- Toban agrees with this blog that statists + theists use the same reasoning
- Susan Walsh agrees with this blog that Patience uber alles.
- Timothy Lee on The Great Stagnation:
But the real lesson here may not be that the American economy is stagnating, but rather that the government is bad at measuring improvements in our standard of living that come from the software industry.
- Duflo + Banerjee say people are hungry often because other things are more important. And they don't trust the central planners. And the time horizons make it not worth it. Real data on poverty. Very good.
- On Hypocricy, Robin sounds like John Pepples
- Bryan has converted me on Pacifism. One point explanation: The only coherent attempt at a non-pacifist position relies BOTH on treating the "enemy" as subhuman AND on ignoring uncertainty. Neither premise is sane. Bryan has a whole series on the topic. Many highly unsatisfactory responses from all over, including luminaries. Read Bryan's definition of pacifism, before becoming outraged. Robin Hanson's response (as imagined by me) is the only one likely to shift me back.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
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2 comments:
"Threats and bullying... People who previously bore you no ill will now start looking for a chance to give you a taste of your own medicine."
My argument is a place: Canada.
Apparently non-participants in the Iraq war have been hit with lots of terrorism, and the U.S. hasn't.
Or, you know, you could not threaten and bully in the first place, and then you won't have to put on a show of violence to frighten the vengeful into backing down.
"Patience uber alles."
If I have low impulse control, can I improve it? (Slut do learn, but don't control - could they learn to control, then?) If I have high impulse control, is it worth making it even higher and completely dominating impulse issues?
(My experience suggests yes, btw, I just don't want to n=1 this issue...but it seems there's an awesome qualitative shift at very high IC.)
"It is absurd to latch on to an abstract grand moral theory, and then defend it against every counter-example."
A beautiful teaching moment. (Are teaching moments a real thing or a fad? In any case...)
Or more relevantly, I think I've found my berserk button. (Beep!)
Sorry! Not absurd; instead required.
The power of philosophy is that if you do the logic right, there won't be any counter-examples. That's what transcendentally true means! We can debate how many such truths there are, but it's not debatable that they'd be fantastically useful.
Here it is:
"Do not unto others as they would have you not do unto them."
First bonus, you can derive Caplan's pacifism from it - which means the pacifism is contradicted by his supposedly higher principle. (As long as his exceptions are in fact reasonable, that is.)
Second bonus, the derivation of this principle explains why murdering someone for their organs is wrong. (It contradicts its own premises.)
The meat here is, however, that adhering to bad philosophy is indeed absurd. But you can tell the difference even without philosophical training: real ethics are very, very flexible. The world is complicated and variable and messy, and real philosophy is chill about that, because one of the complications is that there exist simple bits.
When people post things like this, they unintentionally display utter philosophical ignorance. If it isn't useful, it isn't philosophy - it's just wrong. That's one of the most basic features of the stuff.
If you can't adhere to it all the time, it's just wrong. The whole point of philosophy is to have principles so that you can learn which exceptions you've been making that you shouldn't have. (Also to learn which principles are actually fighting each other and wasting your time.)
Again, you can debate how many such principles there are, but to call philosophy useless per se is actually kind of pathetic.
So while neither Weinberg nor Sailer can probably philosophize out of a paper bag, they do prove that by far the most common type of philosophy is bad philosophy - they clearly haven't seen hide nor hair of the good stuff. (Indeed, they add to the pile, ironically.)
Though actually, I'm using Sailer's definitions, not the true definitions. In fact, Sailer and Weinberg have seen lots of good philosophy. They just called it 'math.'
Guys! It's the same stuff! Premises -> logic -> conclusion. So why isn't it recognized as such?
Well, in short, because the languages are different. Mathematics is maximally precise. English and most other natural languages are basically maximally powerful.
English word: "Existence."
Now try to describe what I just referred to with math. With one caveat, it's totally possible, but I hope you don't expect me to hold my breath while I wait. But if you manage it, I can start philosophizing about existence using math instead of English. Though I won't get far without things like "love" and "value" also transliterated.
TLDR; Aaaaaargh! No. /facepalm. /headdesk.
Are there any exceptions to your rule about having exceptions?
I mean...do I have to start considering that a disproof by contradiction is begging the question? Do I have to start with establishing that contradictions are always wrong?
Screw it, new policy: I am going to start with that.
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