Share Your Most Dangerous Idea 1060
GabrielF writes "Every year The Edge asks over 100 top scientists and thinkers a question, and the responses are fascinating and widely quoted. This year, psychologist Steven Pinker suggested they ask "What is your most dangerous idea?" The 117 respondents include Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond -- and that's just the D's! As you might expect, the submissions are brilliant and very controversial."
Longest FA ever. (Score:4, Insightful)
The ones that are dangerous are not dangerous in the "omg someone could kill millions with this idea" way. They are dangerous in the "our society will be even more effed up if this idea catches on" way. Like the idea that we can't win the war on climate change. If everyone accepted this how many countries would even try to reduce emissions? Or the idea that there really are fundamental differences between the "races". That would make the next genocide just a little bit easier.
Melting (Score:4, Insightful)
Several times in my life, I've thought that I might be able to fix a broken object by using the process of melting. No matter how right I thought I was when I started, I've always, ALWAYS, regretted the idea.
Even knowing this, I'll probably try it again.
Re:Sexuality is going to change (Score:2, Insightful)
mind control (Score:5, Insightful)
I shall call it "thought vehicle" or short TV. - Sounds good too.. I should patent this idea.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
Proper religion is both the gateway to science, and is then inevitably reinforced
by the successes it has. Remember our favorites like 'algorithm' and 'algebra' come from
arabic words back from when Islam was filled with love.
BTW, religion (and the mysticism that goes with it) is the gateway to science because
this universe's Creator created it to be accessible to us. Our human mind is designed to
interact with its Creator. No, we cannot quite fathom It, but there's so much to learn
about the universe itself that we couldn't discover a tenth of it in ten lifetimes.
Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door shall be opened.
This isn't just about spiritual pursuits, it's about knowledge itself.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
oh - and the "war" on drugs, sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shooting for mod points... (Score:2, Insightful)
But if you teach someone to think for themselves and they do, are they actually thinking for themselves?
Economic subjugation becomes real subjugation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:1, Insightful)
we're f*cking up. Happiness and unhappiness are the result of the
Law of Karma, which is as much a law as Conservation of Mass or
Universal Gravitation, just it's only operable on the human level,
because we are the only beings with free will.
Religion is rules of how to deal with other human beings. Its
purpose is to promote study, peace and the creation of more and more
happy human beings. Why? To have more consciousness, because we
are the only beings who can appreciate this marvelous creation.
Peace & Blessings,
bmac
Re:A radical idea - Fredom Matters Most (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always nice when someone new walks into a process that's been going on for hundreds of years and gets angry that no one sees his simple solution, even though that's where we started and we've been fixing the problems with it ever since.
In public education - everyone talks about what kind of education the kids need, and noone talks about the financial freedom lost in paying for it, or the very influence that such has on the kids.
They're too busy talking about the financial freedom lost when you have a work force of illiterates who can't add.
In social security and medicade/ medical care - everyones worried about how will we take care of the needy and elderly and noone talks about the people that need to be financially coerced to make these systems work.
And your constructive solution is then to let thousands and thousands of people either die or turn to crime? Step one, end social security. What's step two? Please answer. If you've got a way to make this work, please tell us. I really, really want to be on your side, because that's a lot of money.
In the genocide of the poor - noone would even dare mention that the best solution would be to arm them and seciure their right to bear arms first.
Genius! How could that possibly go bad? Combine this with your no-free-schooling idea and we've got ourselves a plan that just might solve everybody's problem.
ooh, ooh! pick me! (Score:5, Insightful)
the internet has replaced the encyclopedia
it is replacing want ads, real estate agents, auctions, music companies, publishers, etc.
it will someday replace government
but hold on, there's a catch:
if the internet does this, it will do it the same way it is defeating the music industry: not through any conscience effort, but just a gradual, inevitable, unfightable erosion of relevancy by little efforts made by individuals not even consciously trying to do anything coherent
in other words, if you are actively seeking to defeat government and promote anarchy/ libertarianism/ revolution, or whatever, you are way off
because you are making a conscience effort
because if and when it happens, no one will notice it starting
just like the guys who built the original arpanet in the 1960s didn't say "hey! let's build a radically superior music distribution model that cuts out the middle man and removes the economic incentive!"
except that's exactly what they did
Re:Sexuality is going to change (Score:2, Insightful)
Also--a heterosexual who is non-sexually attracted to, or objectively appreciatie the sexual attractiveness of someone of their own gender is not being bisexual. That requires genuine sexual desire for both genders. That's tough to confirm, but with modern neuroscience techniques (like fMRI) we may be able to tell the difference.
