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Post by mainstreet on Mar 16, 2017 22:00:26 GMT
One thing I enjoy is having civil debate and discussion. I like getting other points of view, and I like trying to reach an understanding. I do not like my positions being misrepresented, and assumptions being made about my ideas. In fact, I am quite sick of it. I intend to use this thread to engage in a long-term commentary about how I think: the core philosophies and ideas that shape my being. I will also go into implications for generalities of how I think the way I do. Throughout all my posts, my own positions are generally assumed correct. If you're reading this, you probably already know who I am, but in case not, I'll clarify that I am American, and a very left-wing progressive, registered Democrat. This does shape my thinking, and I admit this now to get this over with. I expect to be linking this thread during political arguments, so this is likely already known. Some philosophical posts will be kept neutral, but you can use this statement to intuit my personal thoughts, as they differ from, or are included in, a general thought pattern. Because one of the key points of this thread is clarity for my own thinking, this is not the thread to respond to anything I say. If you want to have civil disagreement, talking to me here on WyvernIRC directly is preferred. Alternatively, I will create a separate thread in this board for responses and discussion -- post in that. Any posts not by me in *this* thread will be deleted. Use *that* thread instead. I will make some very generic statements in this post, that are arguably the most important. These also have little to elaborate on. More statements will be made in replies. First, I exist. I reject solipsism out of hand as uninteresting with regards to shaping my thoughts. Simulationism, The Matrix, etc. all fall into this category as well. They can be fun to discuss for their own reasons, but I refuse to consider them for anything else. There is no reasonable course of action to follow elsewise. Second, science is real. Specifically, "my senses provide accurate information sufficiently often and reliably to be valid and useful for decision-making purposes". The scientific method is a tried and true method. It's basically how all inquiry works, ultimately. Denial of science will not go far with me. We can say that science has limitations as well, but that is not because what we have done is bad, but rather, that we constantly strive and work to do better. The methods are sound. We are learning. I will discuss aspects of science in more detail later. Third, the above statement is/was not a religious commentary in any way. It is entirely possible to construct atheistic, monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, etc. models of the universe that have legitimate and valid science (as we do). Without declaring my faith, my demand for scientific integrity does not impact faith. It is also possible to construct models that do not have this legitimate science, but again, these are patently false. (Keep in mind, again, science has limitations -- not being able to explain a specific thing (yet) does not necessitate a breakdown of science, a delusion, or any other specific result.) Fourth, humans are rational beings. This does not mean that we always act rationally, but rather, that we are capable of rational decision-making in a way other species do not. With power comes responsibility; at a minimum, to oneself. Responsibility to others is debatable, and lies outside the scope of this "initial" post, but will be discussed later. Fifth, I enjoy life. I recognize that I have been privileged in so many ways. Not in every way, there are limits to my privilege, the most obvious being lack of wealth, but in enough ways that I can understand that most people I engage with do not have as much privilege as I do. I like living, and like being happy. Personal happiness is, in a way, how I define the goals of life. What makes me happy will be a running theme throughout the commentary. Sixth, I am capable of holding distinct thoughts at different levels. That is, you might hear me (apparently) advocate two things that seem to be opposite. Likely the cause is that one of them is the realistic path that I am actually supporting as a matter of policy, and the other is me going fantastical and far into idealism -- the sort of thing I might construct were I able to build the world from the ground up -- but I know would not happen here and will not waste my time working for it. This applies on a political, personal, and professional level. I may add to this post, if I feel anything is too fundamental for a reply. And of course, I will add replies for detailed commentary, at my own pace, when I feel I have something worthy of posting.
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Post by mainstreet on Mar 17, 2017 18:28:29 GMT
Circles of CareIt is human nature to care. We do not, however, care for everyone the same. Nor does everyone have the same approach to how we choose to care. I will discuss my own theory. It may not apply to everyone. It applies to me... with a twist. Disclaimer: I have no background in actual psychology. I am not going to understand the psychological principles. (Indeed, I find much of The Science of How (Normal) People Think to be... suspect at best. But that is a discussion for another time.) People care about those they are closest to. There are two aspects of this: people that spend time with them, and people that not only spend time with them, but do so in a positive way, especially in a way that shows a returning of care. Typically, one will always ultimately care about oneself first. When someone claims to care about someone else more than themselves, what they usually really mean is that caring for/about that person is something they receive happiness from in some manner, and thus, caring for that person *is* caring for themselves as well. This is most frequent in familial relationships and romantic relationships, but good friendships can also do this at times. Certainly, it's well-established that relationships suffer when one does not care for and respect oneself. Consequently, family (including lovers) is the innermost circle of people we generally care about. Close friends can enter this circle as well, depending on the strength of other relationships. And of course, family can drop out if they don't act like it. These are the people you care about most, after yourself. You want to protect them and you want them to be happy. Of course, on a purely mathematical level, this is because their happiness makes the life surrounding you happier as well, and thus, contributes in such a manner. Ultimately, this is the case at every level, it's a case of how much we care. Friends that you spend some time with, but are not particularly close to, come next, as does family that you may have some issues with but still spend some time with. The circle proceeds outwards, likely to people you have met but don't know well, and people that have an impact on your life, even if the feeling isn't mutual. For instance, people that spend time discussing celebrities, of whatever form, be they Hollywood stars, athletes, politicians, or anything else, will actually be impacted by their choices and what happens to them, because they are spending time on them, and since it clearly pleases them to do so, it impacts their lives. Even if you dislike people, it still *affects* you. People that you have never met that you are aware of existing, but do not spend time thinking about much, are next. People that you have no connection to whatsoever -- even if you've passed them in the street or whatnot, or even talked to them, if you don't know who they are, they fall here. This is basically "everyone else". Notice how no one is beyond the "everyone else" category. Even if you might claim to wish someone ill, the reasonings for this are more complicated than the circles I here mention. Specifically, you wish them ill because you believe that a reduction of their ability to influence your life will be a positive for you/those you care about. You don't actually care about them, as a person, less. Within each circle, human nature is going to mean that you will value a life from a closer circle more than a life from a farther circle. With each new circle, there is a drop in your level of care. The farther away (in a circle sense) someone is, the less chance they can impact you personally, especially positively. This is, in short, a major philosophical difference that shapes political thinking. For my observations, conservative drops tend to be much steeper than liberal drops. Now, I am not saying that either side is less caring than the other, I am saying that the spread of caring is different. Liberal politics generally spread benefit to faraway circles, conservative politics tend to concentrate benefit to the circles closest to themselves. (Very important: The next statement does not by any means apply to everyone, or even to all conservatives. But it may provide a piece of the puzzle for those that are perplexed by certain behaviors.)We can actually attribute a lot of forms of so-called hate (more accurately expressions of fear), including racism and homophobia, to these drops. If you don't encounter people different from you on a regular basis, they stay far away in your circles of caring. From there, it is easy to see them as more likely to be threats to you and those in your inner circles than those that will contribute to your own benefit, as those who are in said inner circles do. Individuals with flatter care levels are less likely to perceive this -- remember, all of this is about human perception, not about truth. The most reliable way to combat such biases, then, is sustained positive interaction with these communities. (We cannot, however, attribute sexism to this -- it's another discriminatory form, but it's not really based on hate -- people simply have to encounter both genders reliably. There might be individual cases of having been hurt too often by the opposite gender, but I expect these to be rare and not germane to political statements, in the main.)
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Post by mainstreet on Mar 19, 2017 22:29:30 GMT
Why Climate "Debates" are a Waste of Time
97% of climate scientists have come to the basic conclusion that anthropogenic climate change is real. The science is effectively settled.
There are people that deny that there is any climate change, and that is simply wrong on its face. One simply needs to check temperature trends and the like to see this is clearly false. Anyone that persists is likely being ignorant on purpose. But this is not what I want to talk about.
Most actual "denial" is not of climate change, but rather, it is of the fact that humans have done anything to cause it. The implication of this is essentially that, "it's not our fault, so no, we don't need to do anything."
The problem we have is that most climate advocates accept this latter premise and attack the actual scientific point; namely, that climate change is caused by humans. They are not wrong to do so per se, because what they are arguing is correct.
But this is pointless, why do you even grant the first premise? Someone that wants to discuss this issue has already basically chosen to ignore the settled science, you won't convince them on this point. Indeed, this post itself may be linked to those that are convinced I am crazy for my convictions regarding anthropogenic climate change.
This is what I want to talk about.
It does not matter whether humans are the cause of climate change. Not one bit.
For the purposes of this exercise, I will flip the script and grant the other premise, even though I disagree with it: humans are not the cause of our climate change.
