Give Me a Urinal or Give Me Death!

#17042

Lsuoma wrote:

Yesterday's news. Must be some other event sponsored by the Religion of Peace happening today.

Incidentally, it appears that he was following a method promoted by ISIS, much like that Real Estate honey trap posted here yesterday.

#17043

Here's a clickable link to that amusing shitshow of an FTB thread: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... d=13937490

It's fucking hilarious. Peez, wankyboy Wagner et al are treating Watson as though she's some sort of great skeptical figure who deserves any platform she wishes - as opposed to a flubby, toxic, booze-sodden turd rapidly descending into the toilet pan of well deserved obscurity. I mean, look at the easy gigs she had: token pair of tits for SGU, writing easy fluff pieces for Popsci about ghost detectors (hey, they don't work, guys! Snark snark!) & the like, and producing half assed Patreon videos for money from the kind of blokes who dream of the oncoming sexbot revolution.

And she managed to fuck them all up.

But no, Dawkins, curse his patriarchal shitlord soul, has robbed the poor atheist plebs of her important and much needed voice!

#17044

Guest_e031317d wrote:still having guest issues. is there a Twitter account to post links instead of trying to get access to post here as guest?

You can't post links as a guest. Accounts are free, and our glorious leader Lsuoma is a vigorous protector of privacy. If you want to continue posting guest links, you'll have to disguise them in some way, like just removing the www. and .com, etc.

#17045

Tigzy wrote:Here's a clickable link to that amusing shitshow of an FTB thread: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... d=13937490

It's fucking hilarious. Peez, wankyboy Wagner et al are treating Watson as though she's some sort of great skeptical figure who deserves any platform she wishes - as opposed to a flubby, toxic, booze-sodden turd rapidly descending into the toilet pan of well deserved obscurity. I mean, look at the easy gigs she had: token pair of tits for SGU, writing easy fluff pieces for Popsci about ghost detectors (hey, they don't work, guys! Snark snark!) & the like, and producing half assed Patreon videos for money from the kind of blokes who dream of the oncoming sexbot revolution.

And she managed to fuck them all up.

But no, Dawkins, curse his patriarchal shitlord soul, has robbed the poor atheist plebs of her important and much needed voice!

A lovely description of the raggedy old boozehound!

Can you archive FB threads? Would you mind doing so for this one?

#17046

"token pair of tits", still making me chuckle.

#17047

Melody Hensley And yes, Dawkins is a big baby [...]

Melody Hensley said that. Let that sink in. Melody Hensley, of all people, called someone else a big baby.

#17048

ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote: Can you archive FB threads? Would you mind doing so for this one?

Just tried it through the Wayback Machine, but it says the page can't be displayed because of the site's robots.txt. Bah!

I'll see if I can get a few screengrabs...

#17049

Tigzy wrote:
Melody Hensley And yes, Dawkins is a big baby [...]
Melody Hensley said that. Let that sink in. Melody Hensley, of all people, called someone else a big baby.

Waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy beyond "obligatory":

https://preview.ibb.co/mKxO3F/Screen_Sh ... _34_PM.png[/url]

#17050

Pz Myers Ken Perrott Oh. You're one of those "Pox on both sides!" people.

That was a good talk on the deep flaws in evolutionary psychology. One of the tells that you're dealing an ignoramus in evolutionary biology is when they try to defend the validity of EP, without realizing that the premises of the discipline have been PROVEN wrong.

What?? Is Myers talking about Watson's legendary EP talk here? The one that's legendary in the sense of how Ed Clint utterly dismembered it, showing everyone what a facile piece of dross it was - and where Peez, wee cock no doubt stirring enthusiastically, leaped to Becky's defence and tried to demolish Clint's rebuttals...by pointing out that Ed Clint is just being a big meanie.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Peez, honestly - have you not yet wanked that girl out of your system yet, after all these years?

#17051

ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:Waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy beyond "obligatory":

https://preview.ibb.co/mKxO3F/Screen_Sh ... _34_PM.png[/url]

M'lady is still my #1 fantasy gal!

And I'm not even joking.

#17052

Tigzy wrote:
Pz Myers Ken Perrott Oh. You're one of those "Pox on both sides!" people.

That was a good talk on the deep flaws in evolutionary psychology. One of the tells that you're dealing an ignoramus in evolutionary biology is when they try to defend the validity of EP, without realizing that the premises of the discipline have been PROVEN wrong.
What?? Is Myers talking about Watson's legendary EP talk here? The one that's legendary in the sense of how Ed Clint utterly dismembered it, showing everyone what a facile piece of dross it was - and where Peez, wee cock no doubt stirring enthusiastically, leaped to Becky's defence and tried to demolish Clint's rebuttals...by pointing out that Ed Clint is just being a big meanie.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Peez, honestly - have you not yet wanked that girl out of your system yet, after all these years?

http://www.skepticink.com/incredulous/2 ... nce-redux/

#17053

Zinnia crazier than usual on twitter

Would be funny if it was not so tumor enducing

#17054

ffs wrote:Zinnia crazier than usual on twitter

Would be funny if it was not so tumor enducing

He's saying GamerGate lead to Trump. They really believe that. Of course, he also believes he's a woman, or at least publicly declares it to be so. Personally I think they're riddled with doubts, which is why they push their narrative so hard.

#17055

Wednesday will mark the unprecedented two-week absence of the Steersbot from the Pit and Twitter. Worry, mourn or celebrate as your conscience dictates.

#17056

From Evergreen St, where knowledge and literacy are paramount

#17057

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:
ffs wrote:Zinnia crazier than usual on twitter

Would be funny if it was not so tumor enducing
He's saying GamerGate lead to Trump. They really believe that. Of course, he also believes he's a woman, or at least publicly declares it to be so. Personally I think they're riddled with doubts, which is why they push their narrative so hard.

