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Topics - More Than Mortal
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1051
« on: February 14, 2015, 04:32:07 PM »
 get #shrekt nerf-herders
1052
« on: February 14, 2015, 04:20:17 PM »
I went to see 50 Shades of Grey with my friends Sally and Luke, and then we went to a bar for about an hour. Now I'm here.
All in all, best Valentine's Day I've ever had. . .
1053
« on: February 14, 2015, 08:13:34 AM »
Look at the pain you are complicit in.
1054
« on: February 13, 2015, 04:41:30 PM »
 I am, however, going to watch 50 Shades of Grey in the cinema tomorrow, though. That'll be interesting.
1055
« on: February 13, 2015, 04:36:11 PM »
Never would've guessed he's a Muslim.
1056
« on: February 13, 2015, 02:32:03 PM »
Obama.
1057
« on: February 13, 2015, 02:19:43 PM »
Demonstrated by a study from Sweden, of all places. An interpretation that therefore offers itself is one of reallocation costs during crisis. As a crisis hits an economy, a substantial share of resources become unemployed, which creates profit opportunities for entrepreneurs to the extent that these resources become cheaper. Yet, whether or not this happens and at which speed existing firms and new entrants can reallocate resources depends on the regulatory framework. Licensing requirements and similar business regulations constitute entry barriers that prevent entrepreneurs from seizing legal opportunities and thereby limiting the economic and social losses during crises. Unstable monetary policies and inflationary interventions prevent the formation of precise price expectations, thereby increasing uncertainty, which would also hold back new investments (Friedman, 1962). Finally, labour market regulations can make it both more expensive and risky to hire new employees, providing a third channel through which deficient or inefficient regulations significantly increase the transaction costs of reallocation. Consistent with the evidence, this does not prevent a crisis from occurring, but limits its extent as more firms in a flexible economy can react faster and in a more economical way to the challenges and opportunities created by the crisis.
1058
« on: February 13, 2015, 01:40:52 PM »
Of course you don't, despite the CBO's predictions, the U.S. didn't enter a Recession in 2013. What did the CBO say would happen under the " alternative fiscal scenario", which included fiscal austerity induced by tax hikes? With those and other policy changes contained in current law, the deficit will shrink to an estimated $641 billion in fiscal year 2013 (or 4.0 percent of GDP), almost $500 billion less than the shortfall in 2012 (see Summary Table 1). Such fiscal tightening will lead to economic conditions in 2013 that will probably be considered a recession, with real GDP declining by 0.5 percent between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the fourth quarter of 2013 [with unemployment at 9pc] Under a scenario assuming no austerity: In 2013, the deficit would total $1.0 trillion, almost $400 billion (or 2.5 percent of GDP) more than the deficit projected to occur under current law. The economy would be stronger in 2013: Real GDP would grow by 1.7 percent between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the fourth quarter of 2013 [with unemployment at 8pc] How did the U.S. economy do in 2013? RGDP rose by 3.1pc (or 2.2pc depending on your aggregation method), and unemployment hit 6.7pc. Not only did the economy outperform predictions for fiscal austerity, it outperformed the predictions which assumed no austerity. All of this, bear in mind, when austerity as a result of tax cuts are worse than austerity as a result of spending cuts and most of the austerity in 2013 did indeed come from tax cuts. What explains this? In December 2012, the Fed announced an expansion in its quantitative easing programme. Fiscal austerity is a non-issue given accommodative monetary policy.
1059
« on: February 13, 2015, 03:04:20 AM »
If anything there's a correlation between poor socioeconomic status and a lack of fundamentalism. Can we please begin to accept, for once and for all, that beliefs and values motivate behaviour primarily.
1060
« on: February 11, 2015, 01:54:01 PM »
It's tied between both Charlie Hebdo and the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle.
I don't know why, but they elicit strong emotional responses from me.
1061
« on: February 11, 2015, 12:33:35 PM »
>doesn't get ID'd
fuck
i could've been doing this for months
1062
« on: February 11, 2015, 12:07:20 PM »
We ought to show mercy to one another, but be ruthless towards Muslims. How perverse are the Muslims! Strike off the heads of Muslims, as well as their fingertips. Fight those Muslims who are near you. Does that sound like hate speech to you? I should fucking hope so: Spoiler Quran (8:55) - Surely the vilest of animals in Allah's sight are those who disbelieve
Quran (48:29) - Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard (ruthless) against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves
Quran (9:30) - And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah... Allah (Himself) fights against them. How perverse are they!