So, the argument goes, we do nothing. What happens if we do nothing? The temperature continues to rise, making parts of Africa and the Middle East even less viable for human life, straining the resources of these areas even further. This increases the probability of war in the regions and is a massive threat to global security. Rising sea levels permanently flood many parts of the world, causing trillions of (US) dollars in property damage, rendering potentially millions of people homeless. This puts a further strain on resources and increases internal conflict in affected nations, which includes the United States. It is likely that the death toll and damages will be incalculably high, in the end. Losing habitable land on an already-stretched planet benefits no one. The increasing conflict may well end our civilization. We may survive it as well, but not everyone will; on that, we can be certain.
I find it interesting how similar these consequences are to the consequences of our supposed anthropogenic climate change.
Okay, some have said. But the problem isn't that we shouldn't do anything per se, it's that it's a natural process and nothing we can do will stop it. To this I say: I reject fatalism. We are the world's rational beings, and we have just as much right to survive as anything else. We absolutely can and should defend ourselves against a changing planet. Looking at nature as an enemy may feel trite, but in this case I must find it appropriate. If we must alter the planet -- in the opposite way that many say we are doing -- so be it. It is quite natural to do everything we can to survive. We have rationality, and we have the ability to construct things far beyond what other species are capable. Those that say we should not do so have never provided me a satisfactory reasoning behind it. I do not regard humanity, our presence as rational beings, as a bad thing for our world. No matter what destruction we may cause... destruction is itself part of the natural cycles of Earth.
I do not know of any argument that could persuade me that we should not do everything we can to continue ourselves and continue to survive as a species, and more specifically, as a civilization. Civilization allows us to achieve greatness in a way that mere survivalism does not.
For these reasons, I do not see any reason to grant the implicit premise. Whatever the reasons for climate change, we can and should fight against it.
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Post by mainstreet on Mar 29, 2017 16:03:56 GMT
What does "Freedom" mean really?
In short: Freedom means something a little different to everyone. I'm going to discuss my own philosophy primarily, but I do need to emphasize that the main point needs to be that everyone will have a slightly different idea, and that's perfectly fine. I do ask that what I write be considered, however. It may surprise you.
First, to me, freedom first means the ability to make choices. But it's not just making choices, many people claim that all things are in fact choices. I could "choose" to steal a car, but that would likely see me in jail for some period of time, not to mention loss of reputation and other such consequences, plus such actions have a moral component to them -- I believe it is, in general, wrong to steal, and thus, I would not want to do such a thing. So I do not believe that sort of choice is actually a choice that defines freedom. As such, making choices is not itself sufficient -- more specifically, I must be able to make choices among equally valid options. To steal and not to steal are not "equal" choices. To eat at home, or to go get fast food, might prevent a slightly more "equal" choice -- I weigh the financial costs, and possible nutritional differentials, against the time investment, and so forth. Thus it is "freedom" to make such a choice.
This is actually a fairly powerful example, more than you might think. Someone that isn't able to afford the financial cost at all, or for that matter, someone that is so busy they can't really afford the time-cost of making a home meal... either one of these, arguably no longer have this choice as equally valid options, for various reasons. Now, I am not saying that this example is a standard for whether freedom is present or not. Indeed, it is a mistake to say that "free" and "not free" is a dichotomy. But we can clearly see that everyone will have slightly different freedoms.
Now, these were simplified examples that have little to do with matters of topics that we often refer to when we consider freedom. For instance, "freedom of speech" is highly valued, though often misunderstood. But when you abstract this, "say this" and "say that" are still equally valid actions, in that sense. Of course, we must not forget that there can still be costs to actions.
Actions -- no matter how much "freedom" you have -- have consequences. This would seem like a fairly basic understanding, but, especially with "speech", is often confusing.
The US Constitution's "freedom of speech" is often taken far too literally by many Americans. I hear, far too often, people say "I can say whatever I want and you're wrong to tell me I shouldn't because FREEDOM!" or variants to this. That's... just not what the Constitution says, and it's a ridiculous interpretation. I'm equally allowed to be offended by things you say, and refuse to continue to listen, as you are to say things.
What the Constitution actually says, essentially, is that, within a few limitations, the government can't punish you for what you say, especially for expressing political opinion. (Making dangerous remarks -- such as shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre, is still punishable, of course.) But if no one cares to hear what you have to say, and they express that... no, you don't have the right to force listening.
Freedom means different things to different people, sure. But let's not confuse legal meanings with personal meanings.
One thing that needs to be kept in context about freedoms is other people. It is far too common to not consider implications on others.
Let's take, for instance, smoking. You have the right to smoke, blah blah... do you have the right to grab me, hold my throat open, and shove tar and nicotine down it? I thought not. You might say that I could just move. Maybe, unless I live or work here... No, someone moving house, or quitting their job, because you're going to be a jerk, is not viable.
It applies similar on a corporate level. People (corporate stooges) like to whine about 'environmental regulations' that make it more expensive to do things. Because apparently, they don't care about your right to drink clean water, or to breath clean air, or for that matter, to see beautiful natural landscapes. If ISIS dropped 400 gallons of dangerous chemicals into our major waterways we'd call it terrorism. So why are big industries allowed to do much more than that (or, claim they should be, for those that have been prevented by 'regulation')?
Your rights end where mine begin, and my rights end where yours begin. Seems very straightforward.
People may have different ideas, and that's fine. But consider what freedom means, to me, here.
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Post by mainstreet on Mar 29, 2017 19:05:04 GMT
Is Freedom Actually the Goal?
A lot of people like to uphold "freedom" as the standard by which we need to make political decisions. The implicit claim is that our society is best when it has maximized freedom (possibly while still maintaining sufficient security to ensure said freedom is actually preserved -- that is, anarchy is not the goal).
But is freedom actually what we want? I argue that it's not the end goal. Rather, it is merely a foundation -- one of multiple -- upon which we can build our ideal.
The ideal is, essentially, that we are happy. I mentioned this in the initial statement: personal happiness is my goal. Now, because I have high levels of empathy, in general, I am happier when everyone is happier. And this then concludes; the goal should be for people to be as happy as possible.
Now, let's get a few red herrings out of the way, because I can smell the objections from here.
First, no, artificial happiness does not count. Such situations actually inhibit the basic truth that we are rational beings. Eventually we must comprehend that such a thing is artificial, not genuine, and thus, it ceases to work. Even if we could construct a "perfect" system... perpetual motion machines are still not things, all systems break. Even with such a machine, all things are likely to break eventually, such is our universe.
Second, no, I am not advocating for a pure utilitarian perspective that could lead to ridiculous results, such as allowing a small group to suffer to benefit everyone else. Empathy does not simply go away, I would find such activities highly distressing. Same goes for conclusions that amount to attempts at genocide -- they are morally repugnant and distressing in themselves, and thus, do not actually lead to a state of happiness. Most would likely feel guilt at such a thing a well, also inhibiting happiness -- to say nothing of the infinite downslope caused by the heinous act itself. So please do not misrepresent me here. I do not support these things, and I do not need a "freedom" argument to not support them.
So what makes people happy? Or, rather, what restricts people from being happy?
Freedom is certainly part of this. If we feel as though we cannot make our own decisions, we are unlikely to express happiness.
Esteem is a part of this as well. People need to feel positively about their "self" and their identity. What they are doing in life, who they are as a person, etc.
Security is a part of this. If people feel that negative effects on their lives are likely to occur, they cannot be happy. This is more than just physical security, of course -- financial security, relationship security, and so on, may also be highly relevant. I think this aspect is often overlooked -- at least, beyond the physical aspects. Safe from enemies, safe from crime, yes, these people remember. Safe from other hardships is not often considered as much.
This needs to be put in perspective. It's just as important that people live "good" and "stable" lives as it is that they live "free" lives. Freedom is important, but let us not delude ourselves into it being the only thing of importance.
This does not mean that we should, as a matter of form, attempt to make everyone perfectly happy, even through this criteria. Almost certainly that's a contradiction -- some people will certainly have maximal happiness states that cannot be achieved at the same time as others'. What I am desiring of is to, in general, create policy that betters lives, not worsens them, and all of these criteria should be considered. There will likely be a point in which policies that try to do this end up doing more harm than good become probable -- do not implement such a policy, if possible. Etc. In practice this post isn't really intended to advocate for any policy per se, just what should be kept in mind as policies are considered -- what should our goal be?
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Post by mainstreet on Apr 27, 2017 20:38:58 GMT
We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident...
I turn my attention to the question of rights, with a goal of attempting to determine a root cause in the differentiation between American liberal and conservative philosophy.