Pfft. Dawkins birthed Gamergate, the Alt Right, and neo Nazis. So it was Dawkins who lead to...

http://imgur.com/gawYV94.png

Guest_440911e7 · #17058

This is outside the normal pit menu, but I think many pitters would enjoy listening to this podcast by The Dollop going down the laundry list of what a sociopath Travis Kalanick is and what a sociopathic company Uber is.

It's an 103 minutes, but it can be listened to quite easily at 1.5x speed or even greater.

tl;dr

Travis Kalanick is a sociopath.
Uber is a horrible company that if it succeeds will fuck us all over by changing how companies do business for all time.

It's tragic, and it will make you laugh. Or cry.

#17059

So how bad is the 'science' at Evergreen?

The biology dept. offers a course called: “Reproduction: Gender, Race, and Power.” The course will provide students with “an overview of human reproduction,” but will pay “attention to gender and race as vectors of power that affect how reproduction is discussed, legislated, and experienced in the United States.”
...
Another course the college offered its junior and senior students in 2016 was entitled “Feminist Epistemologies: Critical Approaches to Biology and Psychology.” Professors allegedly built the course to help students discover how “knowledge is generated from a feminist theoretical perspective.”

To achieve its stated goal, students read “feminist philosophy of science, sociological studies on science and how it operates in society, research on women scientists, and critical deconstructions of sociobiology and the related field eof volutionary psychology.”

This is right up there with Nazi archaeology and Stalinist genetics. And I'm sure Maoist China have some pretty crazy shit in their science departments because they had soem pretty crazy shit in their opera department.

I wonder if Evergreen has someone with a fancy job title that comes down to "The Commisar in charge of making sure all science classes adhere to Post Modernism fem/gen/race protocols."

Guest_440911e7 · #17060

I wonder if Evergreen has someone with a fancy job title that comes down to "The Commisar in charge of making sure all science classes adhere to Post Modernism fem/gen/race protocols."

As a non-academic, this is why I've long been disgusted that we never hear from STEM departments about the corruption of science that occurs in the gender studies programs at the same Universities.

No, to be a faculty member at U of X, seems to mean, we don't talk negatively about the other faculty and other departments at X.

So where is the academic feedback loop that lets academia be self-correcting?

And if there is no academic feedback loop, or if the feedback cycle is measured in decades, why should I care if taxpayers say defund it all? Yeah that would hurt STEM and other fields, but maybe it would give all academics a sense they need to participate and can't ignore the rot.

#17061

Ape+lust wrote:
Pfft. Dawkins birthed Gamergate, the Alt Right, and neo Nazis. So it was Dawkins who lead to...

http://imgur.com/gawYV94.png

This tweet exchange pained me, not because of its idiocy (no surprises), but because "Mayday" wrote "Like did he have 2 have someone tell him...".

Urgh, makes my skin crawl. I know there's a character limit, but if writing "to" instead of "2" breaks that, then lose the fucking "like", you utterly ridiculous cunt.

*And breathe out, 2, thr33, and relax, tooth, reeeeeeeeeeeeeee...*

#17062

Mothra's Dentist wrote:From Evergreen St, where knowledge and literacy are paramount

Ah, the importance of education. The cadence, the elocution of the trained orater always shine through. My tax dollars hard at work.

#17063

#17064

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:Wednesday will mark the unprecedented two-week absence of the Steersbot from the Pit and Twitter. Worry, mourn or celebrate as your conscience dictates.

He'd said his ex had been giving him grief for spending so much time here.

So, maybe he's been getting some boonga-boonga for being a good boy :dance:

#17065

Ape+lust wrote:
CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:Wednesday will mark the unprecedented two-week absence of the Steersbot from the Pit and Twitter. Worry, mourn or celebrate as your conscience dictates.
He'd said his ex had been giving him grief for spending so much time here.

So, maybe he's been getting some boonga-boonga for being a good boy :dance:

Or she killed him for being so annoying.

Taking all bets!

#17066

ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:
Ape+lust wrote:
Pfft. Dawkins birthed Gamergate, the Alt Right, and neo Nazis. So it was Dawkins who lead to...

http://imgur.com/gawYV94.png
This tweet exchange pained me, not because of its idiocy (no surprises), but because "Mayday" wrote "Like did he have 2 have someone tell him...".

Urgh, makes my skin crawl. I know there's a character limit, but if writing "to" instead of "2" breaks that, then lose the fucking "like", you utterly ridiculous cunt.

*And breathe out, 2, thr33, and relax, tooth, reeeeeeeeeeeeeee...*

:D

For a break, go watch Danielle Muscato or Arthur Chu tweet for a while. Every so often those socially stunted dorks decide they're Down Wit' the Bruthas and start using Black street lingo. They'd jump on your neck for culturally appropriating a taco recipe, but somehow they think it's okay to act out their Black hipster fantasies like it ain't no thang. It's fucking painful to watch :lol:

#17067

Ape+lust wrote:

This was the scariest part of the Alien films - when the mouthparts of the queen protrude like that.

#17068

Speaking of the prodigals... from PZ's Facebook thread today :D

http://imgur.com/7SNDTmp.png

#17069

Speaking of which, I finally found the photo again that launched the whole riff with Aneris.

https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21781.jpg

The picture was enjoined with the quip "It doesn't get any more German than this."

To be honest, I can't blame the guy for liking the photo. (.)(')

I blame Aneris for laying the pipes.

#17070

(.)(')

You've got the breasts out of wack

[youtube][/youtube]

#17071

Kirbmarc wrote:
free thoughtpolice wrote:Baboon cartomancer comments on who is really causing those terrorist attacks:
The whole conversation needs to change. Yes, terrorism is unforgivable, but we should be talking about what we’ve done to provoke it and recognising the sordid history of imperialistic oppression that has led us to this point. Because it’s not a problem everyone has. We’ve seen attacks in Paris, in New York, in Manchester and in London. We have not seen them in Tokyo or Rio or Moscow or Shanghai.
Hmm. There are a fair number of terrorist attacks in NW China in spite of extremely heavy security. Most of the Uighur Chinese terrorists are
now working in Afghanistan and Syria. Likewise, there have been as many or more attacks in Russia than in the US or any one European country as well as a decades long civil war in Chechnya and Dagestan that has caused the deaths of many thousands. They tend to not get as heavy a press coverage as attacks on the west. There are very few muslims in Rio and Tokyo.

