Talk-Polywell.org

Diogenes wrote:"Vague"? That bastard Children will grow up and commit crimes is a "vague" prediction?

Yes, that's vague. There are plenty of children born outside marriage who don't commit crimes.

If you wanted to show correlation your graphs are poorly chosen.

So are you saying 'there is' or 'is not' a correllation in the (oft posted) graphs above?

I'm saying the graphs are a poor starting point to find out.

Incarceration rate is not crime rate (and even crime rate isn't equivalent to the number of lifetime criminals).
A stacked area graph makes it difficult to properly see the magnitude and change of all but the bottom data series. And the way the data is expressed "as a Ratio of Live Births" is confusing, especially when two out of the three stacked data series should be a subset of "live births" and one isn't. Considering the note below, though, I suspect that none of them is taken as part of the denominator.

So... Diogenes.

How do you explain how childishly easy it is to get to as respectable a moral livelihood as your pet fav Christianity, without as you put it being infected or otherwise fait-accompli'd into said fair livelihood by Christianity's influence? A large part of it requires only to know oneself, as put by some guy from round where the original Diogenes made a name for himself, and recognizing that there is just no actual gain in others' suffering and much gain in helping them be Good. Because, at this point in human evolution at least, we humans have the same Goodness at the heart of us all; even when it's buried so deep under trauma, delusion, etc, as to be out of reach for today's various methods of "therapy".

And how is it impossible to be fair without religion if those monkeys do it? Would you say they are necessarily religious somehow, in their little monkey brains? If I wasn't sitting next to the same kinda 21st century hardware as you are, to have this conversation, I swear I might wink my eyes and suspect I was arguing with some doctor of phrenology.

I swear I might wink my eyes and suspect I was arguing with some doctor of phrenology.

Well in fact you are. If you have been following D as closely as I have you would know that he is not a believer (he has mentioned it around here). His premise is that it would be better for society (him obviously) if you were. And since he knows the tropes by heart he tries to convince you. In a word the man is a sham.

His theory is that without that vengeful god in your head you would be raping, robbing, murdering, and slamming smack. So he attempts to put it in your head even though it is absent from his.

Because of his strange belief he never examines how moral codes arose before Christianity (the Jews actually). As a student of Jewish history I can tell you that the Jews of antiquity borrowed heavily from the cultures they were immersed in with a few ideas of their own. They were particularly fond of Zoroastrian culture and adopted some religious memes from them.

From this one might deduce that certain features of morality are innate and require nothing to enforce them other than being human. The Founding of the US was in its own imperfect way an attempt to find that minimum set of laws everyone could adhere to - thus allowing people of a multitude of cultures to live together. In fact the Jews had come up with a similar idea milena ago with their concept of the Noahide laws. The Jews themselves were burdened with 613 laws (about which a body of common law developed). Non-Jews only had seven. I wrote some on Noahide laws here: http://classicalvalues.com/2008/04/tribalism/

D is in fact more Islamic than American. i.e. without one culture we are doomed. This is in fact a prescription for conflict.

The libertarians are trying to get back to the original concept. "What minimum set of laws can a diversity of cultures operate under." Jefferson got it:

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson is the chief hero of modern libertarians.

MSimon wrote:

The libertarians are trying to get back to the original concept. "What minimum set of laws can a diversity of cultures operate under." Jefferson got it:

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson is the chief hero of modern libertarians.

And the rest of his statment
If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion, by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation

Betruger,

I reprise our most recent little section of this discussion here: http://classicalvalues.com/2013/12/the-new-tribalism/ with the thought of giving it a wider audience. You got a prominent mention.

paperburn1 wrote:

MSimon wrote:

The libertarians are trying to get back to the original concept. "What minimum set of laws can a diversity of cultures operate under." Jefferson got it:

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson is the chief hero of modern libertarians.

And the rest of his statment
If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true religion, by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation

I am not so sure there is a one true religion - they are all true, and they are all false.

I do agree with Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

I do not thing that was TJ intent by that statement (maybe) but he did believe every man had to come to religion. personally I do not believe in a true religion per say. but more like religion is the body that decides the morals of the time and place. A necessary guide post to steer towards but not meant to be all consuming and subject to change.

MSimon wrote:

The libertarians are trying to get back to the original concept. "What minimum set of laws can a diversity of cultures operate under." Jefferson got it:



I am not so sure there is a one true religion - they are all true, and they are all false.

I do agree with Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Teahive wrote:

Diogenes wrote:"Vague"? That bastard Children will grow up and commit crimes is a "vague" prediction?

Yes, that's vague. There are plenty of children born outside marriage who don't commit crimes.

I'm sure there are. That does not address the fact that most of the crime seems to be from the children of single parent families.

Teahive wrote: If you wanted to show correlation your graphs are poorly chosen.

I suspect that that depends entirely on the perceptiveness of the viewer.

Betruger wrote:So... Diogenes.

How do you explain how childishly easy it is to get to as respectable a moral livelihood as your pet fav Christianity, without as you put it being infected or otherwise fait-accompli'd into said fair livelihood by Christianity's influence?

Livelihood? As in vocation? Your choice of words is very confusing, but I think the gist of what you are asking is how do you demonstrate equivalent moral social structure in an society absent Christian influence.


You create one. Or perhaps I should say, You try to create one.

Betruger wrote: A large part of it requires only to know oneself, as put by some guy from round where the original Diogenes made a name for himself, and recognizing that there is just no actual gain in others' suffering and much gain in helping them be Good.

