dimreepr

44 minutes ago, MigL said:

Sorry if I didn't explain myself well enough; lower birth rates leading to aging population problem.

Currently countered by immigration from high birth rate countries to low birth rate countries. But what happens when most all countries go to a low birth rate as in the extrapolation ?
If there are less young working people to pay taxes, there is less money available for the greater number of the elderly pensions.
The system becomes unsustainable unless people work, and are able to work, to a much older age.

The system becomes unsustainable, when the amount of work done isn't enough to feed us...  

Age has little to do with it...

21 hours ago, TheVat said:

One possible interpretation is that those who want another Trump presidency really want Trump, while those who want Biden are more equivocal in their support, and blend into a large bloc that really want neither.  So an actual election might find that the majority that doesn't want Trump will cast a Biden vote even if they didn't answer surveys as a Biden supporter.  

Indeed, for Trump to win the GOP will have to pull some serious strings, not least of which is maintaining the illusion that he has any idea why his supporters are supporting him?

Other than his God-like genes-ios...

28 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Other than his God-like genes-ios...

Sorry folks I forgot to explain this one; it can be read in 2 different way's: a, God genes like Ios and b, Godlike genios; both of which he would approve, although he'd have know idea where the sniggering was coming from... 😉

1 minute ago, MSC said:

Greater than zero lol what's the point of this line of questioning for you?

Just wondering...

19 minutes ago, MSC said:

What you're really asking me though though, is why should ethics matter to you?

Nope, I'm just asking if you know what the number is???

1 hour ago, MSC said:

In regards to the population that overconsumes resources, can you clarify as to whether or not you mean everyone or the minority of the rich, influential and powerful? I suspect you mean the latter but just want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you.

Everyone is part of the problem, even the holier than though; it's a side effect of being alive...

4 minutes ago, MSC said:

Pars mei conscia semper, pars mei semper dormit. Cogitationis conscius sum, ergo sum.

Is that the latin for the number?

3 minutes ago, MSC said:

You're right and I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. Defining value in this context is definitely key, as is defining context. Context comes from the latin contexare meaning that which is weaved together. Value as a word is actually much harder to define and as Studiot has said, words have many meanings and those meanings have different shades, spins and flavours of meaning. 

Value is inexorably linked to the idea of worth. The goal of context relativism is to define the value/worth of things and groups of things, in the abstract and concrete on the assumption that everything has value to us in our pursuit of understanding the nature of our existence. I don't know or believe a rock thinks, but I need to understand the nature of the rock and the time and space around it, my own physiology and how I can move in the space and time around me, in case it gets hurled at my head or I need to use it to build a house or a tool. In the abstract sense, I also need to be mindful of the utility of a word or concept, as a tool. Value is one such word as even though mathematics and Ethics are studies in value theory, the shades of meaning and definitions is approached differently. The commonality is still what is useful for our survival? Why survival? Strip away all other human motivations and the primary one is we instinctively understand that we need time, to understand and consider our existence and what we want from it. In order for us to have that time, we want to survive. 

Now every subject of discourse you can think of, in every knowledge category, has a truth value between 1 and 0. The truth value I calculate is thought of as the amount of objective statements you can make about a given subject. As examples, the theory of general relativity has a truth value closer to 1, while flat earth theory has a truth value closer to zero. I can make a pretty big list of objective statements about all the things general relativity explains. I can't make a list like that for flat earth theory. The only list of objectively true statements I can make about flat earth theory, is something like X believes in Y (Y being flat earth theory) even though Y is demonstrably false. I can make another list for general relativity with the modification "X Believes in Z (GR) because it explains a lot/has a high truth value". 

Categorising and delineating different contexts, the point of context relativism, gives us more things to quantify, the more we can quantify, the more we can formulate new experiments to reach a better understanding of the nature of our existence as living beings, earthlings, mammals, humans. 

Context realtivism to me isn't even a prescriptive suggestion but a psychological observational theory of explanation of how we think, because as individuals we can only understand the lesser context of our own existence, but when we come together we can weave together the greater context, closer to the full context. We all have knowledge of the context of our own existence. The idea of "personal truth/knowledge" in epistemology only equates to statements of belief about individuals and groups. 

 

 

So, what's the number?

1 hour ago, MSC said:

I really like how you worded this. The primary commonality between the study of mathematics and ethics is value expression. Which your comment made me consciously realise. Updoot.

Is there a number for the value of ethics?

20 hours ago, TheVat said:

 

I feel there is a sense in which it's true and one in which it isn't.  True in that society may have moved on from a mindset that was common when they were young.  But some old folks grow and change with the times and remain very much in the world right up until they step out.  So it feels ageist to assume that the elderly have fallen behind and lost touch with the changes going on.  Some do, but some have a wisdom that is informed by their long perspective across many decades and roll with the changes.

It's more about consequence than competence, I'm fine with tapping the mine of wisdom; but mindful of the fact that they're human and so their personal outlook would be heavily biased towards them existing in the very short term, relatively.

And passing down his fiefdom to HIS children, the success of society would be a lucky coincidence.

5 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

You're certainly not "moving on."

Is that your last word?

17 hours ago, TheVat said:

This is where we branched off from the thread topic of gun control.  Dim the Derailer.  Followed by MigL the Meanderer.  I haven't worked out droll monikers for the rest of us, but we're all complicit.  We should throw ourselves on the mercy of the moderators.   Maybe a split thread.  Metrics of Fitness to Hold High Office?  