Re:The United States is the biggest threat (Score:3, Insightful)
Snore.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:1, Insightful)
I told you not to let the streems cross.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
I submit that religon itself is not a problem. The problem comes when people base it as a sole reason for their actions, or try to force their religous belief upon someone else. Ignorance to facts that contradict your belief are ignored, factons are formed, biases are made, and wars are started. And thus, the danger.
Re:The Most Apt Response Out There (Score:2, Insightful)
I would hypothesize that individuals who are really good at finding happiness are not very good at passing on their genes. If you find something that makes you happier than reproduction, why would you reproduce?
Re:Here is one they won't ever implement (Score:5, Insightful)
As one glance at either (or both) Einstein and a person with a typical case of Down's syndrome will tell you, equal mental capacities are not uniformly available.
As one glance at either (or both) Arab women and US feminists will tell you, equal rights are not uniformly available.
As one glance at either Jeffery Dalmer (or both) and Martin Luther King will tell you, equal consideration is not uniformly available.
In summary, the very idea that "we are all created equal" is a mindless, pointless statement that speaks only to turning a blind eye to reality.
I have always thought that we should be saying that we would attempt to afford equal opportunity to our fellows at each set of choices in life, and let them make of it both what they may, and what they are capable of.
But as your premise is trivially demonstrated to be false, you should probably reformulate. :)
Re:Economic subjugation becomes real subjugation (Score:4, Insightful)
When people complain about inequity, the solution they are usually talking about is to give more power and resources to the state (i.e. a centralized top down command structure controlled by a small political elite). And when you talk about Socialism, Communism, or any one of the the 19th century ideologies that are popular with people complaining about inequality, you are talking about a giant, massive, centralized, authoritarian state.
The state IS inequality... it is by it's very nature and structure a system of hierarchy and authority, and so increasing the power and resources of the state can only increase inequality and subjugation. People may say that they want to use the state to end inequality, but what they really mean is that they want their own ethnic/political/social group to be the authority in power subjigating others.
If you truly want equality, then you would support decentralization of power, and the reduction and/or elimination of the state. Inequality comes from violence... it comes from situations where people are not allowed to make decisions for themselves and instead are forced to do something under the threat of violence. The economic underclass we have in the western world are victims of government violence or threat of violence (the violence/threat might be prompted by corporations, religions, or powerful interests bribing the government to act on their behalf... or the violence/threat might be some real but misguided attempt to "help" people).
Free people from a giant, violent, centralized authority like a government, and equality, prosperity, and peace are the natural result. But government and equality are fundamentally opposed and incompatible situations. Most likely (and if I am misinterpreting you and you are not advocating some centralized government plan, I apologize), the very political policies you support are the cause of the inequality you are against.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:3, Insightful)
That's utter drivel. My cat knows the difference between being cold and wet and miserable and scared and being cuddled up before the fire in a pair of loving arms. My cat will signal her appreciation in a completely unequivocal manner by purring and loving up. Her level of appreciation is different, but it is not lacking.
Humans are simply animals. We're smarter, certainly, but there is zero evidence that we are different in any other way that makes any difference at all. Personally, I take religion (and astrology, and crystal gazing, and a bunch of other things) as evidence we're not nearly as smart as we'd like to think we are.
Re:A radical idea - Fredom Matters Most (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, stop using the word "coerce." Pick up a thesaurus. Second, most parents aren't qualified to even teach fractions, which makes homeschooling on a large scale impossible, and private school is too expensive for the majority. Again, your solution isn't "radical", it's unworkable.
After all, who could ever possibly accept the notion that millions won't die unless the government coerces people to pay for retirement and health care.
Billy doesn't get his check next week, Billy doesn't eat. Shit ain't free. Solve the problem and people will be thrilled to listen to you. And no one said "millions."
I can see now, that my idea was truely too dangerous.
Fortunately your idea is perfectly harmless because there's an epidemic of partial sanity in this country that we just can't seem to cure. That's another problem you can work on while you're handing out weapons to the droves of people whose income you've just removed. I'm sure they'd be extra grateful if you could point the way to the nearest wealthy neighborhood on your way out.
Your idealism is nice, but maybe the reason "your" (in quotes because there isn't a suburban ten-year-old on the planet that hasn't come up with the same one) idea is so "radical" (another word you need to stop using) is because you refuse to adequately explain to people how your plan works. We need steps. "Freedom good" is hard to make into a law. Explain how we go from social security to no social security without social security-dependent families turning to crime, especially considering all their social security-dependent friends will suddenly be looking to fill the 30 available jobs in the area. You still haven't explained step 2. And please keep in mind that I'm making no assumptions, here. I'm just having trouble understanding how you solve the problem where if you remove that money, you're going to need to replace it somehow by providing jobs, either through pork, which saves no money but does have other benefits, or by some free-market magic, which you'll have to explain to me, both short-term ("I don't get a check anymore. I guess I will buy lunch by _____.") and long-term.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:3, Insightful)
Agnosticism does not create a stance apart from atheism or theism. If you hold a belief in a god or gods, you're a theist. If you don't, you're an atheist. Agnosticism (usually) describes why the proponent doesn't hold a belief, so it's usually simply a description of the atheist stance.
