What exactly happens if we encounter another intelligent species? Would morality then change to account how humans should behave towards them? Or will it always be about humans rather than consciousness?

It would depend on the experiential capacity of those aliens. They could have less, equal or more moral worth than us based on their capacity as conscious agents to experience and interact with reality.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 27, 2015, 07:10:48 PM

The ultimate ideal of human flourishing is merely a necessary one in order for any conception of morality to cognitively make sense. Whether or not we place different stock in different methods of reaching such a position is irrelevant to the existence of moral facts.

For instance, anti-natalism isn't about the negation of flourishing. It's about the impossibility of flourishing, and the best form of flourishing being the complete negation of life. For instance, zero net flourishing is mathematically superior to negative-one-hundred flourishing.

And is morality something we should follow or something that exists? Do we need to follow morality? Does morality need to exist?

Morality is merely a guideline on how one ought to exist. There's a distinction between how people should act, and then how they act. A lot of scientists and men of considerable intelligence have behaved in ways which could be considered immoral, even if they thought they were doing the right thing.

I'm not sure what you're driving at by asking if it 'exists' either. It's clearly not a material entity; it's a set of propositions that relate to the well-being of agents which can experience the world, which should inform our behaviour.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 27, 2015, 07:02:09 PM

Quote from: challengerX on January 27, 2015, 06:42:26 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 27, 2015, 06:36:03 PM

Quote from: Kinder Graham on January 27, 2015, 06:23:32 PM

Obama is just as white as he is black.

Absolutely this.

The guy's fucking half-caste, not black.

He's predominantly black.

How does that work?

He has one black parent, one white.

Challenger is actually technically right. Obama's white mom actually has a distant black relative, believe it or not.

Distant being the key word.

The guy is, for as much as it matters, biracial. I think we have a higher degree of sensitivity to biraciality in England--or so I've heard--but I really don't see where this idea of Obama being the first 'black' president.

He isn't. Show me a president with two black parents--that's a black president.

Not that his race should fucking matter in the first instance.

I am now a member.

Oh fuck me what have I done.

i dont use this website because it looks fucking gay, but this is how i found your profile:

Well, I am a dirty Greenspan shill.

a level of maturity and respect

I'd rather they were intelligent.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 27, 2015, 05:16:49 PM

It genuinely disheartens me to see just how idiotic that place is in comparison to here.

I didn't even think it was possible, but fuck me there are some stupid motherfuckers walking around.

That place is actually far more enjoyable imo

It makes me angry far too often. The only people I really enjoy talking to are people like Divair and Waller. People like the guy in the OP, TheLlama, Oli and AndWhyNot are just infuriatingly stupid.

Quote from: Mad Max on January 27, 2015, 05:07:02 PM

Quote from: Kinder Graham on January 27, 2015, 04:57:11 PM

>yfw people will now spend even more money to get a 4+ year degree to be attractive

I don't see how this makes 4-year degrees more expensive.

Supply and demand. You have more kids trying to apply for college and they'll raise the standards.

*prices

Standards will drop.

So what exactly is this video about? How he hates his mother or something?

Pretty much; he's an advocate for people cutting off contact with their families if their values don't correspond with his own.

I swear to God the guy is a grade-A narcissistic misogynist. I enjoy his videos, and think he supports his arguments fairly well, but the guy's clearly got some fucking skeletons.

This is one of Stefan's better videos, I think. He tends to hit the mark when it comes to education; he has a brilliant video on how the education system in Europe contributed to the First World War.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on January 27, 2015, 03:14:29 PM

Credential inflation is a huge problem.

I too like Molyneux, at least when he isn't talking economics.

Is that the same guy you were going a counter argument video towards?

Yeah, I need to get round to that sometime.

I suppose there's more to monetary policy than just interest rates, but when I learned it it was described by the interest rates; high is generally tight, low is generally easy. I'd still say money was loose prior to the 20's, though money was expanding in the 20's, and even though rates were increasing they were still being kept low artificially.

That's generally the consensus among the economic establishment, yet in economic textbooks by the likes of Frederic Mishkin and comments by economists like Ben Bernanke and Milton Friedman there's quite a clear theme that associating looseness with low rates--or vice versa--can lead to confusion. I can't remember who it was, but at least one economist came to conclude that because of incredibly high interest rates, the hyperinflation in Weimar Germany wasn't a result of loose money.

There's a really interesting disconnect between what's in the textbooks, and what economists seem to actually think when push comes to shove. I can't bring myself to agree that money was easy by any proper measure throughout the 1920s or early 2000s, but then again I'm a dirty shill for Alan Greenspan so some bias could be creeping in >.>

when we're talking about loose or tight monetary policy we're literally talking about the artificial rates the Fed is imposing.

The point being that's a bad way of judging monetary policy, especially when we have metrics like inflation and aggregate nominal income. Using interest rates only ever work if you can isolate the short-term liquidity effect from a monetary injection or reduction (as we could in, say, 1987), but when rates move for other reasons it can give dangerous impressions about what the Fed is doing or what it can or can't do. Fundamentally, viewing interest rates as the prime indicator leads to a credit- and debt-driven view of the economy which, at least to me, doesn't seem terribly justified.

Also, thanks for engaging in this conversation by the way. Probably the first serious discussion about economics I've had here.

Loose money in the 20's that allowed for a bubble and subsequent stock market crash, followed by an overcorrection of tight money that strangled banks and individuals struggling to recover. Similar situation in the 2000's.

I don't see how money was loose during the Roaring Twenties when deflation was a constant worry for the economy; and I don't see how money was loose in the 2000s when the bubble (which I'd argue was irrelevant and probably not even a bubble to begin with) had begun developing in 1997.