data so it can better accomplish its goals. Remember, if an AI system decides that the best way to accomplish its goals is to kill someone, it is going to act in ways that prevent you from blocking that goal. 
  
• In general, as Kelsey Piper puts it, we’re also at the mercy of the least cautious actor. If any government or corporation that has access to an AI system doesn’t employ really strict safety standards, that AI system could then engage in harmful actions. Don’t underestimate the possibility that this is the intention of whoever has access to the system – an AGI could make lethal autonomous weapons, for example, far more destructive, so if a government or non-state actor wanted to engage in maximal destruction, an AGI would allow them to do it more effectively. 
  
• When an AGI is on, it could hack vulnerable systems elsewhere and upload copies of itself onto such systems. 

1. Stricter animal welfare regulations, including a ban on CAFOs, battery cages, fast-growing broiler varieties, and factory farming more generally, as well as government subsidies for plant-based meat and other alternative proteins. 
   
2. Reform the US political system, by abolishing the filibuster, making DC and Puerto Rico states, creating independent redistricting commissions, abolishing the Electoral College, and adopting ranked choice voting for most elections.
   
3. Substantial efforts to reduce global catastrophic risk from emerging technologies (e.g. invest in AI safety research, increase BSL-4 security standards, invest in gene sequencing and vaccine capacity for future pandemic prevention, regulate antibiotic overprescription), but also from weapons of mass destruction (primarily a foreign policy problem, so I won’t talk about that in too much detail). 
   
4. Substantially (in the range of 2x–3x) increase legal immigration into the US (of both low-skilled and high-skilled workers), and give amnesty to and create a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants currently in the US. Also significantly lower restrictions on goods and capital mobility, though these are less important than labor mobility. 
   
5. Efforts to reduce global and American environmental pollution (and mitigating their effects), including substantially scaling down the use of coal power, significant clean energy subsidies to reduce solar and wind prices in international markets (as well as subsidies for advanced geothermal energy, which is especially promising), clean energy R&D investments, carbon pricing (and raising the gas tax), expanding the use of other alternative energy sources (e.g. nuclear power, more fracking), and a nationwide lead cleanup. 
   
6. Adopt a better macroeconomic stabilization policy, with automatic stabilizers, the Fed adopting an NGDP level target with a “whatever it takes” approach to get there, and staffing the Fed with economists committed to full employment, while preserving Fed independence. Some bureaucratic reform is probably also good (e.g. separating out the financial regulation and monetary policy functions of the Fed).
   
7. Criminal justice reform, including abolishing for-profit prisons, lowering prison sentences across-the-board and abolish mandatory minimums (especially with nonviolent crimes), reforming the bail system, investing to make prisons much more humane and rehabilitation-focused, and the decriminalization of many nonviolent activities that contribute to widespread incarceration (e.g., decriminalize sex work, end the War on Drugs). Also hire more police officers – deter crime through police rather than prisons (while engaging in police reform, such as more representation on police forces and banning police unions). 
   
8. Increase investment in antipoverty programs, including significant EITC expansion (possibly restructure it to function more directly like a negative income tax), a universal child allowance, Medicaid expansion, and making section 8 housing vouchers an entitlement for the poor. Also protect poor workers by abolishing occupational licensing, raising the federal minimum wage (and perhaps tie it to local housing costs), and making unemployment insurance more generous.
   
9. Significantly relax land use regulation, including federal transportation funding to incentivize cities to abolish zoning ordinances and increase housing density, banning rent control, and reducing the reliance on public housing to house low-income families. More housing density should be accompanied by better transport infrastructure and street lighting. 
   
10. A health policy focused on the supply side – invest in health R&D and innovation (including anti-aging research). This is a good set of health policy recommendations. On the demand side, reduce the reliance on employer-provided health insurance, either through something like allowing people to buy into Medicaid, “universal catastrophic coverage,” healthcare vouchers, or substantial HSAs. My guess is that US healthcare prices are unusually high because of high demand for healthcare (driven by America’s high GDP), rather than traditional explanations from progressives (e.g., high market power on part of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries). 
    

• For criminal punishment of the accused, use a “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of evidence.
  
• For social sanction of the accused (e.g., for hiring and firing decisions), use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard. Some due process is necessary, but the goal is simply to establish a >50% probability.
  
• If the “preponderance of the evidence” standard is not met, do not sanction the accused, but don’t sanction the accuser either, ensure they are still able to access things like support for mental and physical health in the event that their accusation was correct, and take reasonable steps to separate the accuser and the accused if necessary. 
  

1. Yes
   
2. No
   
3. Abstain
   
4. Abstain

I challenge anyone to give me a moral system capable of support the abortion industry and human rights at the same time.

Moral system: A moral standard, a moral authority and a way to measure moral value (who is valuable means who should be treated morally good)

Human rights: The idea that all humans are equally valuable regardless of their position, traits and views.

Human: A being with its own distinct DNA which is a part of the species homo sapiens

but the real test is, would they want to abolish it if trump and the republicans were in change?

It encourages negotiation so that laws can get passed.

1. Yes
   
2. Yes2
   
3. Abstain, but really, S&G points shouldn't exist.
4. No1

In order to vote, you have to have (in theory) read the CoC, where the categories for each are stated. In addition, debaters have to have at least 100 forum posts or completed two non-FF debates. This means the people voting aren't completely new to the site. Furthermore, the four voting criteria aren't that intuitively difficult to grasp. We all have at least somewhat of an understanding of what poor sources are, of what poor grammar is, and what poor conduct looks like.

1. I'm talking about debaters, not voters. Fair voting systems affect debaters a lot more than they do voters. So that's a strawman right there.
   
2. You still haven't identified a single concrete harm of doing this.

•    Premise 1: Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence

•    Premise 2: If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God

•    Premise 3: The universe exists

•    Conclusion 1: The universe has an explanation of its existence

•    Conclusion 2: Therefore the explanation of the universe's existence is God

Premise 3 states that the universe exists. I think this is fairly self-evident. I am sure that there have been extreme sceptics that have questioned this claim, but I will not concern myself with them.

Premise 1: Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either due to the necessity of its own nature or due to an external cause.

Some atheists have objected that premise 1 is true of everything in the universe, but not the universe itself. However, it is arbitrary to claim that the universe is an exception. After all, even Leibniz did not exclude God from premise 1. This objection is also unscientific. Modern cosmology is devoted to a search for the explanation of the universe's existence, and rightly so. To give up and declare that the universe exists reasonlessly would stymie science.

Premise 2 states that if the universe has an explanation of its existence, then that explanation is God. This appears controversial at first, but in fact it is not. This is because atheists typically argue that if atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation of its existence. Thus if there is an explanation of the universe, then atheism must be false (i.e., God is the explanation of the universe).

Some atheists have claimed that the universe exists necessarily (i.e., the universe is a necessary being). If that were the case, then the universe would not require an external cause. However, this proposal is generally not taken seriously for the following reasons. None of the universe's components seem to exist necessarily. They could all fail to exist. Other material configurations are possible, the elementary particles could have been different and the physical laws could have been different as well. Thus the universe cannot exist necessarily.

However, is it valid to resort to God as the explanation of the universe? Are there other possibilities? The universe consists of space, time, matter and energy. The cause of the universe must be something other than the universe. Thus the cause of the universe must be non-physical, immaterial and beyond space and time. Abstract objects are not possible candidates as they have no causal relationships. Thus it seems reasonable to conclude that the cause of the universe must be a transcendent, unembodied mind.

DDO, including debates on DDO, basically shaped 95% of what I believe right now.

Well this was a fun read.