There's a technical reason lying in wait as well; the theism/atheism boundry is defined by belief, or lack thereof. The stance of the self-professed agnostic is one predicated on knowledge, which actually has no bearing on the state of belief. This is why we have believers in UFOs, Phrenology, Homeopathhy, Astrology and so forth — because knowledge is not a required precursor for belief.
Belief is about faith in some degree of the unknown. Knowledge is about collecting, correlating, and developing relationships amongst instances of objective fact. Ther is no requirement whatsoever that they ever cross paths.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
That is incorrect. Atheism is the state of being without a belief in a god or gods.
It is the polar opposite of theism — belief in a god or gods.
Re:The problem isn't really Oil (Score:1, Insightful)
When engaging in a debate with vegetarian-types over whether or not leather clothes are "bad for the environment" or not I often bring this up. They often have a narrow view of what is good/bad for the envoriment (often confused with 'animals', but thats a different matter). The people I'm talking with often fail to see that a shift from animal products for clothing, wool for instance, would require a shift toward petro-heavy products such as synthetic fleeces (CoolMAX by people like Dupont, all those).
The same thing goes with a shift from diesel to bio-diesel. Should vegans who proclaim they "don't use any animal products!" ride a public bus that uses a 70:30 petroleum:biodiesel mix? The grease from fast food chains are often rendered into diesel fuel. These often reward one afterward with confused looks and long pauses.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:1, Insightful)
Science brought us the atom bomb and all the hight tech weapons of war by which millions are oppressed around the globe.
Before someone misses the point of my post, it's not to say that science is evil or anything. I'm not blind to the sweet fruits of science, nor am I an anti-science bigot. I personally don't care for religion myself, and prefer science to it, BUT THAT'S MY CHOICE AND IT'S NOT MY PLACE TO SHIT ON OTHER PEOPLE FOR MAKING DIFFERENT CHOICES.
Seriously, to suggest that religion is more dangerous than science while ignoring the fact that science handed us the means by which to fuck this planet up, is simply stupid to the extreme.
Peace to the students of science and religion. We are in this together, let us have our differing opinions and defend each others right to them. Your freedom is my freedom. Your sovereignty is my sovereignty. Your liberty is my liberty. Long live the individual.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the most dangerous is "You are always right." This idea creates sociopaths, yet it is what we are teaching our children under the guise of building their self esteem. Sure, it's almost never worded that way, but the idea is there.
Religion sometimes tells you that you are wrong, that you must change. That's a bit unpleasant. This idea does not tell you that. You are just fine as you are, because you are always right. Other people sometimes tell you that you need to change, they're just stupid and arrogant.
Religion typically puts some diety or system of ideas in control. This idea puts you in control. There is no higher power to tell you what to do, you are it. Forget laws too, except of course the ones you agree with.
With religion, some things are right and others are wrong. If you want something that the religion says is wrong, it's still wrong. Here, none of that matters. You want it, you are right to want it, therefore it is right. It doesn't matter if it was wrong yesterday. It doesn't matter if it was wrong when someone else did it. It's right now.
Some people have a hard time believing this idea, but that's ok. There is a way to ease into it if you're not comfortable. Next time you think you may be or have been wrong, rationalize it. Try to think of some way to interpret the facts that makes it, if not right, at least acceptible. Take it one step at a time and eventually you will always be right.
(And if you disagree with any of this, too bad. I am always right.)
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not appreciating the beauty of creation, that's appreciating
being in a comfortable situation.
Humans are simply animals.
They are if they don't ask why they're here. The Qur'an even puts
it as such:
They have eyes that don't see, ears that don't hear and hearts that
don't understand. They are like animals - no they are worse than
the animals.
The reason such humans are worse is because they use our advanced
reasoning and imagining capabilities to act as animals, actually,
more like mammals: pack behavior (gangs, racism and always seeking
to be the alpha male/female) especially.
but there is zero evidence that we are different in any other way that
makes any difference at all.
Well, we use language to discuss concepts and use local experiments to
propose theorems that apply to the fabric of space-time itself.
Specifically, though, the difference is that we have a free will and,
as such, we fall under the Law of Karma while living, and, after death,
get judged for what we have done with our tremendous human abilities.
Personally, I take religion (...) as evidence we're not nearly as smart as
we'd like to think we are.