Which is part of the answer to forementioned baboon: our colonial past simply means we've got more immigrants from the colonies than China, Russia et alii. Yet, where are all the Hindu attacks in Britain? Or did the Brits treat the Indian population so much better than the Arabs? The Dutch had a short bout of Moluccan terrorism in the seventies, but it was quelled swiftly and no other Indonesian in the low countries seems involved in terrorism of any kind.

Also, if the argument is that we plundered and impoverished them, how come the richest Arab countries seem to be the driving force behind all this?

#17072

Bhurzum wrote:
Steersman wrote: :-) Seems "The Singularity" is still some ways off. Though periodically think that it is a very long ways off, that machines may never exhibit the heart and soul that characterizes the best of humanity. Although one might argue that they ace the worst of it. But a favorite song that kind of encapsulates that difference:

[.youtube][youtube]

Catchy tune, not the type of music I listen to but I can certainly appreciate it for what it is.

When it comes to the light/dark side of the human condition, this is more to my tastes...

[.youtube][/youtube]

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nickcave ... ysbar.html (darker than a Goth's sock drawer)

:P

:-) Definitely rather dark - pitch black in fact so expect that even a "Goth's sock drawer" is no match for it.

But the "human condition" is certainly a study in contrasts, and what drives people to those extreme actions is one of the more interesting if "problematic" cases. Reminds me of having watched The Iceman Cometh starring Lee Marvin when I was a rather callow fellow of 20-25; I was rather decidedly shocked by the stark portrayal of a story that seems pretty much along the line of that described in Cave's lyrics:

[youtube][/youtube]

Kind of reminds me of a video of Jordon Peterson that someone had linked to earlier:

[youtube][/youtube]

The "money shot" from the latter's synopsis:

What's irrational about acting in pure self interest once you abandon all grounding in the transcendent?

Complex issue in itself but the philosopher/biologist Massimo Pigliucci alludes to a more or less famous summary of the problem by the English philosopher David Hume in his critique of Sam Harris' somewhat misguided argument that "science can answer moral questions" - even if he does tend to go off into the weeds:

Pigliucci wrote:As Hume famously pointed out in his Treatise of Human Nature, “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger,” meaning that no matter what logic tells us, we are motivated to act only if we are endowed with certain emotional reactions against, say, injustice.

And if the self - or self-interest - is the measure of all things, if there are no principles or values that transcend it, then it is maybe not surprising the consequences that follow. Although transcendence, particularly the manifestation envisioned by Peterson, is not without its pitfalls too. Seems that "we", ideally at least, walk a knife's-edge path between crashing on the rocks of Scylla or Charybdis, between losing ourselves in our selves and losing our selves in a group of one sort or another. So to speak. :-)

#17073

Ape+lust wrote:http://imgur.com/VyoKZjn.jpg

Bomb hearts!! Peez, you are such a card :clap:

Now map this chart against average age of incident.

#17074

Ape+lust wrote:Speaking of the prodigals... from PZ's Facebook thread today :D

[.img]http://imgur.com/7SNDTmp.png[/img]

:-) Guess she must have been lurking about and thought to, quite reasonably, correct the (manifest and multiudinous) errors of PZ's ways. ;-)

Though I'm not entirely sure that Dawkins wasn't, to some degree, "guilty" of the same "deplatforming" of Watson that he's, justifiably, complaining about in other situations. The problem of categorical "rules of engagement" - difficult to conceive of all possible cases where any rule is and isn't justified without raising the question of self-serving biases of one sort or another.

#17075

In regards to the fair maiden's picture, I was curious as to it's original source and intention.

Through tineye's history I found what appears to be the collection of the original photographer. He definitely enjoys nudity. And the male subject in some of his photos kinda look like a swastika, but they are not upon closer inspection.

This photo here from the "Cult of the Sun" collection entitled "Heaven & Earth" reasonably rules out Neo-nazi inclinations.
https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21791.jpg

Not bad work overall. I think our resident bigfoot lover might enjoy this.
Here is the photographer's collection
http://www.pbase.com/azsacra

#17076

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:
Steersman wrote:
Bhurzum wrote: <snip>

He's back! He's back! Yippee! Woohoo!

[.img][/img]
:) Hard to stay away - even if the "little woman" (my ex in point of fact) rakes me over the coals for partaking of the cut and thrust here. :( Such is life. :)
If "partaking of the cut and thrust" is in reference to your hookers, you might engender a visit by the authorities.

Oxford Dictionaries wrote:cut and thrust
PHRASE

1A lively and competitive atmosphere or environment. ‘the cut and thrust of political debate’

Do you always go with the most uncharitable interpretation with everyone or just with me?

#17077

He's back! He's back! How glad are we he's back? This glad:

[youtube][/youtube]

#17078

deLurch wrote:Speaking of which, I finally found the photo again that launched the whole riff with Aneris.

https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21781.jpg

The picture was enjoined with the quip "It doesn't get any more German than this."

To be honest, I can't blame the guy for liking the photo. (.)(')

I blame Aneris for laying the pipes.

Am I crazy or are the spinning dancers starting to look better around here?

#17079

Steersman! You're back!