Your quip would be cutting, if the first halve of my post wasn't both accurate and relevant; but since we find ourselves in this half, my objection of the 80+ year olds in political influence, isn't based on competence it's based on the fact that it's not their world, anymore.

My thoughts on Islam is the word prophet, the idea that someone would come along in a different place and time, with the same idea but a different God.

When are we going to realise that a good idea is not always a magical snare...

Just now, Phi for All said:

OK. Thanks for just yawning instead of insulting me. I get the message either way. 

I'm not sure you do, which one of us is content with least?

1 minute ago, Phi for All said:

Since we aren't aligned politically, are you implying none of our definitions have any meaning at all? By this reasoning, we'll never be able to define anything meaningfully. Are you sure about requiring our politics to align? Maybe our definition of "align" is different too.

So how do you think making decisions for others has any meaning? My stance is that you can influence MigL's choices, you can berate him for things that make you uncomfortable, you can even work towards legislation that will force him to make more typical choices, but ultimately the decision to behave in a way that feels right is his, and his alone. 

Whatever floats your boat...

The thing is, I'll have to try really hard too care much if I'm not emotionally invested...

On 2/7/2024 at 1:43 PM, Phi for All said:

I thought so too, until you claimed that "we all do" when asked who decides what it is to be a man for MigL.

Hence the reason I said I wasn't defending him, but I stand by "we all do", because politically we have to align for a definition to have any meaning at all...

7 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Since the majority of SCOTUS seems to supposedly be "originalists"/"literalists" when interpreting the law, maybe the 2nd Amendment could be interpreted to allow only weaponry available at the time of its writing.

The problem is, most of these people think they can remember what it was like, when it was written down...

80+ year olds should NOT!!! have a political opinion, let alone a finger on the trigger...

20 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I can see you're not defending him. You're deciding how he should behave.

So why do you reduce the conversations HERE, between the academically inclined, to nothing more than stand-up videos and obscure jokes and references?

And btw, jokes are NOT a way codify meaning. If anything, jokes can show us that conventions don't always hold up. And here, your joking is as useful as some of the popular science explanations we see. It does nothing to make anything clearer for anybody HERE, and obfuscates what the discussion is trying to develop into. Considering that the topic tries to make light of something more serious, your efforts seem very counterproductive.

We've discussed this topic many time's on this site and my position has always been strongly in favour of people being allowed to be who they think they are.

What I've learned from the many, many page's of conversation on this and related topics (sport et all) is that repeating the scientific evidence does very little to change the mind of someone who's main argument is the meme "the definition of an expert is, ex is someone who was and spurt is a drip under pressure."

The ethics of this discussion is clear for all, it's the politics that should be under scrutiny; my apologies for not being a better satirist.

I thought my quip about a craving for ants named steve, was really funny; be a shame if it got me cancelled.

6 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The people engaged mostly with the OP are not contrarian for the sake of being so.

Indeed, that was my point...

12 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

WHO GETS TO DECIDE WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A MAN FOR YOU? Is it you? Is it other men? Is it society in general? Or someone/thing else?

I'm not defending Mig, but we all do...

Jokes are a way to codify meaning, and explian thing's that the less acidemically inclined fail to see; unfortunately, not everyone gets the joke...

6 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

it wouldn't be, because you're not trying to make me mad(?)

(Really; I want to know which definition people are using because at this point, I don't know.)

Okay this is the Cambridge one:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/trolling

..."Annoy" would be a rather low threshold, but it would still involve trying, right?

Question of the day: Did Hinton just troll Marcus?? https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/deconstructing-geoffrey-hintons-weakest

It's a little self indulgent, if you imagine that anyone who disagrees with you just want to annoy you...

I really don't care what you think, but it's fun when I think I've won a meaningless game; it's why we have moderator's, they're trying to protect you from yourself...

On 2/4/2024 at 3:59 PM, swansont said:

I don’t understand. If the efforts are ongoing, where does the level of commitment come into play?

At some point the alphabet people will have to commit to laughing at themselves, if they want to be accepted.

On 2/3/2024 at 3:12 PM, dimreepr said:

Indeed, today I had mushroom soup, and now I have a craving for ant's named stewart...

I'm on my third shoe with this joke, it would seem.

3 hours ago, swansont said:

I don't know. Are the efforts for curing or preventing?

That depends on the level of commitment...

17 minutes ago, joigus said:

 

I stand corrected. Thank you, gentlepeople.

Sexes there are < 10

Behaviours there are > 1000

Something like that.

Indeed, today I had mushroom soup, and now I have a craving for ant's named stewart...

1 hour ago, Gian said:

Agreed. Germany was hit by the 29 Crash and slump vastly more than other countries including the US.

Plus, everyone was terrified of communism, with good reason. When people are frightened, especially when frightened for their children, they can do some very strange things, including electing Hitler to the chancellorship.

People are frightened of almost every abstract version of tomorrow that doesn't include their current level subsistence.

We'd be better off employing an octopus to lead us.

Nothing could be easier than to paint such a picture, if all you want is more; Banksy chose a different path...

5 hours ago, StringJunky said:

If the US puts boots in Gaza, I feel another Vietnam on the horizon.

That may be true, but if I was a Palestinian I'd choose the rock, bc the hardplace just sucks...