Well, the Devil has done his work well within the religions, so I agree with
you here, kinda. The fact is that all the atrocities being committed in the
name of religion can in no way be put on their founders who are long dead.
It would be more proper to call evil the result, not of stupidity, but of human
susceptibility to evil impulse. In the end though, we all choose either right
or wrong, to seek our greater purpose (to find God Himself) or to live in the
lesser purposes of the worldly life.
In any event, peace be with you.
bmac
Re:A radical idea - Fredom Matters Most (Score:3, Insightful)
You can keep your greed and "purity" in capitalism. I live in a world where pure capitalism doesn't work, nor does pure socialism. I'm a Canadian, and I'm happy to accept certain compromises in the areas of health care, and public education because I believe the benefits outweigh the downsides. On the other hand, I'll rag on the government for bailing out uncompetitive companies (Air Canada, for example) and creating artificial unhealthy markets. Life is compromise, and sometimes you have to trade efficiency and quality for universality and scope, and sometimes you shouldn't.
Well, let's look at history. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OK, here's one. "Alcohol Economy". (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easier then an Alcohol OR a Hydrogen economy.
Re:A radical idea - Fredom Matters Most (Score:2, Insightful)
Your arguement is based on several assumptions:
1. You assume that government schools are teaching kids literacy and math. ("public" schools are churing out illiterates who can't add in record numbers. It terms of science, math, and english, are children are getting stupider as government takes a larger and larger role in their education).
2. You assume that the government is the only institution capable of providing education (When in fact, homeschooling, religious schools, private secular schools in the U.S. seem to do better that public schools in teaching math, science, and literacy... There are an infinite amount of possible education models besides the State-Run Prussian Military School model we use in the United States).
3. You ignore the terrible social effects public schools have on children (conditioning them to obedience to authority, squeltching individualism and diversity, taking away their privacy, age and skill segregation). Government schools primary purpose is social conditioning and propogandizing... Education is secondary... at least according to the founders of modern public education in America (check out http://johntaylorgatto.com/ [johntaylorgatto.com] for lots of information on the history and purposes of public education in the U.S.)
We don't all share your absolute faith in government, and government is not the only model of social cooperation that we are able to comprehend. No Government Schools != No Education
[quote]And your constructive solution is then to let thousands and thousands of people either die or turn to crime? Step one, end social security. What's step two? Please answer. If you've got a way to make this work, please tell us. I really, really want to be on your side, because that's a lot of money.[/quote]
Once again, your statement has many assumptions... A Christian says "How are you going to avoid going to hell if you don't except Christ to wash away your sins", and the statement seems common sense to them, because they have already assumed all the premises of Christianity (for example, that hell exists, that there is actually something called sin, and that Jesus can redeem sin, etc. etc.). But if a Buddist, or Taoist, or Athiest hears that sentence, it just sounds silly, because they have not accepted all the Christian assumptions on which this "common sense" is based.
Here are your assumptions:
1. You assume that Medicare is the only social structure capable of providing health care to those that need it. (In fact, there are any number of models of healthcare that we could use, if the government would allow such things... government isn't the only means of social organization).
2. You assume that Medicare somehow makes healthcare more available (instead of, say, pumping money in without increasing supply, and thus raising the price of medical care for everyone - acting as an unofficial government subsidy of big pharma, the people who pay to lobby to increase medicare).
3. You assume that Medicare is a sustainable, viable system. (Social Security, of which Medicare is a part, will no longer be financial viable when the number of people collecting benifits approaches the number of people paying into the system. This is set to happen when the baby boomers stop paying, and start collecting).
I mean, listen to the rhetoric we are using: "If we don't have Medicare, thousands and thousand will die on the street or be commiting horrible crime!" - I mean what kind of sensational reactionary statement is that? Let me do one better:
"You must all send me $10,000 - because if you don't, I will not be able to say my magical incantations, and thousands and thousands of people will be killed by angry spirits! What, you don't want to send me $10,00
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I'm sure you're serious, I'll do you the courtesy of taking your assertions at face value, and treat them one by one.
Cats affect their environment. This is obvious and trivial. They exhibit numerous traits that we would consider to be environmentally enlightened, from burying their waste to grooming themselves to rarely killing for sport.
Cats can conserve or destroy. They make choices about this as well. For instance, my couch has been conserved. The doorjamb to the bathroom, however, has not. I think this is amusing, and the cat knows this because I take care to demonstrate it to her. From my point of view, the doorjamb is trivial and inexpensive to replace; consequently, I am delighted with the cat's choice of claw-sharpening targets.