[youtube][/youtube]

Steersman wrote:
<snippy>

The "money shot" from the latter's synopsis:
What's irrational about acting in pure self interest once you abandon all grounding in the transcendent?
Complex issue in itself but the philosopher/biologist Massimo Pigliucci alludes to a more or less famous summary of the problem by the English philosopher David Hume in his critique of Sam Harris' somewhat misguided argument that "science can answer moral questions" - even if he does tend to go off into the weeds:
Pigliucci wrote:As Hume famously pointed out in his Treatise of Human Nature, “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger,” meaning that no matter what logic tells us, we are motivated to act only if we are endowed with certain emotional reactions against, say, injustice.
And if the self - or self-interest - is the measure of all things, if there are no principles or values that transcend it, then it is maybe not surprising the consequences that follow. Although transcendence, particularly the manifestation envisioned by Peterson, is not without its pitfalls too. Seems that "we", ideally at least, walk a knife's-edge path between crashing on the rocks of Scylla or Charybdis, between losing ourselves in our selves and losing our selves in a group of one sort or another. So to speak. :-)

No, science, and more in general reason, can't answer questions of absolute, inherent value ("Is X inherently better than Y?"), that much is clear. In science, or more in general applying rational schemes derived from axiom (maths, rational morality schemes) you can only answer questions of conditional value ("Is X better than Y if your goal is Z?").

However it's a bit disingenuous of Peterson to say that there's nothing irrational about acting in "pure" self-interest once you abandon all grounding in the transcendent. Humans are social animals (ζῷον πολιτικόν, to quote Aristotle).Morality is intrinsically tied to interactions between humans. Pure self-interest is poison to the survival of your kin or of your group. Indeed natural selection explains very well WHY humans act according to some "proto-moral" principles (kin selection and selection of group-friendly qualities). Today we even have a rough understand as to HOW morals operate.

Jonathan Haidt's scheme, for example, is a simple model for the different sources of moral classification of actions. Reciprocity ("tit-for-tat") and in-group morality/out-group hostility are other ancillary models, which can rationally tested and applied, to understand the development of human morals. And of course starting from moral axioms one can easily rationally construct different moral models (divided into roughly three big categories: deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics).

The problem comes when one looks at the axioms of the many different moral schemes and models which have been formulated through the ages. As with each model of mathematics (Peano, Zermelo-Fraenkel, Euclidian geometry vs. non-Euclidian geometry), each scheme of rational morality NEEDS axioms and is likely an incomplete scheme (they can't be applied consistently to all moral situations).

Physics uses different mathematical models according to different situations. For example sometimes Euclidian geometry is fine for describing a phenomenon, sometimes non-Euclidian geometries work better. Likewise, when applying rationally constructed moral schemes to reality the question is which scheme is more useful for our goals, which are of course situational (for example there's no need for a moral scheme for your actions on the internet without the internet).

"Which set of moral axioms is better at aligning with our moral instincts in the current social framework?" is of course an open question, one that might not have not have a single answer, or even a definite answer, but it's worth exploring rationally, basing one's reasoning also on scientific developments.

The interesting thing is that this question doesn't simply go away by adopting a transcendent grounding for your morality. Justifying your choice of moral axioms as the product of the will of a transcendent entity doesn't tell you much about how they align with your moral instincts in the current social framework.

Peterson answers to this challenge by trying to point out the evolutionary success of a transcendent grounding, which isn't a particularly bad argument as far as justifications for axioms go ("These moral axioms lead us this far, so they're probably useful").

However it's known that a transcendent grounding can easily lead to extinction (for example in suicide cults). It's also known that in general a feature which has worked very well in a specific environment can become a hurdle in another environment (one example is sickle-cell anemia, a trait which is adaptive in malaria-infested environments, but maladaptive in absence of malaria). It's already possible that this might be the case for some specific sets of axioms based on transcendent grounding which have survived for centuries (an example is the degeneration of islam into a justification of suicide, that could further degenerate into a justification of mass suicide, or more realistically or termonuclear war, if some strains of islam completely prevailed over others).

So the onus of proving that his specific set of axioms based on transcendent grounding is still adaptive is on Peterson. It's also possible that a different set of axioms, not based on transcendent grounding, might be more adaptive than Peterson's set. "It's worked so far" isn't necessary evidence that it will work in the future (as it is shown by the problem of the inductivist turkey).

#17080

deLurch wrote:Speaking of which, I finally found the photo again that launched the whole riff with Aneris.

https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21781.jpg

The picture was enjoined with the quip "It doesn't get any more German than this."

To be honest, I can't blame the guy for liking the photo. (.)(')

I blame Aneris for laying the pipes.

She was just prepping for a hamstring stretch.

http://www.12minuteathlete.com/wp-conte ... trings.jpg

#17081

By jove, I think you are right. It is all about proper stretching.

http://m4.i.pbase.com/o5/85/715585/1/69 ... 60.027.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/azsacra/root

#17082

You find the dampest things on The dark web

http://i.imgur.com/Z4PaVbU.jpg

#17083

Billie from Ockham wrote:
Steersman wrote: :) Hard to stay away - even if the "little woman" (my ex in point of fact) rakes me over the coals for partaking of the cut and thrust here. :( Such is life. :)
Have you considered the possibility that she wouldn't be your ex if you did some of your thrusting in person, instead of on-line?

No ideas on the cutting.

Periodically. However, while sex is apparently and frequently, for many couples, what bridges the gaps between "irreconcilable differences", it also frequently only works for a short while - "until the fire goes out", to coin a phrase. But many couples also seem to find other interests and values - kids or pets or The Party or "making the world safe for democracy" for examples - that transcend (so to speak) or supplement or complement that one to ensure that the relationship continues on a more or less even keel.

And while that wasn't possible for us, we did wind up building a cabin on a lake, more or less from the ground up - even if that is and was a decidedly mixed blessing in many ways, that provided a reasonable facsimilie thereof; feel kind of fortunate that the upshot of that is a durable and beneficial friendship that has survived thick and thin for over three decades. Even if periodic get-togethers frequently re-emphasizes the wisdom of Katherine/Audrey Hepburn's observation that men and women, in general, shouldn't live together - they should just visit each other. :-)

#17084

Shatterface wrote:
Really? wrote:This is Evergreen's SJW strike force. Be afraid, white supremacist Nazi assholes.

https://i.imgur.com/H0e8jOc.jpg
These are the Armies of The Night. They are 60,000 strong. They outnumber the cops three to one. They could run New York City. Tonight they're all out to get the Warriors.

