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Some addenda...

Posted by qtns2di4 on Friday, September 26 2014 at 06:36:57AM
In reply to Re: The problem with you... posted by qtns2di4 on Thursday, September 25 2014 at 9:53:22PM


No, it's the usage of the Argument of Authority. While religion has a significant portion of that usage, it does happen all the time too from other sources. (Notably politics.) Of course you will have problems when you use as Argument of Authority books which were not written as scientific explanations of things.

Although less common, this happens too when scientists speak outside their area of specialization.

Many philosophers (not all of them religios) have pointed this out of biologist Dawkins. More salient to me is the linguist Chomsky talking about economics.

I respect entirely both Dawkins and Chomsky in their own disciplines. Both are brilliant there and their contributions are still top edge. But talking outside their areas of specialization it is no more intelligent than when a celebrity artist or athlete publicity-endorses a product which has nothing to do with their performance in their respective disciplines.

I do pick that up.

Precizely because of which it is all the more salient that you often attribute to your opponents not just a wrong argument or conclusion, but a wrong intention.


Getting to talk about the example, I forgot the point behind.

I do care about real children just as you do.

If I defend different, even contrary, positions, is because I believe the positions I defend help children better.

You think there is a dichotomy between principles and real action. I say if the principles don't work in real action, the principles are wrong. This is, for instance, how I view Communism -- I do not "hate the poor" or "worship inequality" or "want to keep my privilege" but I see that the application of the principles of Communism does not slay the demons it tries to slay and comes with new problems of its own.

An in-depth discussion of the whole explanation and chains of reasoning how I think the pro-contact position helps children better would be my second longest post ever and certainly longer than Frederica's thesis. But you have received at least some beacons of it. And the example I put is relevant. The constant anti argument is "it helps catch perps easier" and I differ with that too, but suppozing it were true, what good does it make to catch perps easier, when also it increases the number of perps? More perps caught easier is still more molestation than less perps harder to catch. It is real children.

Maybe it would be better, if you do not understand how one position helps children better, if you asked that instead of assuming it's about putting principle before action?

This very week, a newbie put forward again the proposal of a test to substitute the AOC. Most agreed. I differed. When I was asked why I differed, I explained why I think a test does not help children or us better than the AOC as it is.

I really don't care if you or Dante turn out to be logically correct about every issue presented here, because humanity is about way more than just seeking the most logical ends. real people are not automatons for which reason is the only measuring stick for a happy, healthy society. It only it were that simple.

Again because of the explanation and examples, I forgot about the point I was making. One of them, at least, but an important one.

Because people are not automatons, not identical, and certainly not with the same goals; it is that all attempts at central planning fail. This is most obvios in Fascism; only a little less obvios in Communism; but it is also obvios in Objectivist leaning libertarians, and that much I will concede. I do not concede that Objectivism exhausts libertarianism anymore than Fascism exhausts nationalism and Communism exhausts socialism. No central planner can know more about society than the sum of all agents of society knows, and a series of real life constraints means that they cannot know even the same. The central planner knows strictly less than the sum of all agents of society does.

So, to have people be happy, you can't ask what makes you happy and give it to them. You can't even send census teams to ask them and report back to you. All you can do is allow them to seek happiness as they choose. They will sometimes be unhappier with their choices than they thought (hey, total depravity,)! but the chance of choosing means they can correct the way at any time too, instead of being locked into what they first chose unwizely.








qtns2di4





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