Cats have rules/law. Drag a laser pointer across the floor. The cat will follow and play and pounce. Drag the laser pointer across another cat. The original, playful cat will proceed to ignore the laser, even if it was in the midst of crazed play with the beam. There are rules, and one of them is you don't pounce on things that are on other cats. This, interestingly, is a very good rule. Humans can be distinguished, perhaps, by the number of very bad rules we make, but not by rulemaking itself. Any tribe of monkeys has rules, as do many other types of animals, including, as I have shown, cats.
Cats have technology. They will create nests out of raw materials, they utilize knocking your crap off the dresser in order to get your attention. They understand that burial is good for anything that will reveal their presence, and anything that is dead and rotting. Other animals use sticks to fetch ants from holes, and will fashion tools from rocks and sticks. Beavers build dams. Termites build, arguably, castles.
Cats have morals. Mothers rarely eat their young. Cats rarely eat their owners, unless the owner dies. Even then, some cats cannot overcome that predjudice, though they will eat other animals.
Cats don't have religion, near as I can tell, but that's a point in their favor from where I stand, quite seriously. Cats do, however, exhibit faith. Both at the habituation level (they expect their human to come home to them again, because so far, that's what has happened) and they expect their human to take care of them, again because that's been established; and at the abstract level — once trust has been established, many wary behaviours are discarded. This occurs in cat-cat relationships and cat-human relationships, and more rarely, between cats and other species.
We do have science and science is a very complex product of advanced thinking. I don't expect science from cats for that reason. Doesn't change my point; I specifically said we differ in degree here.
Cats also experience every emotion humans do, as well as numerous behaviours and traits we like to think of as our own. They can be both selfish and generous, loving and hateful, vicious and kind, protective and defensive, careless and careful, clever and witless, and so on for quite a long list.
My position is that when we have established a level of hubris that disallows seeing that we are one of the set of animals, we have taken a step back on the very path most of us wish to tread. I recognize it's a handy mental trick when the task at hand is the consumption of a hamburger, but that makes it no more respectable.
One final point: If most humans behaved as well as my cat does, we'd be a damn sight better off. Your statement, in light of this, is ludicrous.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:4, Insightful)
"Creation" is myth — or at the very least, unencountered objective fact. As such, there's no reason to appreciate it. There is reason to appreciate the portion of the universe one can wrap one's head around, and cats and people both do this.
Either we are, or we aren't. It's a question of biological objective fact, not opinion or subject to any number of philosophical angels, pins and dances.
Parrots use language - ours, in point of fact. Topically and with great humor. Cats and dogs use language as well, though they don't speak ours, they certainly understand some of it. As for what is under discussion betwen them, this is a matter of what the particular brain is specialized to do. Aside from language itself, sound processing is not something we're uniformly best at. Cats can do things like locate a sound to within 8 degrees, reliably and repeatedly. It's been useful to them to specialize this way. You and I really suck at this. We use our brains for other things, and frankly, these things would not benefit cats in the roles they have performed to date. Directivity does. That may change, what with our just beginning to get a handle on the control of DNA. Should be fun. :) In any case, mental and language superiority is not the hands-down win you seem to think it is. Then there is body language and sign language and scent language and gifting. It's almost never as simple as people would like it to be when they're trying to pretend they're really, really special. :) Oh, and I should also point out that cats experiment constantly. With how far their human's patience may be stretched, for one thing, but with many other things as well.
You think a cat doesn't have free will? Don't feed it and then tell me what you think motivated it to take a crap in your headphones one time. Or a piss in the toaster. Cat piss in a toaster is worse than mustard gas — press that level down and you've got what we call a serious situation. Classic free will is what every animal has. This one you don't even get a fraction of a point for.
I don't blame the founders for later generations of followers pillaging, raping, flying into buildings and so forth. The founders had the perfectly common motivation to control their fellows, the very same motivation any modern politician, social worker, psychobabbler or cop has; they just had more of it. The thing is, not one of them was smart enough to see that it couldn't work. That's what all religious founders have in common: They were far too optimistic about human nature. I find that pitiful, but not blameworthy. I blame individuals for their own acts. If a Christian plants a bomb, I blame the Christian. If a corporate flunky rips me off because it is company policy, I blame the flunky directly. If a tax agent takes my money for a war I don't support, I blame the tax agent directly. Being a member of an immoral structure in no way magically propogates your own responsibilities elsewhere. It is a common thing to think it does, and that is one of the key reasons society is in such trouble — many people accept this shuffling off of blame by flunkies. Which is not to say that the structure can shuffle blame downhill, either.
Re:A radical idea - Fredom Matters Most (Score:5, Insightful)
I do. I know it worked in at least one case, as I'm able to read your post. Worked in a bunch of others, too.
You assume that the government is the only institution capable of providing education
I assume it's the only institution capable of doing it on a consistent basis at tiny cost to the people that can't afford it. Unless you know of a few thousand private schools that will take kids for free, we don't have much of an alternative. Homeschooling is the only possible option for people without money, but that counts on the parents being well-educated.