During the time of the Enlightenment, John Locke wrote that there were three natural rights that humans had: "life, liberty, and property." (Locke was fairly nutty by modern standards, but progressive for his time. I mainly use him here because of Jefferson, as I will explain.) Thomas Jefferson, when writing the Declaration of Independence, changed the last one to "the pursuit of happiness" largely because "property" was a term very closely linked to the hideous establishment of slavery. The reference, however, was obvious and is very much a connected part of our history.
In the 21st century, the world looks considerably more different from the time of the American Revolution, than that time did to the middle ages. More specifically, our technology has leaped ahead more in the past 150 years than it had in the previous 2000 or so. The world is considerably different. We have notions of human rights that go far beyond these basic three or four.
The problem is, ultimately rights are going to come into conflict with another. Priorities must be set. I mentioned in an earlier post that "your rights end where mine begin, and vice versa", but in practice people can and do prioritize some over others.
Let's explore, starting with the four mentioned by Locke and Jefferson.
Life -- Put simply, the right to life. You, in general, have the right to not die. We do practice capital punishment, but theoretically only on people that have already taken this right away from others. Indeed, a right to life certainly also means reasonable protection from being murdered. This feels simple, right? And yet, it means different things to conservatives and liberals. There are a few reasons for this. For instance, we can compare the right not to get shot by police and the necessity of being safe while protecting people from those that would murder them (or commit other offenses against their rights.) This is the most basic philosophy, of course -- the details of the situation make both sides much, much more complex than this, but this is where we start from. Notably here, neither side will deny the existence of the other side's right here.
A much thornier matter in the right to life is when we compare, say, the right to not die due to poor air quality caused by corporations spewing sludge into the air. If this comes into conflict, it comes into conflict with applying making money to the right of "property".
There is another aspect to the right to life which I'm sure conservatives are going to scream at me about for not discussing much here. However, that comes down to being a scientific determination, and I am going to say that I trust the medical community's opinions on this matter and I believe further discussion to be outside the scope of this post. A future post may be made on this, it may not.
Liberty -- Synonymous for freedom, I've actually already written two entire posts on the subject. I don't have anything particularly new to say on the topic itself. I will relate this by saying that liberty is obviously dependent on life.
Property -- Even though Jefferson uses "pursuit of happiness", I do not believe these are the same thing, and will talk about both. A right to property is essentially, what's mine is mine, and it cannot just be taken from me arbitrarily. This can be extended slightly into the field of capitalism. Conservatives and libertarians like to talk a great deal about the notion of "keeping what you earn". This is often used as a hit job on the notion of taxation that shows a lack of understanding. It does puzzle me that this notion is often more sacred than the notion of quality of life, which I (and I think many liberals) do see as an extension of the right to life, to a degree.
The Pursuit of Happiness -- At first glance, this might be a reference to quality of life as well, but it's more accurately a statement of opportunity. Everyone has the right to have the chance to better themselves and be "happy" -- which as my overarching introduction noted, is sort of how we (or at least I) define our goals. Now, I firmly believe that opportunity cannot be properly seized without basic security. Humans are typically risk-averse, especially with the severe consequences failure brings in the current structure of our society.
Okay, so this is Locke and Jefferson. But as I said, we're in the 21st century now. What else is our "rights"? Well, I could discuss the Bill of Rights, but that's not really going to get me anywhere, with one exception. Most of those are technical matters that are actually rather too detailed for the scope of this post, and/or are elaborations on one of the items mentioned above. However, I will call everyone's attention to the Ninth Amendment. The Framers were smart. They knew the world could change, and what we saw as rights could change with it.
Nonetheless, this is the critical moment. Here is our difference. In general, my experience with conservatives indicates they would probably expect this post to be over about now. They look back to history, to the Constitution, and don't see much else.
I said that basic security is a necessity for opportunity. In order to actually exercise the "pursuit of happiness", not only does opportunity need to be available, but a foundational quality of life must also be present, to allow risks to be taken. What this means is that I, and most liberals, consider the items below to be fundamental human rights, sufficiently as important as those above as to be willing to be prioritized in equality or in greater prominence, depending on the circumstances.
The conservative complaint to these items is often "Why do I have to give up what I earned to pay for this thing for someone else?" That's a misunderstanding of what taxes are -- something I will discuss in a future post -- but it's also a more fundamental difference in values. I could respond "Why should I (and for that matter, YOU) not have this very important thing because you want more of those green flat things?" Fundamental human rights essentially means I cannot consider "how to pay for it" immediately -- I consider the government obligated to secure/provide it, full stop. (Not all of these are "pay" necessarily, some are just things that need protection.) Where the money comes from can be figured out, but "not funding" a fundamental human right is not an option, any more than it is an option for the above items (police force/court system, for instance).
Education -- Especially in today's world, most opportunity starts with quality education. It doesn't have to be specifically through the traditional schools and colleges per se, but everyone needs an equal shot through education. In today's world, that means free access to public education, including the universities, as well as vocational training.
Healthcare -- In today's world, we need to be able to have healthcare. I have several medical conditions that require modern medicine to treat. People sometimes get sick or injured; this is life. We can't live without it, this really is an extension of the right to life.
Clean Air and Water -- Really an extension of the right to life, as briefly commented on above, but apparently obtuse enough that I feel compelled to mention it again. (As I write this, the town of Flint, Michigan, has gone over a year without clean water.)
Reasonable control of personal environments -- This is awkwardly worded, but the best way I can explain it. At a minimum, for everyone, it means having a roof over their head if they so wish, and one that provides a reasonable amount of personal privacy and safety. Additionally, many people, especially the very young and old, have conditions that are aggravated by extreme temperatures. For these people, it means having heating and/or air conditioning as relevant, within their home environment as well.
Access to transportation -- This is vague on purpose. Everyone's situation is different and I'm definitely not saying something like "everyone should have a car given to them." Rather, we need to be able to, in general, get around. We no longer live and work in the same place quite frequently and need to be able to have options for employment. This one is vague enough that costs and the like can probably be safely considered, but in general we absolutely can and such handle transportation better, as a nation.
Love -- I have always thought it extremely ironic that conservatives claim to be for "small government" then yet want the government to tell you who you can love (or, perhaps more accurately, marry). People should have the freedom to love who they will. As long as all parties consent, there should not be restrictions on relationships. Love is love.
I end this post by referencing the ninth amendment again, and thus I reserve the right to add to this list as I please. Rights are never comprehensive, that is their beautiful nature.
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Post by mainstreet on Jun 5, 2017 23:36:41 GMT
Taxes and Revenue
Alternative Title: No, We Are Not In A Suppression Economy, And Never Have Been
(Before we begin: Point of clarity: This particular post is about taxes, but has nothing to do with the tax-related topic I hinted at in the post immediately preceding this one.)
There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about taxes. Today I am going to focus on one misconception.
In many conservative circles there is an idea about taxes that builds on nice, simple steps and is completely coherent and reasonable. The mistake is simultaneously incredibly obvious and incredibly subtle, but lies at the very end of the chain of reasoning.
Let's start by discussing the Laffer Curve. In the first iteration, this is very non-controversial. It starts by saying that with the tax rate at zero percent, the government gets zero revenue, and that the government also gets zero revenue with a tax rate of 100 percent, because there is no reason to create any business activity if your money will all be taken away. It follows that at all points in between, revenue is non-zero.
In the next iteration, we must understand that these non-zero points should reasonably follow a smooth curve of some sort. It would be a mathematical mistake to assume that a 50% tax rate is the maximum value, although that would form the simplest curve. In fact, the maximum value is a special point that does not have a clearly defined rate. There are a number of reasons for this.
One is that tax policy is not as simple as "here's a tax rate". Corporate taxes, individual income taxes, sales taxes, etc. all present themselves at vastly different rates. For simplicity's sake, we'll focus today on the individual income tax. I actually must go one step further, and say that I will discuss the income tax for a "single" individual (as opposed to married or other such filing statuses) that is in full compliance with ACA regulations, again, to keep numbers simple. Income taxes in the United States are structured marginally, thus you only pay taxes in a range for the specific dollars that you earn within that range. (Using 2016 numbers in the following calculations):
Let's say you make $70,000. You might first be inclined to assume your federal income tax rate is 25%, that is what is listed on the chart. But in actuality, you are only paying 25% on taxes at $37,651. Overall, you pay 10% of $9,275, 15% of $28,375 (37650-9275), and 25% of $37,350 (75000-37650). This yields a tax of $14521.25, which is an effective tax rate of about 19.36%. And this is before deductions. Technically you can never quite reach the "maximum" tax bracket -- even those making millions don't pay *quite* that 39.6% maximum tax rate.
For comparison, we'll look at said million-maker. I'll set the value at $2,000,000. 10% of $9275, 15% of 28375, 25% of $53500, 28% of $99000, 33% of $223200, 35% of $1700, and 39.6% of $1,584,950. That's a tax burden of $748169.95, or 37.41% -- still not quite that 39.6% value. Again, this is before deductions.
