Tag: trainwreck

The discussion at R. Scott Bakker’s Three Pound Brain has continued and sprouted numerous branches, and yet Wängsty himself has thus far resolutely refused to provide any definition of “certainty” or “uncertainty” despite the fact that his entire philosophical framework appears to rest upon them.  Here is but one of several comments that I have made there in answering the various questions of his commenters even as Bakker continues to avoid answering mine.

Why is he so reluctant to provide definitions for his central terms?  Is he afraid that his entire philosophical edifice will tumble to the ground if he exposes it to criticism?  Or is it only that the certainty of a definition would be less moral than the uncertainty of a non-definition, so he is simply attempting to abide by the ethos of his doubt-filled creed?

First, I’d like to point out that I’ve been answering many questions, whereas Scott still hasn’t deigned to define
certainty or uncertainty for us, which has prevented us from proceeding
with the main subject. So, how about it, Scott? Are you cool with the
dictionary definitions or is Delavagus correct and you have something
else in mind?

Just for the sake of clarity, you advocate attempting to convince
all women to voluntarily not work. You don’t advocate forcing them to
not work, right?

I don’t think it’s necessary to force anyone not to work. Most women
of the important class don’t really want to, not after they have actual
experience of it. But I would go a little farther than simply
attempting to convince women, I advise removing the incentives that
encourage women to enter the labor force and provide them with
incentives to bear and raise children instead.
The basic problem is that since the doubling of women in the labor
force from 1950 to 1975, and concomitant reduction of wage rates,
married women who don’t want to work are forced to if they wish to
maintain the standard of living a one-income family once had.

Is this [changing  positions on the drug war] really an example of you being (proven) wrong, though? It was incompatable with your beliefs.

Yes. A friend pointed out the logical inconsistency to me.

Is there some method by which you could be shown to be wrong on
the womens rights (or even shown to not be so certain of how it aught to
be)? You seem to say your belief changed – but what was the changing
method and can anyone else have a hand in that?

Of course. But it’s unlikely, since I’ve looked at it in more depth
than most. The method involved looking at the societal effects over the
course of the last 90 years, and it rapidly became clear that the
predictions made by opponents of women’s suffrage were largely correct
and those made by its supporters were incorrect. Furthermore, there are
a whole host of problems, mostly rooted in economics, that were never
anticipated by either side.

Seems a legacy argument? Legacy, Eg: Well, if we give all these
slaves freedom, who will work the plantation! Economic ruin! Thus
slavery aught to continue.

No, you’re making the mistake of confusing a forward-looking
perspective with a retrospective one. In the correct analogy to the
case we’re discussing, we’re considering that pro-slavery argument from
amidst the economic ruins. As it happens, that pro-slavery argument was
subsequently proven wrong by events, as were the pro-suffrage
arguments.

if we assume that women are technically human, and we assert that
we value human liberty, shouldn’t we support their desire to work as
much as we would support a man’s desire to smoke some nice (almost)
harmless weed due to both being a special case of general human liberty ?

Not necessarily. This is the common error committed by many of my
fellow libertarians. For example, consider open borders. That
seemingly libertarian position is actually anti-freedom, as there would
be nothing to stop China from sending 30 million Chinese to the UK and
55 million to the USA, gaining voting rights, then voting to sign a
treaty of surrender to the Chinese government. Maximizing human liberty
in the aggregate is not perfectly synonymous with maximizing all
individual human liberty.

However, if he supports bypassing persuasion and going straight
for coercion, things take a decidedly ominous turn. But relying only on
persuasion immediately suggests the practical improbability of the
proposition, and this is why I think it’s proper to feel uneasy about
even theoretically suggesting it. What really is the point to suggesting
a counterfactual that has no chance of being realized?

There is a long gap between persuasion and coercion. As I said, I
favor incentives, not force. But it’s not a counterfactual that has no
chance of being realized. The coercion and oppression of Western women
by force will come if their behavioral trends are not changed, and
changed in the next 30 years. The socio-sexual and demographic trends
are fairly clear. Who would have imagined, in 1973, when wages peaked
and the divorce/abortion equalitarian program was implemented into US
law, that there would be honor killings in the USA and Europe only
thirty years later?
Societies that rest upon structural incoherencies always collapse
sooner or later. Feminist equalitarianism is actually a less coherent
and less realistic ideology than Soviet communism was, and it probably
won’t last the 72 years that the Soviet system did. It’s only been 39
years and the problems are rapidly building up throughout the West.