[youtube][/youtube]

Exactly what I thought. All the knowledge that these 'Evergreen' lot have about street gangs comes from "The Warriors". They think the fashion is the most important part of it !

#17085

BTW,

If anyone is interested, this article purports to explain why Qatar is in the bad dog box.
The $1bn hostage deal that enraged Qatar’s Gulf rivals

The money shot:

“If you want to know how Qatar funds jihadis, look no further than the hostage deal,” said a Syrian opposition figure who has worked with an al-Qaeda mediator on hostage swaps in Syria. “And this isn’t the first — it is one of a series since the beginning of the war.”

Of course there is probably a bunch of stuff not up for public consumption. But do read the whole thing.

#17086

http://i.imgur.com/QUlpp5Q.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy ... 00-h281-nc

#17087

Well if god does exist xe has a hell of sense of humour.

#17088

Kirbmarc wrote:Steersman! You're back!

[.youtube][/youtube]

:-) Briefly - not sure whether God is willing but the creek is definitely still rising, and rather precipitously. :-) However, interesting video that will be worth a later and closer listen, although I quite like the reference to the need for controversy - speaking of which, the transcript of Theresa May's talk following the recent London attacks; nice to see that she too is prepared to link, peripherally at least, Islamists and terrorism, even if she's clearly unwilling to lay the blame at the doorstep of Islam itself. ;-)

Though maybe the times, they are a-changin:

Kind of get the impression that even many "cafeteria-Muslims", or the more "spiritual" or less doctrinaire Muslims are recognizing "the monster" - the literalism - in their "holy book" [ha!] Kind of hope that leads to a necessary reformation.

Kirbmarc wrote:
Steersman wrote:
<snippy>

The "money shot" from the latter's synopsis:
What's irrational about acting in pure self interest once you abandon all grounding in the transcendent?
Complex issue in itself but the philosopher/biologist Massimo Pigliucci alludes to a more or less famous summary of the problem by the English philosopher David Hume in his critique of Sam Harris' somewhat misguided argument that "science can answer moral questions" - even if he does tend to go off into the weeds:
Pigliucci wrote:As Hume famously pointed out in his Treatise of Human Nature, “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger,” meaning that no matter what logic tells us, we are motivated to act only if we are endowed with certain emotional reactions against, say, injustice.
And if the self - or self-interest - is the measure of all things, if there are no principles or values that transcend it, then it is maybe not surprising the consequences that follow. Although transcendence, particularly the manifestation envisioned by Peterson, is not without its pitfalls too. Seems that "we", ideally at least, walk a knife's-edge path between crashing on the rocks of Scylla or Charybdis, between losing ourselves in our selves and losing our selves in a group of one sort or another. So to speak. :-)
No, science, and more in general reason, can't answer questions of absolute, inherent value ("Is X inherently better than Y?"), that much is clear. In science, or more in general applying rational schemes derived from axiom (maths, rational morality schemes) you can only answer questions of conditional value ("Is X better than Y if your goal is Z?").

However it's a bit disingenuous of Peterson to say that there's nothing irrational about acting in "pure" self-interest once you abandon all grounding in the transcendent. Humans are social animals (ζῷον πολιτικόν, to quote Aristotle).Morality is intrinsically tied to interactions between humans. Pure self-interest is poison to the survival of your kin or of your group. Indeed natural selection explains very well WHY humans act according to some "proto-moral" principles (kin selection and selection of group-friendly qualities). Today we even have a rough understand as to HOW morals operate.

Jonathan Haidt's scheme, for example, is a simple model for the different sources of moral classification of actions. Reciprocity ("tit-for-tat") and in-group morality/out-group hostility are other ancillary models, which can rationally tested and applied, to understand the development of human morals. And of course starting from moral axioms one can easily rationally construct different moral models (divided into roughly three big categories: deontology, consequentialism and virtue ethics).

The problem comes when one looks at the axioms of the many different moral schemes and models which have been formulated through the ages. As with each model of mathematics (Peano, Zermelo-Fraenkel, Euclidian geometry vs. non-Euclidian geometry), each scheme of rational morality NEEDS axioms and is likely an incomplete scheme (they can't be applied consistently to all moral situations).

Physics uses different mathematical models according to different situations. For example sometimes Euclidian geometry is fine for describing a phenomenon, sometimes non-Euclidian geometries work better. Likewise, when applying rationally constructed moral schemes to reality the question is which scheme is more useful for our goals, which are of course situational (for example there's no need for a moral scheme for your actions on the internet without the internet).

"Which set of moral axioms is better at aligning with our moral instincts in the current social framework?" is of course an open question, one that might not have not have a single answer, or even a definite answer, but it's worth exploring rationally, basing one's reasoning also on scientific developments.

The interesting thing is that this question doesn't simply go away by adopting a transcendent grounding for your morality. Justifying your choice of moral axioms as the product of the will of a transcendent entity doesn't tell you much about how they align with your moral instincts in the current social framework.

Peterson answers to this challenge by trying to point out the evolutionary success of a transcendent grounding, which isn't a particularly bad argument as far as justifications for axioms go ("These moral axioms lead us this far, so they're probably useful").

However it's known that a transcendent grounding can easily lead to extinction (for example in suicide cults). It's also known that in general a feature which has worked very well in a specific environment can become a hurdle in another environment (one example is sickle-cell anemia, a trait which is adaptive in malaria-infested environments, but maladaptive in absence of malaria). It's already possible that this might be the case for some specific sets of axioms based on transcendent grounding which have survived for centuries (an example is the degeneration of islam into a justification of suicide, that could further degenerate into a justification of mass suicide, or more realistically or termonuclear war, if some strains of islam completely prevailed over others).

So the onus of proving that his specific set of axioms based on transcendent grounding is still adaptive is on Peterson. It's also possible that a different set of axioms, not based on transcendent grounding, might be more adaptive than Peterson's set. "It's worked so far" isn't necessary evidence that it will work in the future (as it is shown by the problem of the inductivist turkey).