So even if the top marginal tax rate were 100%, that's not an actual tax rate of 100%. However, we can accept that a marginal top tax rate of 100% sets revenue sufficiently close to zero as to be useful here and we can still keep our curve.
The problem is that the curve has no maximum point that can be defined with a hard number. So, what defines when the curve has hit a maximum value?
In short, the curve hits its maximum when any further increase in taxes would send the economy into suppression. This is not an actual economic term, but I cannot find a term that clearly defines what I want, so I will coin the term now, then define it. A suppression economy is one in which businesses decline opportunities for growth and investors decline opportunities to invest in new businesses because the tax burden is too great to be worth the effort/risk of proceeding.
Without directly using my term, some conservative economists like to claim that we are in a suppression economy. Lowering the tax rate, they say, would increase revenue, on the curve, by freeing business up to grow, and investors to invest. But this only makes sense if businesses and investors currently consider taxes in any way. There is no evidence of this whatsoever. Most individuals in the business world do not consider taxes. Indeed, I can find no historical evidence that there has been any time in world history in which an economy has gone into suppression. It is definitely theoretically possible -- a 100% tax rate for all (non-marginal) is guaranteed to send the economy into suppression, for instance. But this result may be trivial and vacuous, because anyone can see this obvious result and would never attempt it. (Some may attempt to cite certain examples at me, I caution people to make sure that the economy is even comparable to use such terminology with. Outright communist economies do not operate with taxation in the same manner and should not be considered.)
This may beg the question of what does a business consider, if not taxes? In short, a business grows and shrinks solely on one number: sales. That's all that matters. While (in)efficiency can change the number of sales required for growth, and proper management is important, these concepts shift the entire curve. One's place on the curve is entirely dependent on sales. Taxation also shifts the curve, but until we actually have evidence that business with sufficient sales for growth refuse to do so because of taxes, it's not a useful concern.
How will we know if an economy goes into suppression? There's no hard data for this, but business executives are often polled to discuss factors in their decision making process. They will tell us when taxes become an issue. (I must point out that variable tax rates from location to location have nothing to do with this argument, and *will* affect decisions. If I can set up shop in a place with lower taxes without hurting my marketability, I will. This fact has great potential for market abuse and exploitation, but is outside the scope of this particular post.)
To be clear, what I am saying is simple: We are not in a suppression economy. Thus, while the merits of the tax rate can be discussed, not being in suppression means that it is inconceivable that lowering taxes could possibly raise total revenue. It should also be stated that it is not certain that raising taxes even one percent would not put us into suppression -- I am not sure this is a thing which can be proven before attempting. However, we should remember the historical record -- the US once had a top marginal tax bracket of 90%. This was during the Eisenhower administration, and we were definitely not in suppression then!
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Post by mainstreet on Jun 15, 2017 16:48:13 GMT
Body and Mind
I suspect a post in the near future of mine will present ideas that will make people uncomfortable -- specifically, the people that generally tend to agree with the things I say. I hesitated when considering writing it, but then I realized I violate the entire point of this thread if I find myself afraid to write about a topic due to potential backlash.
As always, the Discussion thread is set up specifically for comments. Discussion on IRC is, of course, even better.
What I will do is a bit of a compromise. In the interest of future posts not getting misconstrued, I'm going to start with this post. These are underlying principles concerning body, mind, and communication. When I write future posts, these should be remembered.
First, we all have the same rights and capacity to gain privileges with others. Specifically, I will be using lots of pronouns for brevity. These should not be considered to be exclusive. Use of gendered pronouns is for example, not to indicate this is a thing for a specific group. Use of "I"/"my" also applies to every other person internally. You can read it as "you"/"your" and it would still be valid, and absolutely does apply to you, whether you want that to be the case or not. We are all human beings.
My head, my thoughts, my freedoms. That is to say, I should feel free to think whatever thoughts I wish, whenever I wish. Thoughtcrime is not a thing nor should it be allowed to ever become a thing. In society we filter our thoughts, we do not restrict them.
I do not have the right not to be offended. I do, however, have the right to enact consequences on those that offend me. That is to say, I should recognize that people are free to make their own choices, and so am I. If someone persists in offensive behavior/language/etc., I have every right to remove them from my life. Nonetheless, this does not mean that myself or my rights are in any way violated just because I am offended.
However, people do have the right to not be violated. Violation with words is a tricky business, but it does exist. Triggering is often a loaded concept, and I understand why. Essentially, the issue people have with the concept is that they feel blamed or that they are made in the wrong because of getting an emotional response that they have no way of knowing would happen in advance, and is not an expectation -- that is, it would happen much less often than not, with random individuals. This gets people defensive. I would recommend that people learn what topics are likely to do this, and provide a simple comment when they are about to discuss it, giving people a chance to back out.
I do worry that my above statement, if followed, can lead to a systemic abuse by conflating legitimate triggering with simple offense. My recommendation is, essentially, not to abuse the system. As I already said, I do not have the right to not be offended, just the right to react to said offense as you see fit.
I acknowledge that the above commentary more or less requires good faith discussion. I see little benefit in lawyering to prevent bad faith. People that are out to abuse will, frankly, abuse anyway. I recommend removing such toxic individuals from your life. (I am aware it is often not that simple, but as a general point, the recommendation stands.)
My body, my rules. I want to be clear on this. No one has a right to say what I can and can't do to my own body except me. Even if I may discuss moments where there is an impulse to believe I am not using this rule, I am declaring it as an absolute, right now. Any actions, any restrictions I place, are done so with my consent. (Or, it is an abusive/coercive/violative event.)
In general, people should make every effort to believe the best in each other. This does not mean ignore evidence, but this does mean to not assume the worst about people.
In general, people should understand that no one is perfect. We all make mistakes.
Living in a bubble is a disaster. If I remove everyone that says things even slightly differently from me, I can't grow as a person. Listening to ideas and having honest, good faith exchanges, are really important in life.
That being said, we should make every effort to respect the differing backgrounds of people as well. Not everyone has the same level of acceptance for the same issues. Some issues are bigger deals than others. This is fine. Notably, this means that we need to respect if someone is not comfortable with continuing a discussion, or not inclined to do so. It will be problematic if that is someone's response to everything all the time. More than that, the closer people are, the fewer topics that need to be off limits. For instance, anyone in a romantic relationship really can't afford to have (m)any topics permanently off limits with their partner(s). (Though I will certainly say "every relationship is different" as a comment in a future post.)
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Post by mainstreet on Jun 19, 2017 2:19:58 GMT
Your Mental Understanding Is "Complete"
Your brain has an understanding of how the universe works. Hopefully, it is mostly as correct as we generally know, but whether it is or not, what that understanding is, is complete. I don't necessarily mean correct -- even if you know all of all areas of current science (improbable), science can and does get updates as we gain a better understanding.
However, for any particular concept, one of a few things must be true:
a) You have an explanation for it. Whether this explanation is correct or not is immaterial to this being a fact. You might be as certain as it is reasonable to be, or you might be highly uncertain, but you have an explanation -- something that you have accepted as true until you hear other information that causes you to re-evaluate the validity of your explanation. b) You are aware that this is a pressing mystery. You likely have considered some possibilities but are not willing to declare to yourself that any one particular explanation is true or is even most likely to be true. Depending on your interest, you may or may not seek out information to determine a most likely outcome and move into the statement above. c) For whatever reason, the concept has not occurred to you. If this happens, when you first are told about this concept, you most likely start to wonder and ask questions, at which point, it moves up. d) You find the concept completely useless/uninteresting/etc. to your life and refuse to consider the validity of options regarding it as anything more than occasional thought exercises.
Your brain attempts to sort the entire universe into categories A and D. You are never aware of anything in category C until it happens, and category B is rather nebulous -- because usually you either attempt to resolve it or declare it uninteresting. However, it is possible that you maintain a state of uncertainty.
Remember that none of this cares about whether your information, and thus your category A conclusions, are correct.
So why is this post's concept relevant at all?
Because what this implies is that *any* information is going to be accepted as true if there is no contradiction.
For instance...
(For brevity, let's accept "The sky is blue" as a true statement on a basic level. Yes, I know it's more complicated than that. But let's go with it for now.)
Let's suppose I told someone, "The sky is red." Let's further suppose this person is blind -- or has somehow spent their life without ever seeing the sky -- and has never been told by anyone what color the sky is. Unless they have reason to believe that I am a less-than-credible source, they are going to accept it as fact that the sky is red, until told otherwise. (I don't even have to have credibility, just not "negative" cred*.) This isn't correct, but they have no way of knowing this without information indicating such. Until they actually look at the sky, or hear someone say the sky is blue, they will consider the sky red in their worldview. This is necessary for the brain to function: it is not going to reject information out of hand.