If one is to believe them. This is an incredibly amusing letter from a white, deeply liberal, very not-racist woman who is deeply concerned about the insufficient profits of a prospective hip-hop club proprietor:

My name is Jennifer McMillen, and I live only a few doors down from the proposed site of Prime 6. Like most of the folks at the CB6 meeting on Monday night, I too have been concerned about the impending entrance of Prime 6 into our community and our daily lives.

I’m not generally the type of person that speaks up, (I remained silent during the entire Monday night meeting), but in this situation, I’m hopeful that I’ve stumbled onto a solution that makes so much sense for *both* parties that I’m beyond excited to share it with all of you.

First, let me explain what’s at the heart of this conflict: I know for a fact that there’s no single type of establishment (or type of bar/club patron for that matter) that Park Slopers would inherently view as “undesirable.” I don’t think anyone would deny that Park Slopers are about the least “racist” people on the planet.

What IS causing strife in this situation is that over the last ten years, Park Slope has become a family-oriented and family-centric community. This can be annoying at times – believe me, as someone who has chosen not to have children, I’m more than aware of the self-entitled attitude that often pervades parts of our community.

Nevertheless, it’s just a fact that in this neighborhood, family comes first.

Prime 6 has to realize this – but at the same time – Park Slope families need to realize that this is a free country, and that Prime 6 has a right to exist. Furthermore, no one can legally stop the owners from doing what it is they’re going to do.

So here’s the gist of my big idea: Isn’t there some middle ground between this spot being a stroller repair shop and it being a full-on hip-hop club?

No one can change the fact that Prime 6 WILL exist – they have their liquor license, and nothing’s going to deter them from opening. BUT: What if owner Akiva Ofshtein could be convinced that his business will see far more financial success as a different kind of nightlife establishment. Instead of focussing on hip-hop and urban entertainment, what if Prime 6 embraced some of the more indie local artists of ALL races who live and perform in the area.

Now, why might this devoutly anti-racist woman imagine that having an establishment devoted to “hip-hop and urban entertainment” would not be compatible with families or white spinsters like herself? What could the problem possibly be?

The only difference between white “racists” like John Derbyshire and avowedly anti-racist whites like Ms McMillen is that the latter completely lacks self-awareness. The observable and provable reality is that every single mentally functioning adult on the planet is racist because racism, in its most commonly recognized form, is nothing more than the possession of a functioning pattern-recognition capacity.

But the woman’s solution is even more amusing than the self-delusion. What a surprise that a liberal white woman would believe that an “indie” club would be more popular than an urban one. After all, doesn’t everyone love, love, love Tori Amos and Sarah Mclachlan?

Peggy Noonan gets the vapors:

But the real war is against women in American public life, in politics and media most obviously, but in other spheres as well. In this war, leaders who are women are publicly demeaned and diminished based on the fact that they are women. They are the object of sexual slurs, and insulted in sexual terms. The words used are vulgar, and are meant to tear down and embarrass. Every woman in American public life knows of it. They talk about it in private. They’ve all experienced it.

Here are some of the words that have been hurled the past few years at public figures who are female: “slut,” “whore,” “prostitute,” “bimbo.” You know the other, coarser words that have been used. But the point is, these are not private insults. They are said in public. This is something new in American political life, that women can be spoken of this way.

Wait, I thought they wanted equality… they wanted equality, right? So, why shouldn’t one call a slut a slut? Now, I am thankfully not privy to the details of Ms Sandra Fluke’s sex life, but given that we know she is a 30 year-old unmarried woman who claims to spend $3,0001,000 on birth control annually, I think that “slut” is probably a significant understatement. According to the Internet – that same Internet which Ms Noonan holds responsible for giving her the vapors – a box of 12 Trojan Magnum XL Condoms is $9.29.

So, we can conclude that if Ms Fluke requires $1,000 annually, she must be having sex around 3,8751,292 times per year. Frankly, it’s amazing that she has any time to attend her law school classes, much less testify before Potemkin Congressional panels.

Noonan claims openly expressed male contempt for women is “the real war on women”, which is more than a little ironic, as her argument is only likely to generate more contempt, especially among the sort of men who tend to believe that the abortion of millions of female babies every year is an activity much more deserving of the title.