Interesting observations that I largely agree with, although I need to take a closer look later. But generally it seems to me that while I quite agree with your observations about the limitations of axioms, it seems that the problem is also related to the fact that sometimes one can't ever calculate - even theoretically - the effects of basing one's actions on a particular set of them. I'm currently reading a book - The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved by Mario Livio - that you might like, and that describes the history of the attempts to solve the general quintic equation (x^5 + b*x^4 + c*x^3 + ...). While they were generally unsuccessful, they did lead to the evolution of the group theory, and, apparently from my very limited understanding of the topic, some knowledge about the fundamental limitations of algorithmic calculations.

Which is apparently, maybe arguably, what I think is the fundamental limition of science, of the scientific method, to decide on questions of value. Choosing which sets of values, which sets of axioms, to base "our" actions on is one thing - knowing what the effects will be seems to be quite another; how else can one choose except by knowing the consequences of our choices? Part of the reason why I periodically argue in defense of "faith" - why we frequently have to choose to embark on a course of action even while recognizing that we might well be wrong. Bit of a sticky-wicket, methinks. :-)

#17089

Brive1987 wrote:[.img]http://i.imgur.com/QUlpp5Q.jpg[/img]

[.img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy ... 00-h281-nc[/img]

Still wonder why I stick with the definitions for "man" and "woman" based entirely on the type of gamete produced? There has to be some objective correlate at the bottom of them, no pun intended, or we just wind up "riding madly off in all directions" - largely the description of the entire trans "movement" (AKA manifest delusion if not outright insanity - crazier than shithouse rats).

#17090

The UK goes to the polls on Thursday (8/6/17) and in the very off chance Labour gain power this fucking idiot will be our new Home Secretary, in charge of the security of the whole nation. What a crazy and dangerous time we are living in. :(

#17091

Steersman wrote:
Brive1987 wrote:[.img]http://i.imgur.com/QUlpp5Q.jpg[/img]

[.img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy ... 00-h281-nc[/img]
Still wonder why I stick with the definitions for "man" and "woman" based entirely on the type of gamete produced? There has to be some objective correlate at the bottom of them, no pun intended, or we just wind up "riding madly off in all directions" - largely the description of the entire trans "movement" (AKA manifest delusion if not outright insanity - crazier than shithouse rats).

Too complex. I'm still whiteboarding hypothetical prego-porn between Blaire White and Trystan.

:cdc:

Guest_440911e7 · #17092

Brive1987 » Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:39 am • [Post 17084]

[. img ]

[. img ]

Oh that ain't much. Compare to:

huffingtonpost co.uk/entry/transgender-couple_uk_57ea3d82e4b0e315f28145f9
dailymail co.uk/news/article-3804052/Transgender-man-gives-birth-baby-falling-pregnant-transgender-woman.html
independent co.uk/news/world/americas/transgender-couple-ecuador-fernando-machado-diane-rodriguez-a7326826.html
bbc com/news/av/world-latin-america-37440902/fernando-machado-the-transgender-father-who-gave-birth
metro co.uk/2016/09/23/transgender-man-gives-birth-to-his-female-transgender-partners-baby-6147941/
rt com/viral/360531-transgender-couple-ecuador-baby/
breitbart com/texas/2016/09/27/transgender-couple-gives-birth-makes-history/
mirror co.uk/news/world-news/transgender-couple-become-first-world-8913208
theguardian com/world/2015/dec/24/ecuador-couple-first-transgender-parents-south-america

NEWSFLASH! A biological woman was impregnated by a biological man and then gave birth to a biological baby!

#17093

Kirbmarc wrote:So the onus of proving that his specific set of axioms based on transcendent grounding is still adaptive is on Peterson. It's also possible that a different set of axioms, not based on transcendent grounding, might be more adaptive than Peterson's set. "It's worked so far" isn't necessary evidence that it will work in the future (as it is shown by the problem of the inductivist turkey).

Jeez man, you're spoiling us with this recent batch of posts, that was top-notch.

I've been delving more and more into the NRx/Dark Enlightenment/HBD line of thought recently, and I've been having a lot of second thoughts about some of my classical liberal views.

I'm now thinking more along the lines of race being more determinative of culture than I used to think, which weakens somewhat the idea that any abstract kind of transcendent can be sufficiently binding for a universalist humanism, with the exception of "if everyone were enlightened it would all be ok".

IOW, if everyone serially had the necessary nondual epiphany, that commonality would form sufficient universalist transcendent binding, and we could have a "Brotherhood of Man" type deal. But that's never going to happen, or at least it's not going to happen any time soon. Yet any ersatz version of it imposed from above (as Communism/hyper-egalitarianism/SJW-ism do, for example) is necessarily going to become tyranny (and butchery, weeding out the old to create the New Socialist Man who has the "right" incentives).

So in the interim, we have to work with a world in which God is Dead, etc. In that context, people in general (and let's face it, the main worry is low-IQ people) have no moral grounding and the conditional "ought" doesn't cut it. This seems to be leading to a world in which the lack of moral binding leads to lack of time-binding (individuals and small groups caring for their local future), so again, this tends towards some kind of over-arching "liberal" bureaucratic tyranny (to fill in for the missing care), with a population that's "deracinated, medicated, propaganda-addled and compliant."

So without some kind of binding culture that works on a person-to-person level, we seem to be likely to fall into either an Orwellian dystopia or a Huxleyian Idiocracy, with the Idiocracy fighting off the Orwellian dystopia reasonably successfully, but being nothing to write home about itself.

It seems the only way forward is to return to race as a binding - a more mature racialism that's learned some lessons, but racialism, race realism, nonetheless. So in that case, we release some (not all, but some - we have to steer a middle path, we don't want actual racism to rear its ugly head again) of the "liberal"-induced universalist clamps on the limbic system, and let people have their several ethnic and racial prides. That way, you'd have more naturally segregated communities (it's not like you have to force that, it would happen naturally), developing along their own unique lines with kind of cultural binding that's on a more local, person-to-person level - so people take pride in their communities, time-bind, plant trees, do things for posterity, etc., in a natural way, where the "ought" comes from the limbic system, and other "oughts" fall out of it as conditional.