So that means that if a person is introduced to a completely new topic, they will at first only consider information given right away. Maybe later they will have reason to question, but that first notion is hard to break.
This is, for instance, why children tend to be more gullible than adults. It's not because they're dumb, it's because they have no reason to suspect a fraud, not having had such incidents occur to them. (And also, gullible is written on the ceiling! Take a look!)
What everyone should be aware of is how easy it is to take entire fields of concepts and blanket them with useless commentary that nonetheless provides alternative explanations to everything, making it extremely difficult to get legitimate information out. Religious doctrine is the best example of this -- if the explanation for every process is "God made it that way", and this comes first, and from respected/trusted people -- it will be much more difficult for people to accept other things, especially if they are more complicated and nuanced explanations. This is even more true when those explanations are known to be incomplete (such as the problem of, say, quantum gravity, which we have not yet solved) -- we get a "God of the gaps" phenomenon quite often, which is not really ideal on a multitude of levels, but is generally outside the scope of this post. (For the record, the correct way to handle quantum gravity is either left in category B or using theories that you accept for now but admit to serious doubts about.)
Overall it is very important that fair explanations are given to all concepts. It should also be considered valid to discuss explanations and point out why they are wrong.
There is a slightly separate corollary to all this as well. Completeness of truth also implies completeness of the optimal plan, as this is simply a truth statement for "Is <plan> optimal?" What this means is that when someone argues against a potential change, they are obligated to do one of three things: Explain why the change is worse than the status quo, explain a better alternative, or acknowledge that they don't have a better option but are able to sketch some general ideas of what that option would look like, to give people a chance to create one. This is the same when arguing against the status quo: You must either be able to present a superior alternative, or acknowledge that you can't and show what a potential alternative could accomplish, so others can create one.
Notably, in either case, if you choose the last one, the response may well be. "No such alternative is feasible (or perhaps conceivable)" and the original person must either counter the argument made to support *that* or stop complaining. However, be aware that "I can't come up with an alternative" is not the same thing as "No such alternative is feasible." Beware bait and switch between these two concepts!
I hope this provided some things to consider as you wander through information and especially through plans of action.
*To clarify my point on "negative" credibility -- if I tell someone the sky is red, and this individual has known me to lie -- perhaps I have told them grass is red before -- then they are likely to reject my information as useful. However, even neutral is enough to indicate that a claim is worth accepting -- there is no contradictory info. With negative, there actually is. The two pieces of information are "mainstreet says the sky is red" and "mainstreet lies". Etc. And in fact, it's slightly more complicated on credibility in general -- everything we do affects people's opinions of us. Even simple shifty looks or behavior in their presence might drop credibility into negatives.
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Post by mainstreet on Jun 21, 2017 23:42:26 GMT
Human Nature, Sexuality, and Choices
Today I will discuss an issue that is commonly discussed in liberal and feminist circles. I am going to agree with the core problem, but try to provide a generally more complete perspective, including an understanding of human nature, and propose another potential solution.
As a frontload: I will likely be using terminology that is somewhat heteronormative in nature. This is not intended as a deliberate slight against the LGBT+ community, but rather, for clarity and brevity. I will be talking about sexual attraction a lot here. I know that not everyone is the same, but I can discuss things in the majority, and regardless of your own orientation and identity, I trust that you can find a lens through which you can understand my meaning as it does or does not apply to you. Since we are discussing society as a whole, we must engage in greatest impacts.
The problem I am going to discuss is, essentially, the over-sexualization of women’s bodies, especially in media and pop culture. This is a problem, I will agree. I think the problem is actually less obvious than it first appears.
So the common solution discussed is essentially: stop doing it. This sounds great, but I’m uncertain that it will happen. Humans are, in general, hardwired for sex. People are going to experience sexual attraction, and that is, at the most basic level, quite frequently, to bodies. People will find things to be attracted to on that basic level, no matter what you do.
It can be argued that this issue contributes to the abuse of women. I can’t agree, women are abused all over the world and sexualization of bodies is not a thing in large parts of the world – that if anything, have larger rates. (Quick reminder that correlation is not causation: I am definitely not claiming doing this reduces rates. But I think we must fail to reject the null in all cases.) In short, this is an issue, but it is an overarching issue with our culture’s patriarchial system and needs to be solved on a slightly larger level that this post will attempt. While I do think my conclusion will actually help, I do not think it will by itself solve much on this massive level. So, if we’re not solving it by stopping it, what can we do? We can, bluntly, ask men to stop hiding their heads in the sand about their own bodies, and just as women are often held attractive for men, hold ourselves attractive for women.
Now, this does not mean we should accept – for any gender – the implications of ridiculous standards that media can imply, which damages youth of all identities, but largely young women, about their bodies. In fact, this is itself due to a mental disconnect which we should address and solve. First, educationally – teaching that images seen in the media are often sanitized – learning about Photoshop and other techniques that make people seem “cleaner”. But this is only part of that body image issue. Let’s explore the rest of it with a little depth.
I am personally a (largely) heterosexual cisgendered male. I make no apologies for my physical attractions. I do my best to respect everyone regardless of their supposed attractiveness to me. But I do understand what I tend to like and not like. I know that other people will be different on this topic. I will thus admit to some bias in favor of my own attractions, as anyone would. Nonetheless, I believe that despite this, my arguments will remain sound and sufficiently useful.
When we talk about women’s bodies with respect to image and sexualization, a lot of people like to discuss celebrity images as an example. Now, there are a lot of complaints across many different sub-industries of the celebrity world, but let’s go straight to where this is exaggerated the most, and that’s with modeling. Now, let’s be clear about something: Exploitation happens in that industry, but I have not seen data that shows it is substantially different than exploitation everywhere else in the world. As such, this goes back to the larger-scale problem I mentioned before – so we can ignore this without losing argumentation validity.
There are two issues discussed with modeling: how they stereotype and tend to box into a single body type, and how they tend to provide unrealistic bodies in general. This first one is a problem, but I’m not sure it’s actually an independent problem of the second one. I have heard both arguments handled sufficiently separately that I feel I must acknowledge their differences. I will note optimistically that many companies are starting to acknowledge more body types and this problem is getting relieved a bit. Nonetheless, the overall perception is still a problem. I will claim, however, that this problem gets solved through my solution to the other problem. The larger issue is that models show unrealistic bodies. In fact, let’s cut straight to the heart of the matter, and talk about a specific company, and one that many of the groups making these arguments agree is the ultimate synthesis of these problems: Victoria’s Secret.
Now, yes, I’m a male. I love looking at the VS models. I’m attracted to them, and I know who they are possibly better than most men. I think they’re some of the most beautiful women on the planet. …I want to emphasize that. They are that. They’re getting paid to be at that level of beauty. When we complain that their bodies are unrealistic, are we missing that that is basically the point? Of course they are the hottest – if they were “realistic” every woman would be able to make those millions – and yes, the Angels of VS are millionaires. They make this money because it’s unrealistic, because they are the best.
In fact, this whole thing sounds familiar to me, when you look at it from another perspective. There are also a lot of complaints about big-name athletes like LeBron James, Tom Brady, and Cristiano Ronaldo making millions of dollars as well. Do we complain that young men are overly pressured because they’re not the next Tom Brady? To be sure, this does happen, but it’s not seen as a huge cultural problem. Because most people figure out that they’re not Tom Brady. Young men in high school choose whether to try out for sports, and they find out if they have the skills to play at the next level, and this continues to filter through, whether they end up as one of the greatest players in their sport, or whether their ceiling is college, or high school, or whatever.
So why, then, is there is implication that young women should compare themselves to Adriana Lima, Jasmine Tookes, and Stella Maxwell? Or rather, we agree they should not, so why is this happening and causing a problem for so many young women? These are the multimillionaires that are absolutely the equivalent of the aforementioned male athletes. Yes, professional modeling is an athletic event, in the sense that they train their bodies every bit as hard as any more conventionally understood athlete. I think we do a disservice by simply claiming “unrealism”. Because, Photoshop aside, these are real people. They have made a career out of their body. They are just as much a real person as Cristiano Ronaldo is. But rather than girls comparing themselves to Adriana Lima, acknowledge that she made choices to make that her career (along with, yes, natural talent, just like LeBron’s talent with a basketball), and if that’s a thing they want to do, can consider going that route along with hundreds of other careers, and considering it in the proper perspective. Yes, for mainly girls, no matter how hard they try they’ll never be on Stella Maxwell’s level. That doesn’t mean they can’t make a career through that – or rather, they’ll figure it out in their own time. Most importantly, if you’re not going to be Stella, why compare yourself to her? This is no different than a boy that doesn’t make the NBA despite wanting to play basketball. And as someone that never played football more than casually, I certainly never compared myself to Brady. It’s important not to dismiss people, and it’s important to give young people the chance to make informed choices.
