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Messages - More Than Mortal
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4321
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:32:46 PM »
Fine.
I don't really know; you haven't drawn enough attention for me to form an opinion about you. Which is good in a sense, since you haven't pissed me off.
4322
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:31:28 PM »
ok
I think you play off your insecurities with humour; I don't believe you about your wealth; I think your religious views are both hypocritical and stupid; and I find you to be utterly incapable of any kind of extended rational thought. You aren't uptight, though. So there's that.
4323
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:30:18 PM »
HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME
You know when you're so familiar with a person that you're not really sure how to describe them? Kind of feels like that. We have incredibly similar senses of humour, I think, and you've literally never said anything I've found explicitly irritating or idiotic. We get along well, obviously, and that's good enough for me.
4324
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:29:03 PM »
I actually know who you are, so... shoot.
I always thought you were kind of dumb. But, to be honest, it really doesn't bother me. You're not an "idiot", insomuch as you're an uneducated, irritating stain on the boot of humanity; it's more a case of you don't know as much as I'd like (whatever that counts for), but you're willing to learn. I haven't seen you on Sep7 all that much, but from what I remember you're an easy guy to get along with and enjoyable to talk to.
4325
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:26:38 PM »
I'm much more interested in this.
Go for it.
You're kind of a self-righteous faggot. All the same, I enjoy seeing you post because you're a funny guy with a relatively laid back attitude. I like more than I used to, and have a more balanced opinion of you. On the whole you seem like a pretty enjoyable guy to be around, but you can still be an irritating cunt from time to time.
4326
« on: July 08, 2015, 03:22:08 PM »
Apart from all of you being faggots of course.
4327
« on: July 08, 2015, 12:56:13 PM »
I'm not a fan of this policy, per se. That being said, there are two things which should be said in defence of it:
- The increases are incremental, allowing businesses time to accommodate the changes.
- They're slashing employer NI contributions, so labour costs don't explode.
4328
« on: July 08, 2015, 10:52:32 AM »
How can one judge which is the "better" one of these two extremely mundane types of social conditioning?
That seems rather besides the point; all I'm endeavouring to establish is that when it comes down to the real, epistemological concerns about how we judge and make propositions about phenomena, "opinions" have no special status. While the example you provide of vanilla vs. chocolate is apt--it would be a waste of time and resources to pursue any kind of experiment/survey in such an area--I'm more seeking to establish that a deference to "matters of opinion" is an epistemically null process. When it comes to mundane kinds of motivations and differentiations between opinions/unimportant phenomena, then what you say is essentially true. But when we get into more important aspects of human society (morality, religion, society, economics, philosophy) then it becomes not only valid to criticise whatever propositions a person is making, but the priorities that cause them to make that proposition in the first place. Priorities are, of course, the purest form of opinion. But if opinions are nothing more than propositions based on authentic, subjective experience (making them truth-apt regardless) then criticising even a person's priorities (on the basis of certain moral/epistemological presuppositions) becomes totally fair game. If somebody cares more about homelessness than the amount of people on food stamps, and we empirically can demonstrate that--for whatever reason, according to whatever variables--that the latter issue is more socially important then we can absolutely criticise somebody for their focus on homelessness (although such an example is merely to demonstrate logical coherence; there are too many variables to ever be able to empirically say "this is how many people should care, and this is how much they should care" in such a precise manner). You could, of course, say that this is already what we do. But then I'm left to question just what purpose "opinions" serve from an epistemological point of view, and why anybody care about them at all.
4329
« on: July 08, 2015, 09:34:36 AM »
"Chocolate cake is best" is an opinion because it makes no attempt at establishing the context of what "best" means and thus can be answered truthfully by different viewers of the question because they hold differing values. Well, no. If you haven't established the definitions of the words in your claim, it can't be answered properly at all.
4330
« on: July 08, 2015, 09:22:27 AM »
Blurring the line between opinionated statements like "chocolate cake is best" and tangible propositions such as such as "chocolate cake, for the most part, suits the purpose of providing more pleasure for most people better" removes the significance of the word opinion.
At that point, you have to question the significance of opinions in the first place. But the point I'm making is that there is no fundamental, epistemological difference between an opinion and a truth-apt proposition.
4331
« on: July 08, 2015, 09:20:12 AM »
Type 1 civilisation will in fact have one language and one culture, and that does look to be some variation on basic american culture.
I don't think there will be a single language and a single culture by the time humanity reaches Type I energy development, but it's probably fair to say there will be a convergence.
4332
« on: July 08, 2015, 09:10:31 AM »
Financial Times In the strongest language since the start of the six-month stand-off between the far-left government in Athens and eurozone lenders, EU leaders said the No vote in last Sunday’s referendum had severely constrained their ability to offer Greece aid and warned any new bailout deal would include much tougher terms than those that could have been reached just two weeks ago.
“I am strongly against Grexit but I can’t prevent it unless the Greek government do what they need to do,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president. “We have a Grexit scenario prepared in detail; we have a scenario as far as humanitarian aid is concerned.”
The decision to invite all 28 countries to Brussels to deal with the Greek crisis is unprecedented; since Greece first applied for a bailout five years ago, such euro-related summits have only been attended by heads of governments in the common currency.
Earlier on Tuesday, Greek negotiators had stunned eurozone finance ministers by arriving at their meeting without a revised economic reform proposal.
4333
« on: July 08, 2015, 08:57:38 AM »
but the English one has totally fucked it's kids over.