Too intellectual for the lowest common denominator. Without them, it won't work. The advantage of religion is that it is simple to understand.

Betruger wrote: Because, at this point in human evolution at least, we humans have the same Goodness at the heart of us all; even when it's buried so deep under trauma, delusion, etc, as to be out of reach for today's various methods of "therapy".

To be sure, there *IS* goodness in the human heart, but what steers it best is badness. To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, Nobody ever went broke underestimating the goodness of the human race.

Betruger wrote: And how is it impossible to be fair without religion if those monkeys do it?

If you read my earlier comment on the subject, you will notice that monkeys aren't fair. They viciously beat and kill other monkeys outside of their tribe. They also viciously beat and kill monkey's INSIDE their tribe, especially if those monkeys attempt to leave the tribe and set up their own tribe. You should read more about monkeys than just that one experiment which you misinterpret as supporting your position.


Besides that, what about monkey society addresses my point that Christianity was a necessary aspect of an advanced human society? We already know that humans can live a monkey like existence. That's not the point. Whether they can create a large and advanced society with monkey rules of conduct is the point.

Betruger wrote: Would you say they are necessarily religious somehow, in their little monkey brains? If I wasn't sitting next to the same kinda 21st century hardware as you are, to have this conversation, I swear I might wink my eyes and suspect I was arguing with some doctor of phrenology.

I know the feeling. I'm getting the impression i'm arguing with someone who thinks we can make a society work by copying monkeys.

MSimon wrote:

I swear I might wink my eyes and suspect I was arguing with some doctor of phrenology.

Well in fact you are. If you have been following D as closely as I have you would know that he is not a believer (he has mentioned it around here). His premise is that it would be better for society (him obviously) if you were. And since he knows the tropes by heart he tries to convince you. In a word the man is a sham.

His theory is that without that vengeful god in your head you would be raping, robbing, murdering, and slamming smack. So he attempts to put it in your head even though it is absent from his.

Simon, you are a pyromaniac in a field of strawmen. I don't care if individuals believe or not. I argue that it is important to a functional society that MOST people believe. Any objectionable conduct of the few that don't will be disincentivized by the rest of the herd.

MSimon wrote:
Because of his strange belief he never examines how moral codes arose before Christianity (the Jews actually).

Yes indeed. Judaism is the foundation of Christianity.

MSimon wrote: As a student of Jewish history I can tell you that the Jews of antiquity borrowed heavily from the cultures they were immersed in with a few ideas of their own. They were particularly fond of Zoroastrian culture and adopted some religious memes from them.

Simon, you aren't remembering the things I say very accurately. I said all moral systems are evolved, and they are evolved through necessity and utility. Various aspects of the Jewish moral code were developed as a result of consequences in which people DIED. The survivors remembered the lessons learned and passed them down as moral teachings.

All morality is evolved through trial and error, not handed down by some magic sky daddy.

MSimon wrote: From this one might deduce that certain features of morality are innate and require nothing to enforce them other than being human.

That isn't enough. A Blank Slate human cannot be aware of some moral pitfalls (such as incest) without having some means of passing the knowledge of them from those who learned of the bad consequences. Who would know innately that a pig has trichinosis, or that promiscuity can give you a disease?

Some stuff just has to be taught because the only way to learn of it first hand is through tragedy.

MSimon wrote: The Founding of the US was in its own imperfect way an attempt to find that minimum set of laws everyone could adhere to - thus allowing people of a multitude of cultures to live together. In fact the Jews had come up with a similar idea milena ago with their concept of the Noahide laws. The Jews themselves were burdened with 613 laws (about which a body of common law developed). Non-Jews only had seven. I wrote some on Noahide laws here: http://classicalvalues.com/2008/04/tribalism/

D is in fact more Islamic than American. i.e. without one culture we are doomed. This is in fact a prescription for conflict.

Unlike what we have now? I see Balkanization all around me. The nation is breaking up along every fault line. There is no common glue to bind us together anymore.

MSimon wrote: The libertarians are trying to get back to the original concept. "What minimum set of laws can a diversity of cultures operate under." Jefferson got it:

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson is the chief hero of modern libertarians.

Thomas Jefferson is naive on this point. Had he made the acquaintance of some radical Islamists, I dare say he would have to rethink his statement.

Oh, but wait! He did! What was his response?




Practical experiment beats theorizing every single time.

Interestingly the painting was meant to capture the honor of the fight between Decatur and the opposing Captain (can't think of his name right now). A close thing, and Decatur almost got himself dead.

The other real point to all of it was to justify the money spent on building the navy to go do the job. Of course we don't do things that way anymore, you know, like tax something to provide support for it. Now we tax everything we can figure out how to and then toss the money in a big pot and burn it.

To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, Nobody ever went broke underestimating the goodness of the human race.

I like to phrase that as pursuit of self interest being a constant of human nature.
(scope of self varying some with upbringing, and enlightenment to guide the pursuit being anything but constant.)
(for that matter, a constant of the nature of any successful species.)

As for the value of religion, a successful religion embraces memes that promote survival and expansion of the people. Religions embracing memes contrary to survival adapt or die. Protestant Christianity, so influential in the US for many years, is an amazing success judged by the prosperity of the people who followed it. And now that the US is turning away from those values, it and the world that so greatly prospered by indirect blessings are facing a very great spot of "bad luck".