For that matter, have you seen Cristiano Ronaldo without his shirt on? He’s pretty hot, and I say that as a male. Athletes are going to be physically attractive – athletic bodies are generally healthy, and we’re hardwired for attraction to health. There can be exceptions, particularly with models, but just as necessary a commentary is that what is healthy for one person may not be for another. We should acknowledge the attractiveness of athletes, not hide it, be embarrassed by it, or claim it’s bad for society. We should also understand that yes, they look good, but that doesn’t mean we have any obligation to take a similar path, or care about theirs.
Some may attempt to claim that men’s bodies aren’t used in the same way in the entertainment industry… well, that’s only partially correct. Professional athletes absolutely are using their bodies regardless of gender. However, this is ultimately my point... we need to start acknowledging men’s bodies as well...
So what do we do? First, we acknowledge that athletes both in the men’s and women’s spectra have physically attractive bodies. Second, we acknowledge that a component of entertainment industry is also athleticism/attraction. We don’t need to try to “change” this, just accept this and consider it as we do things. Third, we increase the market voice for women. That is to say, we’re not going to reduce sexualization in general, but we can show things on screen that women like to see, as well. We’re doing some of this, but not very much. Women are half the market -- this trend should continue.
This might feel like I am trying to elevate physical attractiveness/athleticism. I am not; rather, I am trying to bring it into the open so it can gain its proper place. I don’t believe we can ever get to a point where we move beyond physical attraction being a thing. We can get to a point where we accept the attraction and move on with our lives, which is the point. In order to do this, we must accept that physical attraction is a thing, that it is a combination of work and genetics, and that it’s okay for not everyone to be at the same level – and that this is neither a problem with those that are less attractive nor does that do the attracting. We accept that not everyone is as talented as specific tasks and everyone else, this should be no different, and given its importance to our natures, is simply human nature itself.
When everything is acknowledged, it can have its proper place, and we can respect even more the things that should be respected.
So what is the point here? The point is that humans are hardwired for sexuality. Right now, our society tends to amplify the attraction of the female form while suppressing the male form, at least in relation to each other. I don’t believe we are capable of removing attraction, so to gain equality and eliminate a double standard, amplify male attraction more, and accept for both that attraction is a thing – that is, it has its place and there is nothing wrong with attraction – from either side. Ultimately with anything what matters is consent.
When we actually consider relationships, of course we should move beyond the physically attractive level. But you don’t need me to tell you that there’s more to a relationship than the physical – and yet, if people want to have a relationship that’s just that, as long as they’re honest about it, that’s up to them.
I don’t believe this solves everything, or even much, but it might be a useful, if complicated, single step to consider.
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Post by mainstreet on Jul 2, 2017 15:56:46 GMT
In General, Why So Political?
I'm going to make a brief assumption before I start. I'm going to assume most of my readers live in legitimate democracies, for some variation of legitimate -- something short of an outright dictatorship. If you live in a dictatorship right now, I feel sorry for you and, if it is distressing you, advise you to get out ASAP. (Not all dictatorships are required to be evil dictatorships, though it happens that all of them are right now.)
The question has come up to me of why I focus so much on politics. The arguments against it have been varied. It's depressing, it's difficult on friendships, it's ugly and childish...
The friendships one I will come back to later, but in general the idea is that it has negative implications to be involved with, and doesn't actually impact lives that often.
Here's the problem with that. People that say this are dead wrong. It does impact lives, possibly more than anything else.
Every law that is passed or change can affect you. Some do not, but then, those that do not also tend to be the least controversial. Decisions matter. Consider the latest healthcare proposal from the current Republican administration. This can kill thousands of people, including me.
Let me be clear here. THIS BILL COULD KILL ME.
Yes, politics matters! It matters more than anything else does!
As a citizen in a democratic system, it is your duty to participate to the fullest of your ability. This means vote every election. It means be informed about your votes for every election. It means understand what every candidate stands for, and in the case of those with a voting record, what that record is. It means voting in such a way that you are most likely to see the policies that align with your values the most, enacted.
This implies use of strategy. That will vary depending on the election system in use in your country/state/etc. Know the differences, know your own system, know how to do this correctly!
Does this take time? Absolutely it does. In California, we vote twice a year each even numbered year, and there can be as many as 50 slots on a ballot at times. Yes, this means it will take you a long time to analyze. I'm not saying you need to go to maximum levels of analysis for everything. But learn what's important and what's less important, and assess your time that way. Also, get off the playstation and get to work. This is more important than your gaming, or really, any of your supposed "free" time. No. This isn't free time. This is you doing your duty as a citizen. Anything less is an abrogation of your duty as a citizen of your nation. I definitely am not even slightly interested in your political opinions if you could have voted and failed to do so, unless you had a damn good reason, such as being suddenly hospitalized, etc. but more than that... some countries ask a lot of their citizens. Most democracies, including the United States ask very little. Except for occasional calls to jury service, this is the only duty you have as a citizen (in the US, at least -- I am not as familiar with every country). Do your duty!
Okay, let's talk about the whole "friendship" thing. I've had complaints that politics ruins friendships. And so it can. But let's consider something here. Politics is essentially the attempt to push a nation/state/etc. in the direction of your values. If political disagreements are causing a problem in your friendship, it basically means one of two things: either one of you is misinformed, or you do not really have a shared value system. If it's the former, then you need to have these discussions to work through things and teach each other. If it's the latter, the complaint is somewhat valid -- discussing politics *can* ruin friendships. However, for it to do so it implies two things. First, the two of you can't discuss things civilly and with mutual respect. This might be a failing on conversation, or it might actually be an expression of the other problem. The other issue is that if you truly have disparate value systems, were you actually friends in the first place? This seems to me to be the very definition of "fake" -- since you only respect each other because you don't know them as well as you thought you did, or because you're hiding your true feelings from your supposed "friend". In fact, it most likely is *not* simple conversational failure. Mutual respect will not occur, for instance, between a racist and someone that opposes racism.
I don't like politics. I don't like that I spend so much time on it, nor do I like that it's so important. But I can't deny reality. It is important, and I follow it because I must, because political events do affect me and those I care about.