This is an actual dialogue from the comments that I felt deserves to survive the heat death of CoComment:

Agnosticon: There’s a lot of mens rea in this argument. [The Divine Hiddenness argument.] It is basically a legal analogy. A rational disbeliever allegedly does not have “guilty mind” and should therefore still be worthy of salvation, however he isn’t, a contradiction. Rational justification here is equivalent to non culpability, while that may not be full justification, it is not unjustified either, it occupies a gray region. I think the argument rests on the assumption that God would be wise enough to perceive this and avoid it, but He doesn’t, hence no God.

VD: It is a stupid and logically invalid argument, as I will demonstrate when I get around to it. And, as I have pointed out on many occasions, legal and moral culpability are two very different things. Regardless, arguing about the fact of God’s existence on the basis of Man’s law is self-evidently stupid.

Agnosticon: At least it doesn’t question beg, as does arguing for the existence of God based on God’s Law.

VD: There is no “at least”, it’s simply invalid. And who is arguing for the existence of God based on God’s Law? If you still think I’m doing that, you’re simply demonstrating your intellectual limitations again.

Agnosticon: I’m not saying that. I’m just anticipating some circularity in the rebuttal to the [Divine] Hiddenness argument, but I’ll wait until you give it.

As a general service to commenters here, let me recommend that you read this and contemplate the wisdom of not publicly attempting to defend an argument that you have made by comparing it favorably with an argument that someone else has not actually made, but that you anticipate them making. Even if an argument is intrinsically flawed, you can’t burn a bloody strawman until the straw is gathered and assembled.

And on a tangential note, I’d be curious to know what the regulars here deem the over/under on the percentage chance that Agnosticon can successfully anticipate the structure of my arguments, much less the actual argument itself?

Gay activists really don’t appear to be all that intelligent. Simply because they’ve been permitted to prance out of the closet with impunity for a few decades across a decadent and declining West, they suddenly think they can start discriminating against the majority of the population who believe, on the basis of considerable material evidence, that homosexuals are an immoral, abnormal, and disease-ridden section of the citizenry:

A restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee refused to serve state Sen. Stacey Campfield, the man who sponsored the state’s “don’t say gay” bill, compared homosexuality to bestiality, and most recently told Michelangelo Signorile that it’s virtually impossible to spread HIV/AIDS through heterosexual sex. “I hope that Stacy Campfield now knows what if feels like to be unfairly discriminated against,” the Bistro at the Bijou wrote on its Facebook wall on Sunday.

Don’t get me wrong. As long as they leave the children alone, I have nothing for or against gays, and I completely support the right of the Bistro at the Bijou to not serve anyone it doesn’t want to serve. I’m a libertarian and I fully support everyone’s right to parachute into Hell, (or for our godless friends, into the Void), in the specific manner of his choosing. Of course, I also support the right of everyone else to choose not to do business with anyone, for any reason, and I am under the impression that, by definition, the population demographics don’t tend to favor the abnormally oriented. It strike me as being akin to bringing a toothpick to the battle of Kursk.

There is some seriously perverse illogic being exhibited here if the gay community thinks it can successfully justify practicing active discrimination against its political opponents while simultaneously decrying everyone else’s ability to exert their Constitutional rights of free association. And it also demonstrates a stunning lack of foresight – although I suppose that’s not really all that stunning among a community dumb enough to actively fight against quarantining the confirmed carriers of a lethal sexual disease – as one would think they would be far more concerned about importing millions of potential voters who believe homosexuals should have walls dropped on them than they are about the fairly conventional opinions of a state legislator.

The consequences of a Straight-Queer discrimination war are just too terrible to contemplate. Think about those poor straight Hollywood actors, choreographers, interior decorators, Broadway playwrights, elementary school teachers, and Republican senators, who would all find themselves shunned by their peers. I have no doubt it would make life very uncomfortable for Rand Paul and at least five or six other men across the country.

One would have to have a heart of stone to fail to be amused by the death of this little punk:

A 65-year-old man who was knocked off his bicycle by three teenagers on a Pennsylvania trail shot two of them, killing one, police said according to reports. The Reading Eagle newspaper said the wounded teen, 16, was taken to hospital and the third, aged 15, was taken in for questioning and was later committed to a youth center…. According to police, the 65-year-old was riding his bicycle when the teens knocked him to the ground, the station said. Police said two teens then assaulted the man, who drew his gun and shot them.

What a pity that’s not on YouTube. Can you imagine the expression on the face of the dying little prick? One moment, he thinks he’s a happy-slapping bad ass impressing his friends with a little casual assault-and-battery and the very next moment, it’s game over. For good. Way to go, tough guy.

Concealed carry is certainly one of the more effective means of teaching the little bastards to show the elderly at least a modicum of respect.