What remains of the old liberalism would be this:- no legal sanction for "degenerate" or "deviant" behaviours (keep the principle of equality before the law, gender equality, no racial discrimination, no discrimination against gays, etc.). But let the "soft" sanctions (social disapproval, shaming, etc.) free - IOW, it was overshoot to get rid of the soft sanctions (e.g. by dissing marriage, family, etc.).

I dunno, it's a tight, middle course we'd have to steer, I'm thinking that unless we do something like this, we're fucked as a species. High IQ people can live with existential anxiety, but it's more and more apparent to me that it's a really terrible thing for our low-IQ brothers and sisters - without moral guidance of some sort, all you get is a return to a sort of base, feral kind of existence. No future.

tl;dr Liberalism is turning into Idiocracy. And yet the "Grand Inquisitor" position, or the Big Lie, or a return to the old ways of races vying for supremacy, or cultures bound by sacred, transcendent objects - none of those work either. So this kind of Middle Path (let some degree of segregation occur naturally and let people have some degree of ethnic pride again) seems to me to be the only option.

#17094

CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:
Hunt wrote:
CaptainFluffyBunny wrote:Do people realize all the internet, all the apps, all the things they rely on everyday need competent coders, even if they happen to be male and mostly white and Asian? They don't, do they? True believers, guzzling kool-aid and whatever else they use to keep their neuroses in check.
The dearth of female coders can only mean oppression since women invented computer programming...and rock music.
The assumption that the only reason for lack of diversity is privilege is one of the most pernicious ideas in the modern era. More booze and I will wax even more Captain Obvious.

I probably should have commented on this yesterday, but better late than never.

The subordination of meritocracy to diversity could potentially have some very deleterious ramification. This struck me as I read a Wikipedia article on a fairly technical subject. I got to a paragraph outlining the work of a woman researcher. I found it interesting to see that a woman was contributing to the subject in the mid 20th century, but then a suspicion entered my mind. Am I reading about this woman's work because she really make a critical contribution to this subject, or am I reading about her because she's a woman? You can begin to see how something like this could have truly devastating consequences for both education and keeping track of important aspects of each field. In no ways should this be considered a slight to women in STEM; rather I see it as a reminder that meritocracy is really the only valid way to formulate an overview of any subject.

#17095

Tigzy wrote:Peez, honestly - have you not yet wanked that girl out of your system yet, after all these years?

I wonder which force is the larger, the teenage crush for Watson on the one hand, or the intense disdain for Dawkins on the other. I think the former is driving Myers while the latter feeds that Facebook thread.

#17096

Hunt wrote:
I probably should have commented on this yesterday, but better late than never.

The subordination of meritocracy to diversity could potentially have some very deleterious ramification. This struck me as I read a Wikipedia article on a fairly technical subject. I got to a paragraph outlining the work of a woman researcher. I found it interesting to see that a woman was contributing to the subject in the mid 20th century, but then a suspicion entered my mind. Am I reading about this woman's work because she really make a critical contribution to this subject, or am I reading about her because she's a woman? You can begin to see how something like this could have truly devastating consequences for both education and keeping track of important aspects of each field. In no ways should this be considered a slight to women in STEM; rather I see it as a reminder that meritocracy is really the only valid way to formulate an overview of any subject.

If people want us to take the concept of privilege seriously - then they will have to admit that at times in the past there were people with more power and privilege and so their effect on history was greater than that of others.

I think David Starky recently used the example of schools teaching more about Mary Secole (an half English-Jamaican nurse) than Florence Nightengale (a English nurse with upper class connections) - which obviously has more to do with wanting to be inclusive than teaching about the figures of the day that had the most effect.

In the end such cherry-picking of history will warp our understanding. Better to try and understand what happened warts and all - even if most of the major actors at some points would not pass a modern day HR test for cultural diversity.

#17097

Steersman wrote:Definitely rather dark - pitch black in fact so expect that even a "Goth's sock drawer" is no match for it.

It's one of the better tracks on the "Murder Ballads" album by Cave & the Bad Seeds although "better" is highly subjective. If deeply depressing and utterly bleak lyrics are your thing, you might enjoy this cheery little number from the same (excellent) album...

[youtube][/youtube]

The lyrics are a thing of hideous beauty:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nickcave ... ofjoy.html

#17098

Bhurzum wrote:
...
The lyrics are a thing of hideous beauty:
...

As are you Bhurzum...

#17099

Ape+lust wrote:

Pity there's no new series of MP's Flying Circus in the making, eh.

#17100

gurugeorge wrote:Jeez man, you're spoiling us with this recent batch of posts, that was top-notch.

I've been delving more and more into the NRx/Dark Enlightenment/HBD line of thought recently, and I've been having a lot of second thoughts about some of my classical liberal views.

I'm now thinking more along the lines of race being more determinative of culture than I used to think, which weakens somewhat the idea that any abstract kind of transcendent can be sufficiently binding for a universalist humanism, with the exception of "if everyone were enlightened it would all be ok".

IOW, if everyone serially had the necessary nondual epiphany, that commonality would form sufficient universalist transcendent binding, and we could have a "Brotherhood of Man" type deal. But that's never going to happen, or at least it's not going to happen any time soon. Yet any ersatz version of it imposed from above (as Communism/hyper-egalitarianism/SJW-ism do, for example) is necessarily going to become tyranny (and butchery, weeding out the old to create the New Socialist Man who has the "right" incentives).

So in the interim, we have to work with a world in which God is Dead, etc. In that context, people in general (and let's face it, the main worry is low-IQ people) have no moral grounding and the conditional "ought" doesn't cut it. This seems to be leading to a world in which the lack of moral binding leads to lack of time-binding (individuals and small groups caring for their local future), so again, this tends towards some kind of over-arching "liberal" bureaucratic tyranny (to fill in for the missing care), with a population that's "deracinated, medicated, propaganda-addled and compliant."