Quran (8:12) - I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them
Quran (9:123) - O you who believe! Fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the literal word of God, given by the angel Gabriel to--the perhaps epileptic--Mohammad while he sat in a cave. Ignoring the moral and political transgressions committed by the fundamentalists of this religion, to believe it in the first place ought to be some sort of crime against epistemology.
1063
« on: February 11, 2015, 11:50:47 AM »
 I think it accurately reflects the content within.
1064
« on: February 11, 2015, 11:44:37 AM »
 trufaxanybody who doesn't oppose this medieval, barbaric cult of death is implicit in its crimes fuck youcunts
1065
« on: February 10, 2015, 03:23:54 PM »
And today is the day it exploded, and was then resolved. Without trying to sound excessively sanguine, I'm only now realising the toll its taken on me both emotionally and physically. I could sleep for days, and I really have no idea why. But I'm not here to talk about that, I'm here to talk about how fulfilling it is to listen to music like this after it feels like you've overcome something: Post badass/inspirational music/speeches.
1066
« on: February 10, 2015, 03:07:35 PM »
This isn't supposed to be a discussion about religion, hence flood. It's more about how amazing the universe is, which is enhanced by its lack of a creator. Basically, the Universe fucking rocks. To demonstrate:
1067
« on: February 10, 2015, 02:02:13 PM »
They weren't totally wrong.
1068
« on: February 10, 2015, 01:58:23 PM »
obvs /sm/
1069
« on: February 10, 2015, 01:16:59 PM »
Crime involving guns usually involve guns bought and sold illegally--which is, y'know, already illegal--or take place in areas with a pre-existent and severe criminal culture like Chicago which gun control seldom effects. As for places like Texas? Well, I'll let you watch the video.
1070
« on: February 10, 2015, 01:11:45 PM »
I'd go mid-late 1700s.
For the sake of you fucking smart-asses, too, you won't be hampered by the age's poor medical technology.
Don't fucking worry about getting a cold in 300 BCE.
1071
« on: February 10, 2015, 09:55:41 AM »
#Invalid YouTube Link#
Where the happiest smile is Cheney's frown.
1072
« on: February 09, 2015, 03:12:17 PM »
Fuck me Watch for about half a minute from 34:00 on >.>
1073
« on: February 09, 2015, 01:50:38 PM »
There's a lot of confusion about what the burden of proof actually is. Literally, the burden of proof is the requirement of an individual or group to warrant a certain epistemic position.
Atheism does have propositional content. You often hear atheists claim that the burden of proof lies with those making the positive claim--in this case theism--which is by all means absolutely correct but it misses the larger epistemic difference. When theists claim atheists have no proof of their position, it is somewhat misleading for two reasons I) it's often conflated with the assertion "a deity (or deities) definitely do not exist and II) the only evidence you can gain for something's non-existence is negative evidence (or evidence of absence).
However, that doesn't excuse atheism of any burden. The negation of X is necessarily a proposition which entails its own negative evidence, or further propositions with positive evidence themselves. Saying "I don't believe X" is epistemically identical to saying "X is false"; the only difference is a linguistic trick which denotes personal impositions of probability. The burden of proof for both instances is identical, as establishing your lack of belief is exactly the same as pragmatically establishing something's falsehood, otherwise you wouldn't lack belief in the first instance. This isn't a controversial claim to make, like, at all; it's pretty much what every atheist does in a debate when they properly counter theistic claims, but there seems to be a general consensus within the community that atheists lack a burden of proof for their propositions.
The lack of evidence for something--given observation and non-confirmation of positive synthetic propositions--is evidence for the lack of it. And, indeed, positive propositions can contradict other positive propositions; creationism specifically is refuted--not only by the negative evidence of atheism as an ontological claim--but the overwhelming positive evidence of evolution. We should present our evidence for our positive assertions, and we should present our negative evidence to establish the probabilistic assertion of "God doesn't exist".
The burden of proof is not some essence of epistemology, in which propositions take part. It's a functional rule, that applies only insofar as people are willing to refuse or volunteer to uphold it. If the main claiming the invisible unicorn fails to substantiate his claims, his burden of proof should be pointed out repeatedly, but there comes a point where it's worthwhile to break out the infra-red cameras and capture some negative evidence.
1074
« on: February 08, 2015, 05:56:57 AM »
Is there really a significant epistemological difference, here? Because I actually can't see it.
1075
« on: February 07, 2015, 09:04:01 AM »
I'm calling it Meta's Trident because Hume gets his fork and I have a giant ego.
So, I've been working on this for the past hour or so and I thought I'd drop it here. It's essentially an argument against a conception of a theistic (and, perhaps, deistic) deity which relies on three thrusts:
1) Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
2) Analytic propositions don't entail synthetic conclusions.