You ignore the terrible social effects public schools have on children (conditioning them to obedience to authority, squeltching individualism and diversity, taking away their privacy, age and skill segregation)
Oh, good heavens!
If that's the point of school, they're really not doing as well as I thought.
We don't all share your absolute faith in government
I have virtually no faith in government. It's inefficient, bloated, and corrupt.
and government is not the only model of social cooperation that we are able to comprehend.
Good for you.
that might be hard for someone to grasp who has been conditioned that the state is everything.
Dick.
[quote]And your constructive solution is then to let thousands and thousands of people either die or turn to crime? Step one, end social security. What's step two? Please answer. If you've got a way to make this work, please tell us. I really, really want to be on your side, because that's a lot of money.[/quote]
Once again, your statement has many assumptions
I made no assumptions. I want to know what happens on the second fucking day. Please fill in the gaping holes so we can properly discuss this.
You assume that Medicare is the only social structure capable of providing health care to those that need it. (In fact, there are any number of models of healthcare that we could use,
I'm listening.
You assume that Medicare somehow makes healthcare more available (instead of, say, pumping money in without increasing supply, and thus raising the price of medical care for everyone
You've calculated this in healthcare units? ("Healthies", I like to call them.)
You're thinking economics, I'm thinking child of poor parents breaks his leg.
You assume that Medicare is a sustainable, viable system.
And, for the thousandth time, I'm waiting for the plan.
"You must all send me $10,000...
The only possible response to that is, "You're an idiot." I'm sorry, but if you can't understand that taking the small amount of survivability that people have away from them is going to have negative affects, at least in the short term, you're just not that bright.
Switzerland has the lowest violent crime rate and murder rate of any industrialized nation, and have the absolute highest private ownership of firearms in the industrialized world (basicly, nearly all able bodied men have full access to military style weapons).
All able-bodied men have access to military style weapons after 17 weeks of mandatory basic training. Let's not pretend we're all nations of soldiers. And let's not compare the US to Switzerland at all, because we're very, very different.
You need to try to convince us that gun ownership is bad, not call people stupid because they don't have absolute faith in your belief system.
I would never try to convince you that gun ownership is bad because I don't think it is. I think arming the poor to combat violence is profoundly stupid. I don't know what argument you're extending to this one, but please don't assume I meant to say bad things I didn't say.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
Democracy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:evolution of evil (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. First of all, if you want to use evolutionary theory then you have to take into fact that humans didn't live in huge cities like we do now. We lived in small collections of hunters/gatherers. You kill someone in your own group, then you get ostracized from the group which will lead to certain no-mating.
Second, murder of another competing group would be good and you'd be considered a hero in your group. Then you'd get more reproductive success if you're a hero.
So, murder is bad but a battlefield kill is good. We hate murderers but love war heros. Anyway, that's my view. So, just murdering someone in cold blood is hard but killing in a battlefield isn't as much.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, I can appreciate the beauty of a snowbank in -40 degrees celsius weather. The cat could not possibly care any less, and would far rather be inside.
>My cat will signal her appreciation in a completely unequivocal manner by purring and loving up. Her level of appreciation is different, but it is not lacking.
True, but, I think it is quite significant that the cat is happy in a purely physical way. I can be happy when I am warm, well fed, and not thirsty. But I can also be happy even if I'm colder than I'd like, hungrier than I'd like, and thirstier than I'd like.
>Humans are simply animals. We're smarter, certainly, but there is zero evidence that we are different in any other way that makes any difference at all.
Which is why we're here discussing this on the internet, and not sniffing each other's butts and picking lice out of our hair. Because we're not any different from the rest of the animals, who also have worldwide computer networks and use them to talk to animals on the other side of the world whom they have never perceived in any way besides the imagination and cognitave communication (i.e. no physical senses, you have to use your brain to communicate since reading and writing are required).
Do animals have imagination?
Do animals have an appreciation for anything which doesn't physically affect them (make them feel good)?
I think there's ample evidence of humans being far superior to animals. You're just not looking at it.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
- Albert Einstein
Re:What the..? Emotional Intelligence? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A radical idea - Fredom Matters Most (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
Christianity
Opponents can tell me to RTFA, since I only got as far as page 6, but a lot of what I saw were comments about science overcoming our current social norms. Well, most of those norms (in this country, anyway) are based loosely on Christian beliefs, so (regardless of the writers' actual beliefs) the opinions are generally anti-Christian as well (see the one about marriage for a particularly inflammatory example). I'll admit, there are few, if any, examples of authors coming right out and saying Christianity is bad or wrong, but the undercurrent does seem to be there.