So without some kind of binding culture that works on a person-to-person level, we seem to be likely to fall into either an Orwellian dystopia or a Huxleyian Idiocracy, with the Idiocracy fighting off the Orwellian dystopia reasonably successfully, but being nothing to write home about itself.

It seems the only way forward is to return to race as a binding - a more mature racialism that's learned some lessons, but racialism, race realism, nonetheless. So in that case, we release some (not all, but some - we have to steer a middle path, we don't want actual racism to rear its ugly head again) of the "liberal"-induced universalist clamps on the limbic system, and let people have their several ethnic and racial prides. That way, you'd have more naturally segregated communities (it's not like you have to force that, it would happen naturally), developing along their own unique lines with kind of cultural binding that's on a more local, person-to-person level - so people take pride in their communities, time-bind, plant trees, do things for posterity, etc., in a natural way, where the "ought" comes from the limbic system, and other "oughts" fall out of it as conditional.

What remains of the old liberalism would be this:- no legal sanction for "degenerate" or "deviant" behaviours (keep the principle of equality before the law, gender equality, no racial discrimination, no discrimination against gays, etc.). But let the "soft" sanctions (social disapproval, shaming, etc.) free - IOW, it was overshoot to get rid of the soft sanctions (e.g. by dissing marriage, family, etc.).

I dunno, it's a tight, middle course we'd have to steer, I'm thinking that unless we do something like this, we're fucked as a species. High IQ people can live with existential anxiety, but it's more and more apparent to me that it's a really terrible thing for our low-IQ brothers and sisters - without moral guidance of some sort, all you get is a return to a sort of base, feral kind of existence. No future.

tl;dr Liberalism is turning into Idiocracy. And yet the "Grand Inquisitor" position, or the Big Lie, or a return to the old ways of races vying for supremacy, or cultures bound by sacred, transcendent objects - none of those work either. So this kind of Middle Path (let some degree of segregation occur naturally and let people have some degree of ethnic pride again) seems to me to be the only option.

Uhm. I'm afraid I disagree.

I think that the key issue is whether the "social glue" is tied to concrete action.

Some form of unification beyond the ethnos HAS to be supported, since all future-binding which is required in a complex society (to keep the "engines" of trade, of law, of politics, running) requires that socially isolated communities are forced to co-operate beyond the more "natural" bindings which depend on ethnicity/shared cultural lore. Furthermore some forms of lore are already missionary and universalistic, at least at face value, like islam. Creating isolated, segregated communities doesn't work so well when some of those communities wish to to take over society and get rid of the "fakes", even in absence of a complex net of laws, trade, politics, etc.

So SOME form of inter-ethnic co-operation is sorely needed to keep a modern state running. How should you get it to work, then? It's pretty clear that SJW-style "celebration of diversity" doesn't work. Identity politics don't work. What DOES work, then? An integrative kind of politics, one that doesn't erase differences but doesn't really care about them, or the lack thereof, and bases the inter-ethnic co-operation on a shared goal through SHARED WORK.

What I'm proposing is a return to Civic Nationalism, a reward for people who Do Something for their country, instead of simply rewarding people for Being Something. This means valuing civic work, rewarding effort, building a new mythology of Earning rather than Deserving. In the words of JFK "Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country".

Basically what I'm thinking is to set up systems where civic service, in many different forms, allows you to a)get a qualification you can use on the job market and b) get access to the rights of being a citizen. You don't simply pop into existence and have a guaranteed path towards (for example) your voting rights just through the event of your birth. You have to earn your right.

You can't demand respect just for being X rather than Y, you have to earn respect. And you do that through some kind of work for the community. This way people can accept you for what you do rather than for what you are. Your neighbors know you're OK because you helped them fix their yard (metaphorically so), and you did it well. And that respect is a commodity that allows you to live better in your community and in the society at large.

You can be whatever you are, and be proud of that, but most of all you're proud of what you have done, of the service you've been a part of.

On the other hand if you don't pull your weight, if you want to game the system, you simply don't enjoy the perks of the system, you don't enjoy respect, you don't enjoy voting rights, you don't have a leg start when it comes to finding a job, etc.

The inter-social moral binding is Having Done Something for Society. You're proud of your achievements as an individual who is validated through work, not just of your identity or of your possessions.

The universalism that this creates isn't an abstract, transcendent kind of "we are all brothers", it's concrete, specific kind, not even universalism, but Civism: the message is "I have gotten my hands dirty for my country, so now I'm a part of it, and I deserve your respect because I have worked my ass to earn it".

Along with this what is sorely required is to remove the absurd stigma against "cultural appropriation", which is insane, since all people want to try different things, to eat Italian or Chinese or drink Irish beer or eat Kebabs without abandoning their own roots or having to kow-tow to the whims of the creators of those things. Again, the unity through shared work can help a lot here: cultural products are seen as something you earn the right to because you're all part of a group which have worked together towards a goal.

The SJWs are idiots because they create a climate where the value of human beings is all about what they Are, their Identity, which of course creates, as a reaction, the rise of White Identity politics, and allows the Muslim Identity politics to take hold. A different perspective, based on valuing human beings according to what they Do doesn't remove your identity, but puts emphasis on your actions for the community, on your personal work towards a common goal, conjugating personal responsibility and personal realization to collective co-operation and inter-groups co-operation.

So if an immigrant WANTS to fit in they have a path, the same as everyone else: Do something for their host nation, not just demand acceptance but earn it. This also means that the temptation to take over society is lessened, since you have built part of that society. You're less likely to destroy what you've contributed to build than what something that was made by the Others.

If someone doesn't want to fit, but just to game the system, then tough luck, they get nothing, they get no special reward for being whatever they are, they're seen as leeches who need to work their ass off or not get anything.

This is just my two cents, of course. But I really think that the future of liberal democracy passes through building an interest in keeping it working through personal participation and personal civic work.