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Post by mainstreet on Jul 21, 2017 20:16:22 GMT
Sports, Sports, and More SportsOne thing that is very common among politically aware individuals is to hate on sports. This is especially true of those in the liberal political sphere, but does occur all over the map. As most of you that talk with me know, I'm a huge sports fan. Baseball is my favorite sport, but I watch a variety of sports, and absolutely love it. So I do have personal reasons to be in favor of sports as a popular thing. There are some things I dislike about sports as well. Most "anti-sports" people like to talk about these things. I will discuss them as well, and agree with most of it. But there is another side, that often doesn't get discussed, and I think they are important and should be considered. First, yes, sports tends to lead towards a tendency towards greed. Billionaire team owners and millionaire athletes are hard to relate to. I can understand hesitation to want to support/contribute to a form of economic inequality. I agree in principle, but it's not substantially different from any other form of entertainment in this regard. (I also, for what it's worth, support plans that would work to change how sports often works in this manner, but more on this later.) This is especially an issue when it comes to stadium construction. Demands for billion-dollar stadiums, often funding with taxpayer assistance, is really grating on people. I agree completely. There should not be taxpayer funded stadiums. I have a lot to say on this particular issue. Actually, I've already said a lot on it for Daily Kos. Some of the info is slightly out of date from the time of this writing, but here is Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4. One thing I will emphasize from all that is the notion that a stadium doesn't need to be fancy. We're there to watch the game not watch fish swim and see if the tank shatters from a baseball impact... This greed also implies corruption. The stadium drama is itself one aspect of the corruption -- look at how relocation fees in the NFL magically dance around -- but this is actually a bigger issue on the international stage. I'll focus on the two largest international organizations: the IOC and FIFA. The IOC is the single most corrupt organization in the world, and FIFA is probably in the top ten somewhere. Essentially, all these organizations care about is using their sports as money grabs. The bidding processes for host cities (IOC)/countries (FIFA) tends to be laughable, rampant with bribes and unrealistic demands. Let's look at some recent bids. Funnily enough, I'll get to talk about a bid from each of these organizations at once in quite a few cases. 2014 Winter Olympics Sochi/2018 FIFA World Cup Russia: How much did Vladimir Putin pay off the IOC and FIFA to get these bids? Sochi is hardly a winter paradise, and the buildings were half-constructed piles of crap. Russia also has a lot of problems in the human rights department, especially in LGBT+ relations, as well as the general respect for democracy department. All of this is scary. 2016 Summer Olympics Rio de Janiero/2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil: When these were awarded, this was actually completely reasonable. Brazil was rising economically and seemed to be doing really well in every way. The problem is, they stopped gaining, and both events ended up really screwing over the country economically. They're a great example of how these events can go wrong even without a lot of malice. Of course, had the IOC and FIFA not put heavy demands for specific and ridiculous things that made it way harder than they needed to be, this would not have been as bad. 2022 Winter Olympics Beijing/FIFA World Cup Qatar: 2022 is set up to be a banner year of awful. I almost want to talk more about the Beijing selection in my next complaint below, because it's quite appropriate to that one more than it is to the issues Qatar is having. I will just pause to comment that Beijing is in no way a city that is equipped for winter games. This is going to be a disaster. Qatar is of course a country that has not only never qualified for the World Cup with temperatures capable of reaching 110 degrees in the summer, but has an absolutely terrible human rights record with abysmal treatment of workers building their stadiums. (Not to mention that they have to build every stadium, because Qatari soccer is terrible and has no stadiums worthy of World Cup matches). All these problems have been well noted... this leads us into... The bidding process for the 2024 Summer Olympics Paris Or Los Angeles and 2026 FIFA World Cup CONCACAF Union: No one wants your silly events anymore! Paris and Los Angeles are the only 2 bidders for the Olympics because so many recent Olympics have lost money. This, of course, means that these cities have a lot more leverage to not have to concede to ridiculous IOC demands, which will save them money, and once again delude the world into thinking you can make money on these even with said demands... it's a cycle. The 2026 World Cup is little better. The United States, Canada, and Mexico have filed a joint bid and are demanding quick action, because they're well aware that, especially with FIFA rules in force preventing Europe or Asia from getting the 2026 World Cup, the only alternatives are terrible. Of course, there's two problems with this concept. First, how do you get more terrible than failure to even guarantee teams can enter the country? (See: Trump Travel Ban) I mean, I'm aware Trump won't be President in 2026, but this is still a dangerous and scary precedent and I don't see how you can do this. Also, the alternative bids that have been mentioned are Colombia, Morocco, and New Zealand. Are these bad bids? Maybe, but I think everyone would prefer one of these countries to *Qatar*, so again, not a concern. (Personally I think Mexico should get it on their own at this point, but meh.) But yes, the arrogance of these organizations is causing a problem... but when Paris and LA actually make money, and Mexico too, or whoever gets the World Cup here, everyone will start wanting it again. (Beijing 2022 is also this, as there were no major bidders opposing them, just a town in Kazakhstan.) No foresight. Sigh. Okay, so... all that sounds horrible. So why do I like sports? We've talked about the negatives. Time to talk about the positives. I'm going to zoom through the obvious "fun" aspect. It is, but I'm not going to convince people that way. (I personally find the tactical aspect of how sports work to often be underrated by non-sports fans as well, but that's a detailed conversation, sport specific, and outside the scope of this post.) At the basic level, it offers an outlet for tribalism. Humans are hardwired to divide people into "us" and "them". While I applaud the efforts of those that urge us to move beyond this notion, I do not believe it is feasible for the masses in the long run -- it's simply human nature. More specifically, it offers a *usually* healthy outlet for tribalism. Let's use an example. I'll start with Major League Baseball. I'm a Padres fan. I hate the Diamondbacks. I hate Diamondbacks fans. They're so annoying and have no respect for the game, yadda yadda. I've found them to be the worst behaved fans in the National League. Wow mainstreet, that doesn't sound healthy.It doesn't sound it. But let's look at this a bit more closely. What is a "Diamondbacks fan"? Someone that supports the Arizona Diamondbacks... all Diamondbacks fans, first off, like baseball. This is actually something I have in common with them. So despite apparent hatred, there's actually a kinship there. They're probably from Arizona, though not necessarily. There's nothing in here that is so fundamental, in general, that it can actually cause a social problem in the same way that, say, racial hatred, or homophobia, or transphobia, can cause. Let's do a bit of a silly thought experiment. Let's say I become Emperor of Earth, and am evil and want to express my hatred. So I might want to oppress Diamondbacks fans. ...how do I do that? All the ways you oppress groups normally, don't really work here, do they? People will just stop caring about baseball, or perhaps the Diamondbacks will change their name or move or something else... So being the fans of a sports team is a group that you can express a dislike and hatred for, but it's not a group that can actually become a socially ostracized population on a meaningful, hurtful level. This means that if we're going to be tribalistic, and be negative towards a group of people, this might well be the safest way we can possibly do it. I'm not saying violence between team supporters never happens. But when it does happen, it tends to happen on an equal basis -- or at least, on a basis that you can change the "teams" of the involved parties almost at will and the case won't feel any different -- any more or less wrong. It does not seem to happen at a greater rate than generic violence that is non-targeted. Sports is also a conversational topic that, similar to the news, continuously has new information, but unlike regular news, is not consistently depressing. This applies similarly on an international level. You have countries to support over others, to showcase your own way of life, your own philosophies. It allows countries to measure themselves against each other in a peaceful way. Differences can be settled on the sporting fields rather than the battlefield. This saves lives. In fact, we can take international competition and go a step further. Major events like the World Cup and the Olympics are not only heavily political, but they are the sorts of events that become infeasible if a major portion of the world is at war. War will still happen, but a war between superpowers now has a huge economic cost attached to it from the disruption of these major events. Thus those that have an interest in these events -- and we're talking in the many billions of dollars here -- thus influence the world away from superpowers at war. It's a shame that they cannot influence away from asymmetric wars or wars between small states nearly as effectively, but it is better than nothing. Overall I must conclude that I find sports a vital part of our modern world and am grateful for their presence.
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Post by mainstreet on Aug 12, 2017 1:24:20 GMT
The Myth of the Rational Consumer
A popular conservative and libertarian myth is the concept of the Rational Consumer. The idea is that when making a decision on what product to buy, a person will always consider everything possible to consider about a product, such as a company's environmental policies, workplace policies, safety record, and other such ideas. The claim is then made that most forms of regulation are unnecessary, because the market will simply run companies out of business if they engage in business practices the public disapproves of. There are a lot of problems with this idea.
First, let's consider information. It's not realistic to assume we know everything about a company's business practices. Joe Public is not going to be let onto factory floors. Sure, they can possibly look on the Internet for complaints, but this is likely to be unreliable -- companies have more resources to purge websites and intimidate workplaces than Joe Public does to investigate. Governmental authority is the only way we're going to maintain compliance. But wait, one might say, couldn't you make transparency a condition of buying the product? There are two problems with this. First, there are good reasons why you don't let just anyone into such areas -- protecting proprietary data is important, as is preventing sabotage. Not to mention that idiots could get themselves hurt in places like this. The second reason applies to *everything*, not just transparency, so I'll discuss it in the next paragraph.
Second, let's consider the standardization of industry. If every company that makes a widget engages in a specific practice, and you need that widget, you are not capable of using "does the company follow or refuse to follow this practice" as a judgment. (Don't buy the widget, you say? What if it's something like water? Water is not optional...) A claim might be made here regarding "start your own business to counter this idea" as a reply, however, this argument is akin to "you can move". It's ridiculous prima facie. (More on this ridiculousness in a future post, perhaps.)
Third, let's analyze the day of a typical worker. I'll be generous and say it's a "traditional" 9-5 job, even if that's not that common anymore. I'll grant a half-hour commute each way. Let's say this worker needs a normal 8 hours sleep. This leaves 7 hours per day (16 hours on weekend days) to do everything else in life -- general upkeep, eating, social activities, recreational activities, home improvement, dealing with life emergencies, etc. There's not a ton of time for product research. When I first wrote this I was going to go down a road of maximizing time for product research, but then I realized that itself was unrealistic because humans are not machines, and have social and emotional needs, including, frankly, having fun and not doing things that are effectively work all the time. So I'll be nice here and say that there's an hour per day for this kind of research. Considering all the different things you might buy, you're not going to cover anywhere near the sum total of research you'd need to make. I'm figuring that the level of investigation needed to meet the Rational Consumer's model of rigor is about 2 or 3 hours. That's multiple days on EVERY PRODUCT. How many things did you buy the last time you went grocery shopping? There simply isn't time enough in the day to do it. Having minimum standards set that you don't have to worry about seems really important, for peace of mind as well as simplification of research.