What's funny to me is that this article seems to support my theory that 'smart' people (I leave it up to /.ers to figure out what I mean by that) tend to subscribe less to religion in general and Christianity in particular than Average Joe.
So, picture this. The Book of Revelations is coming true. The Apocalypse is occurring. And all of us are standing around with that 'oh s**t' look on our faces while a small minority of the population (whose average IQ is about 80, perhaps?) start floating away to a bright light on the horizon.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:3, Insightful)
"well known"? To who?
Sorry but you simply don't understand the meaning of the word. Theist believes in God. Atheist believes there is no God. Agnostic does not KNOW if there is a God. Notice the agnostic definition is about knowledge NOT belief.
To Muslims, Christians were considered "infidels" ie those without faith. If you do not believe in Allah, then some may consider you to be an atheist by your definition. Is this the definition you want? Or perhaps you should consider that the opposite of an idea is not its set complement. The opposite of White is Black, not non-white ... you don't say that light grey is the opposite of White do you?
Re:Here is one they won't ever implement (Score:5, Insightful)
"Tous les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et egaux en droits."
"All men are born and remain free and equal in rights."
The sentence is to be understood in the context of the French Revolution, as a rejection of the concept of hereditary aristocracy.
Thomas-
You need to play Civilization IV more (Score:2, Insightful)
No, there is inequity because that is because people are different.
Government equals power. Remove any official government and all you end up with is the powerful people as government.
Government is a social technology that works. If it didn't, we would not have had it for 6000+ years. If it didn't work you would not notice it evolving, changing to better suit peoples need. More evolution still needs to happen but regressing to a single cell organism while a nice notion isn't going to solve any problems.
Government has gotten bigger over the last 6000 years, not smaller. One perspective of a democratic ideal would be for EVERYONE to be government, which i suppose from one perspective would count as completely decentralized.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:3, Insightful)
Because we didn't understand their language, we wrote them off completely as being outside the sphere of "us" and undeserving of protection.
Now we're in a similar position with many animals. We know chimpanzees exhibit behaviors consistent with emotions like love, respect, disappointment, devotion, etc. We've seen elephants exhibit behaviors that look like religious ceremonies, and who hold grave sites in high reverence. Heck, I've seen an eel that was so emotionally distraught over it's partner being thrown out of the water to her death during an earthquake that a week later he threw himself to his death too. We've all known household pets that show jealousy and passive-agressive tendencies in no uncertain terms.
How does the argument, then, that these animals have no emotions, and therefore no "soul" still hold water? Because we don't understand their language. We know they have one. Dolphins and Whales are the most obvious examples of mammals with the capability for complex language, but chimps, cats, dogs, birds... basically every animal that we've really spent time studying has shown such capacity, many of which clearly exhibit that capacity in the wild. And if you include gestural languages, the amount of communication going on in the animal kingdom goes up tremendously.
We also know they have higher cognition. They can extrapolate from past experience, they can make predictions about the future based upon incomplete knowledge, they can solve basically all of the puzzles we put in front of them. There is the famous example of the bird that reasoned out the concept of zero on it's own. A bird, mind you, not a chimp or a dolphin. If you've ever seen a raccoon try to reason its way through all of the pitfalls between it and the garbage you're trying to keep from it, you'll see intelligence in action. And again, mathematics, logic, and other abstract functions are not at all beyond most animals.
So yes, the moral of the story is that we don't speak Swahili, we don't know exactly what the black people are saying, but we know they're saying something and what they're doing seems consistent with what we would do so it is reasonable to inferr that we're not fundamentally different.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:1, Insightful)
Perhaps it's because I own several cats who exhibit similar behavior.
Re: In SOVIET RUSSIA maybe. (Score:2, Insightful)
You're missing the point. Stalin was an atheist, yes, but that's not the reason he exterminated so many people (including members of his own party, atheists alike). The reason is that he was a nutcase, pure and simple. Same with Mao. On the other hand, the Catholic Church killed thousands of people because they weren't Catholic. (Of course, when the Protestants were in power, they returned the favor.)
Bottom line: Stalin's atheism had nothing at all to do with his murderous tendencies - his mental state did.
Re: In SOVIET RUSSIA maybe. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't blame "religion" for all the deaths attributed to it by many of its critics, either. Religion is just one of the many "big ideas" that people use to convince others to devalue other people. But the point is, Communism and religion both make bold claims about the world and about their claims on your heart and mind, then demand that these bold claims be believed without proof.
So from where I stand, as a person who likes to call himself a "freethinker", those murderous Communist regimes have much more in common with religious doctrines than with the philosophies that guide my actions.