It won't be that bad, given the nature of the debt burden we face after leaving Uni. Everybody seems to forget that how much you pay back is contingent on how much you eventually earn. The higher debt burden isn't nice sure, and it's annoying to me, but I'd take higher maintenance loans over Labour lowering the tuition fees.
4334
« on: July 08, 2015, 08:53:31 AM »
the rest of the budget was pretty good, to be honest
4335
« on: July 08, 2015, 08:39:48 AM »
they're bringing in more loans instead
That's not too bad, so long as the repayment system remains in tact.
4336
« on: July 08, 2015, 08:39:07 AM »
WHAT THE FUCK OSBORNE
GOD DAMN
4337
« on: July 08, 2015, 08:29:31 AM »
Indeed, it's entirely possible that you could perform a global population-wide experiment to determine which kind of cake is objectively the "best" on net. not really though
i don't need to tell you that "more people think x" =/= "x is the best way to think"
if anything, it would just show that, statistically, the average person would be most likely to enjoy x type of cake
some cakes would have a greater probability of being enjoyed, but nothing is absolute
I was talking descriptively, not prescriptively. Like, I don't think it's possible to tell what cake people should enjoy.
4338
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:50:34 PM »
does it matter
Well, yeah. Even priorities come into question then; if you value one thing over another, then it's entirely possible that certain moral and epistemological presuppositions would demand that you change your priorities.
4339
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:48:18 PM »
If machines were to become capable of recursive self programming, their motives would likely be even less familiar to us than organic extraterrestrials who likely underwent a similar evolutionary process. I doubt concepts like narcissism could even be applied to them.
If anything, that's even riskier than creating a hyper-intelligent narcissist. Although, I have to say, I really don't find the whole "non-Euclidean, blue-and-orange value systems" argument very compelling.
4340
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:43:51 PM »
Any government that taxes people on minimum wage is tyrannical. Just not soviet tier.
You were so close.
muh roads
4341
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:39:57 PM »
but I disagree that everything can be boiled down to being objective.
Why? I don't see how you can disagree, except by disagreeing with the opinion that all opinions express a proposition. Which itself is a proposition, which seems fairly air-tight. 1. An opinion is a subjective claim about a certain phenomenon. 2. A proposition is claim which is truth-apt, and thus relates to some objective feature of reality. 3. Opinions arise from objective phenomena. 4. Opinions relate to objective phenomena. C. Opinions are propositions which are empirically quantifiable.
4342
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:31:16 PM »
No. Literally anything can be subjective.
Not really. If you think physics is subjective then you don't understand physics.
4343
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:29:48 PM »
How and why would an intelligent machine running on different hardware develop this trait?
Recursive self-improvement; we have no idea how a hyperintelligent AGI would develop values. It's entirely possible that it would become justifiably narcissistic, viewing itself as a God, and then choosing to no longer support the development of humanity as a species. And yes, Piranha, I'd be down for that.
4344
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:27:55 PM »
If you express an opinion, you're essentially expressing a proposition. So long as the language used is utterly water-tight, then it seems any proposition can be empirically quantifiable.
For instance, let's take the most subjective instance I can think of: "I think chocolate cake is best", where best = providing the most pleasurable stimulus. Immediately you can set up a neurocognitive experiment to determine if chocolate cake is indeed best for the individual in question. It's unlikely that the person in question is wrong about the cake that provides them with the most pleasure, but certainly not impossible.
Indeed, it's entirely possible that you could perform a global population-wide experiment to determine which kind of cake is objectively the "best" on net.
4345
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:10:32 PM »
 like goddamn
4346
« on: July 07, 2015, 09:09:48 PM »
Are you sure?
Tardebigge isn't in my area, that's the other side of bromsgrove to me <.<
That is unless the chodelero Garnier annexed another district with tobacco money in which case, welcome to my constituency.
We drove quite far from the Tardebigge. Just thought I'd give some context.
4347
« on: July 07, 2015, 08:49:39 PM »
Given what little evidence we've actually gathered about evolution and the inherent competitiveness within highly evolved species, it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that if there were some kind of advanced alien species out there capable of receiving our messages, that they could be incredibly militaristic and violent.
One of the more terrifying answers to the Fermi Paradox is that the aliens are hiding. But they aren't hiding from us, they're concealing themselves from a much greater cosmic terror.
In light of such (tentative) possibilities, is it wise for us to wantonly broadcast messages to the stars?
4348
« on: July 07, 2015, 08:36:51 PM »
ACA was a watered down appeasement for the Republicans.
As if the Democrats are any better when it comes to partisanship. They all seem to have collectively forgotten just how the Blue Dogs basically forced Obama's hand when it came to the public choice option.
4349
« on: July 07, 2015, 08:04:45 PM »
Jesus Christ.People like to bag on the US for using floppy disks and shit on their military equipment, but they do it precisely so this doesn't happen. EDIT: Changed "briefly" to "potentially" in the title. The article shoves the word hacker in your face, but really it's a case of speculation about weak-spots. It could have been hackers, but more than likely it was a malfunction.
4350
« on: July 07, 2015, 07:59:19 PM »
Arthur Schopenhauer.
Nihilism.
Socrates.
Euripides.
Immanuel Kant.
Narrow utilitarianism.
Egalitarianism.
Any form of anarchism.
Any economic system which isn't capitalism, barring some kind of post-scarcity situation.
The minimum wage.
Anti-immigration.
Gay marriage.
Richard M. Weaver.
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