Fourth, most people, especially in a time of increasing income inequality, can't afford to make decisions that might cause them to pay more than the absolute minimum for a product. If one has to buy a widget, and Company A's widget costs $2, and Company B's widget costs $4, the Rational Consumer is supposed to consider of the practices of Company B are much better to warrant the $2 extra cost. But if one only has $3, it doesn't matter. A's is getting bought, even if they're horrible. The vast majority of people in the world are in a situation in which they can't afford higher costs to handle better products. (Of course if more companies engaged in better workforce practices, they'd be able to afford those better products more as well.)
In conclusion, the Rational Consumer does not exist on an aggregate scale, and realistically doesn't really exist on an individual level very often either, except perhaps by the very wealthy -- but those are also the people that would tend to care less about issues that affect the masses.
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Post by mainstreet on Aug 17, 2017 5:43:55 GMT
What Is Morality?
I've been through attempting to define morality far too many times over the past few years, and no one ever really understands my position. I expect this post to need several updates as little things get picked at. Nonetheless, the best attempt at coherency must be made. Seeing part of my position makes it look ridiculous. In a way, being able to do this post is one of the core reasons for this thread.
Before I talk about what is morality, let's talk about what it needs to do. Morality must be able to provide an optimal course of action for a situation. It typically is considered to do so by comparing values and the impacts that options will have with regards to those values. That answer should not differ between identical situations. However, the previous sentence can be seen as rather vacuous, as everyone has different experiences that shape their thoughts.
I will begin by rejecting nihilism prima facie. Rational humans do not actually believe this, even if they claim to do so. Simply put, rational behavior requires *a* morality be formed. I defined morality as choosing the optimal course of action -- this is what you do when you rationally think. The results you come up with may be incorrect, but it is not nihilistic.
Which brings us to a point: a statement must either be true or false. I'll come back to this later.
Most people like to talk about "objective" and "subjective" morality. I'm going to show how this, of necessity, must be a false dichotomy, for the most frequently used definition of "objective".
Let's consider subjective morality first. Subjectivism states that morality is individual to the subject. The problem with this is that it violates the identicality principle. If two people have two identical situations, they may come up with different answers. At first glance, there's no problem, because as stated before unique experiences will shape thought processes. However, that is descriptive. We are discussing morality. We want a prescriptive answer.
Architectural Example: Situation S is presented to Persons A and B, and we will assume there is no informational disconnect. A says that it is morally correct to engage in Response R. B says that is it morally correct to engage in Response Not-R. Either A is correct, or B is correct. They can't both be correct. They will both think they are correct, of course, but both will also find the other wrong. Ideally, they should engage in a discourse to work out the reasons for their differences. Because there is no informational disconnect, there must be a values disconnect -- a core morality difference. However, realistically, one person has to be wrong. I will not be able to say whether A is wrong or B is wrong, but they can't both be right. There must be an actual correct course of action.
A lot of people object to the claim I just made. However, every objection boils down to the original claim of subjectivism itself. Let's go one step further here; if we accept that subjectivism is correct, it necessarily follows that no one is wrong morally, because they are just doing their "own" morality. This clearly fails. Let's go to the obvious example: Nazis are immoral. Am I shutting down the conversation this way? Sure, but so are you by claiming that everyone has their own morality. Seriously, why discuss the morality of... anything... ever? You're already both correct always. It's silly.
Relativism is sometimes mentioned, but this, frankly, is simply subjectivism expanded to a group, cultural, or world level. It either falls to total descriptivism -- and thus is useless -- or it makes no allowance for moral progress, as you're already correct for whatever group you're in.
When most people look at "objective" morality, they tend to think in terms of morality coming from a specific source, such as God. This then, provides an easy objection to objective morality for any atheist. However, this principle shows a lack of understanding of relativity (no relation to the aformentioned relativism). The Theory of Relativity, as explained by Einstein, says that all reference frames are equivalent, and there is no absolute reference. However, you still maintain objective fact. The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant, for instance. There are several other fundamental constants that work similarly. So we can clearly show we have an objective state without it being from a specific source.
I have no personal problems allowing morality, under these terms, to be called "objective". However, I can respect those people that find this definition to extensive for "objective". This being the case, we must then declare the objective-subjective paradigm to in fact be a false dichotomy. I have occasionally referred to this new result as "injective", but this is largely an attempt on my part to be cute with words.
So where does morality come from?
Morality is a bit nebulous to pin down, but I believe humanity (and all sentience, should we find it elsewhere in the universe) effectively creates it through our complex interactions as a species. We constantly work to improve our understanding of it and seek the correct path. All theories so far are imperfect, and I am not sure we will ever get to a perfect understanding of morality. (Indeed, I would be very suspicious of any claims to have obtained such, because it is a short step from such a claim to a suppression of free thought.) It is and will always be a work in progress. I believe we rise asymptotically towards a better understanding. The truth exists -- one must be more correct than another -- and through interaction, reasoning, and discourse, we work to determine which. Ad infinitum.
This, and only this, allows us to make moral decisions, to have discussions on our moral claims, and to actually improve ourselves.
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Post by mainstreet on Aug 27, 2017 5:28:00 GMT
On Privilege, and What Exactly Is A Discussion
First, I'll clarify my background. I'll quote my own post on dailykos when I introduced myself there.
Okay, let's summarize this: I have a lot of privilege. It's not "perfect" privilege, but it's pretty close.
I do understand the idea that it is difficult for me to understand what people that lack such privileges are going through. I understand, most importantly, that it means one of these people will have more knowledge about how things affect them and could have impacts upon them and those like them.
In recent days, I've seen an increase in a trend where these facts are reducing the potential for discussion.
Apparently, if I don't understand what someone is going through, I can't talk about the issue.
I'll be clear here: If that's your position... well, more specifically, if your position is that you have no desire to hear from me about this issue because of this concept... well, that's fine. However... that means it is no longer a discussion. If you invite me to discuss -- and I effectively take any comment directed at me as an invitation to discuss -- I'm going to take issue with it suddenly not being a discussion, especially if it's not explained.
If you don't want to have a discussion, that's fine. And that doesn't mean we can't talk, per se. There is another option. If you want to make it teaching, that's fine. (As a teacher myself, I'm well aware the best teaching happens *with* student input, but it's certainly possible to engage without. In general, though, this is because part of the complete educational package involves teaching critical thinking, and discussions help there. It's not always critical to knowledge transfer.) But be open that you are interested in teaching, not in discussing! If you just want to teach about it, fine. I love learning. I might not be ready to learn in that moment for whatever reason, in which case, I will ask for a different time for it. But I'm going to make an effort not to shut you down in the long run. I'll be ready to learn at some point, and most likely pretty soon.
It is very important that you know when you're just teaching, and when you're actually discussing. Let's clarify here:
Teaching is when you know more about a subject than someone else does, and you are conveying knowledge to them. (Proper education implies a construction of knowledge, not a mere conveyance, but let's keep the model simple.) When purely teaching (and not also teaching critical thinking as mentioned above), the teacher generally is not open to input from the student(s). (Example: No, if y = 4x+1, (0,0) is NOT, in fact, on the graph. I don't care if you tell me otherwise -- because you're wrong.)
Discussion is when two parties engage in informational transfer in a mutual attempt to reach some sort of consensus on truth and/or action. One cannot have a discussion if they are not open to the possibility that they have something wrong. (Not necessarily everything, just *something* -- *anything*.) At that point, they are teaching.
Many "discussions" actually consist of 2 teachers and 0 students, rather than 2 actual participants. Needless to say, nothing is accomplished except an exchange of bad feelings and a general lack of respect.
Even if you're going to "teach" me something, I am likely going to ask questions. It's in my nature. It will have a similar feeling to a discussion, in that it might seem like I'm attempting to tear apart an argument. But it might also be lack of understanding -- that's what good teaching does. If we're open about whether we're having a discussion or a class, it's still important to understand that a class isn't 100% straight information transfer.
Whether I am asking questions in an improvised class or having a valid discussion, here are a few things I both promise to do, and would request...
First, I understand I am not perfect. I understand you are not perfect. Please understand these two things as well.
Second, I respect your effort to learn material I teach, and to engage in discussions we have, and to work to bring a better future for everyone. I respect that you are trying. Please do the same for me.
Third, I will not assume malice. Please do not assume that for me.
Fourth, and most complicated, in this digital society we live in, we have the power to pick and choose who we spend time with. It is a great privilege of mine to spend time with the awesome people I spend it with. However, that means it is also a privilege to spend time with me. More specifically, if all I ever get is negative feedback from you, I will either get the message that you don't think I value you, or I will get the message that you don't value me. If the former were true, I would stop spending time with you. If the latter is true, you are more than welcome to simply stop spending time with me.
That is to say, we have discussions with each other because we respect each other and care about each other. We want to work together to be better. If that changes, there's no point in discussing.
I look forward to many great discussions with you all.
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