Re:Here is one they won't ever implement (Score:5, Insightful)
The Libertarians have it wrong. Swinging your fists around within inches of my nose is an act of agression. I have no way of telling whether you are just posturing or whether you intend to hurt me until after you have hurt me. Therefore, as soon as you start swinging fists close to my face my rights are violated because I have to drop everything I am doing and pay full attention in order to make certain that I don't get hurt in case I move unexpectedly or you decide to go from posturing to fighting.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:3, Insightful)
Did Jesus write the bible? Or did someone do so 100-200 years after the fact.
I tend to view Christianity like the Cathars (the people the pope declared as heretics in the middle aages and exterminated), "Jesus is cool and all but the bible and the church is fallable because it has been touched by the hand of man."
It is just as easy for a man to twist the bible and the name Jesus in order to do bad things as it is for one to create good. For your example, I could see a type of leadership using this quote in order to strip the food and land of peasants in order for the greater good of the state leaving them to starve. One must be ever aware of this fact and be able to search for the truth by other means than litteral interpetation.
Otherwise one fails in what Jesus was really trying to teach.
Re:Modern science is a product of biology (Score:3, Insightful)
I.E., our sun will continue to burn regardless of whether our intelligence observes it; however, what it really IS may be limited by our understanding. Perhaps a trans-temporal being would view it differently, since a creature that is aware of all time simultaneously would not be particularly interested in one more thing which has a beginning, an end, and a completely defined life. Just as a dog, while understanding it should not be stared at, may conceive of it as the "great warm thing".
To the dog, it IS the great warm thing. To the human, it IS a ball of burning gas under immense pressure.
Re:OK, here's one. "Alcohol Economy". (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easier then an Alcohol OR a Hydrogen economy.
Yeah, it's called an agrarian economy. Been there, done that.
Re:The Most Dangerous Idea of All (Score:2, Insightful)
"animal moral behaviours do not "closely resemble" our own except for an extraordinarily broad interpretation of "closely resemble". Animals do not have organ-transplants to have morals about whether the family of the donor should have to assent, they do not have courts to have moral beliefs about whether they should present false evidence in them, they do not have abortions to debate how close to term the foetus has to be before it has the same rights as its mother, etc etc."
The above are all examples of ethics, not morals. A moral is "it is wrong to kill another person"; whether an unborn foetus counts as a person (and indeed at what stage of development such "person-ness" appears) is an ethical matter. Morals cover broad issues, ethics are an attempt to reconcile morals with situations where the moral in and of itself cannot be unambiguously applied. We thus have a number of situations where certain types of behaviour cannot be shown to be immoral, but are considered to be unethical.
Re:Modern science is a product of biology (Score:4, Insightful)
He doesn't claim that the universe requires human interaction or observation. He's simply claiming that since humans have limited faculties, the content and scope of human understanding and knowledge is limited. In other words, there may very well be things about the universe that we will never be able to understand. It's an interesting conjecture, although I'm not sure how much I agree with it, since humans are able to aid themselves in their investigations with technology.
Re:evolution of evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Modern science is a product of biology (Score:3, Insightful)
Not true at all. Consider the famous quote:
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
This was from Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944). He was an astronomer.
You also see variants of this quote attributed to assorted others, including J.B.S.Haldane and Arthur C.Clarke, neither of whom is/was a psychologist. It's a common conjecture among many kinds of scientists.
A quantified version of this has popped up in the computer field. The idea is that your mind is produced by your brain, which has a large but finite number of atoms (or elementary particles if you prefer). Thus, there is a finite limit to what you are capable of holding in your mind at any given time. If understanding the universe requires more bits than this, then you are not capable of understanding the universe.
Expressed this way, it even seems ultimately testable. But not soon; we're still a long way from knowing how many bits a human brain contains. We don't even know the physical representation of information in the brain. So maybe it's possible for a human to understand the universe; maybe not. Maybe some day we'll know. Or maybe we'll find a way of adding plug-in memory to our brain.
Re:Here is one they won't ever implement (Score:3, Insightful)
If you swing your fist towards my face, there is two possibilities. Either you are posturing, or you are trying to hurt me. It is in my best interests to assume the latter, since assuming the former and being wrong will lead to serious injury to me, and act accordingly: dodge and counterattack. This means that threats have the same potential to cause fights as actual attacks, and need to be controlled for the same reason: to prevent people living in close quarters from killing each other.
Furthermore, my personal space extends beyond my skin; the second your fist entered that region of space, you violated my claim to it. If I have a reason to assume that you did so with hostile intention, such as you swinging your fists at me, I have a good reason to assume that you're trying to start a fight, and that I need to defend myself. This should be understandable even to a libertarian, with their obsession on property.
Misbehaving in traffick has a very real chance of causing an accident and getting someone killed. Endangering the lives of others is most certainly a violation of their rights.