3) A purely non-empirical deity has no epistemic value whatsoever.
First:
- I demonstrated this with Bayesian probability is that other, very mathsy thread. I think other people grasp it better if I use an analogy, however. The propositions is this: There exists an invisible unicorn around Loch Ness, which floats around on the surface of the water from dusk till dawn and summons a spiritual bear to kidnap nearby, misbehaving children and transports them to his transdimensional nether-realm.
A group of researchers set up camp for a year, and record the loch every night. Alongside this, they gather data about current and historical instances of missing children within a certain radius of the loch and watch for annual patters while comparing it to the data from other regions. They find nothing. This satisfies the three necessary assumptions of: empirical potential; improbability; and a fruitless search for evidence. Nobody is going to argue we can't reasonable the conclude the probable non-existence of such a unicorn and his bear.
Second:
- Analytic propositions don't entail synthetic conclusions. Do I really need to explain this one? It's the entire reason why the ontological argument doesn't work; you can't simply define something into existence.
Third:
- This cuts to the heart of epistemology, itself. But, fundamentally, epistemology comes down to the functional operation of making sure our conceptual frameworks are non-contradictory, and gathering reliable information about the empirical world. A God which is, by definition, non-empirical has no influence and therefore no epistemic value to us whatsoever.
1076
« on: February 06, 2015, 03:24:22 PM »
Flanderisation is the process of a certain characteristic coming to be incredibly important, or effectively the definition of, an individual's personality.
Legit question.
1077
« on: February 06, 2015, 02:14:48 PM »
The first time I saw Ember call this place Sep7fuckmeraw made me laugh a lot.
1078
« on: February 06, 2015, 01:04:28 PM »
Feel free to make some controversial statements about how the Earth is 10,000 years old. The responses of both retards and the easily-baited will be enjoyable alike. https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/99149481
1079
« on: February 06, 2015, 10:25:58 AM »
It frustrates me when people take our liberties for granted.
1080
« on: February 05, 2015, 12:02:08 PM »
The idea that numbers really, actually exist as abstract objects is often a staple of things like Christian apologetics and more Platonic/Schopenhauerian philosophies. I think, however, that this is false.
The idea generally goes that mathematical objects exist; mathematical objects are abstract; and mathematical objects are independent of intelligent agents. Essentially, if humans were extinct then these abstract mathematical objects would still 'exist'. There is, in essence, a transdimensional holding pen of numbers which isn't spatiotemporal. Numbers, under this paradigm, are discovered and not invented.
However, I can quite easily define a mathematical set and label it. If I label a set as the "set of all Huragok". A property of this set is that there is an individual Huragok named Virgil, so whenever we speak of a set of Huragok then Virgil is necessarily included. For any existing Huragok, also, there is another Huragok which constructed it: the constructor.
The constructor of Virgil, however, must also be a Huragok to fit the definitions involved in the set. So for every constructor, there is another constructor. So:
- Virgil
- Virgil-constructor
- Virgil-constructor-constructor
- Virgil-constructor-constructor-constructor
- So on, so forth; we have essentially defined a never-ending train of Huragok.
Now, I'm just making this up (well, Bungie made it up). It was pulled out of somebody's ass. We could've defined two Huragok as necessary for the construction of a single, resulting Huragok, and we'd see a two-stemmed branch extending from Virgil. It's entirely up to me what defines a mathematical set.
Are the Huragok an invention, or a discovery? Do Huragok exist in their own abstract transdimensional way? If the answer is yes then any arbitrary set of elements I define also necessarily exists in their own abstract, transdimensional way. If the answer is no, then numbers too do not exist.
I have literally just demonstrated the process involving the creation of numbers, and all we need to do is alter just how we've defined the set and the elements within. Changing it from a set of Huragok to a set of integers, and changing Virgil to one and constructor to addition (denoted by +). So we get:
- 1
- 1+
- 1++
- 1+++
- 1++++ (ad infinitum)
Counting is just the process of streamlining the informational transaction of additions/increments to the original. So it just becomes:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
This is arbitrary; I've defined this into existence. That is the entirety of mathematics, rules and definitions and axioms. If we're going to say that this exists, then all forms of rules and definitions exist too--such as the rules of blackjack. Following the rules of blackjack just means you're doing blackjack, and it's the same with mathematics.
Even assuming the existence of numbers in this Platonic way, how would you even demonstrate this? There is no metaphysical three which governs the threeness of a collection of oranges. In the same way the empirical togetherness of the properties of oranges define the substance of an orange, it is the same with numbers and a collection of oranges; three is an empirical property of an orange and another orange and another orange.
Math is literally just a conceptual framework for managing information.
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