Think about it. Everything Google is building is going to allow you integrate many of the features articles are talking about with Second Life. Only you'll be able to do it over HTTP with AJAX and their web service APIs.
It's an interesting arguement, but one that doesn't hold much water in the real world. Neither you nor I have the time to research the veracity of every statement we read or hear. What's more, the information we would need to do so is rarely, if ever, completely available to us.
Granted, however, I believe your argument has a subtle error to it. We cannot know what we do not know, therefore we can never know if we possess perfect information, even if we actually do possess it. This means that you can never be certain, you must always make a decision with the assumption that you do not have perfect information.
In decisions, we rely on probabilities and that's why we're so fallible. That one makes a rational assertion does not mean that the assertion will survive falsification, only that it can be objectively tested.
Understanding a person's trustworthiness helps guide us as to whether it's even worth considering their claims. Sure, it may be irrelevant who Vint Cerf works for, or it may not. It really depends on Vint Cerf himself. I don't know Vint Cerf, so I can't particularly judge how honest he is. But I can notice who signs his paychecks and presume he generally favors ideas that align with his financial interests.
I agree to an extent, I know VC's background and his past actions. His actions have acted in accordance with my goal of a useful network. I know telecoms and their past actions. Their past actions betray a different set of goals, some that require the network not be as useful as my goals dictate. I am therefore more willing to take VC's word on a subject without as much background investigation as I would the telecom. While I may be wrong about VC, my decision is only required to be arrived at rationally in order to maintain rationalist integrity; again, my assertion can be both rational and false.
On the other hand, how do I know if he decided to take Google's money because he thought Google was the company who's action most aligned with his goal of a useful network? Therein lies the problem with worrying too much about motive or simply assuming that it must be equally evaluated like objective knowledge would be. You can never know motive or be objective about motive; motive is a resort when you can't make a probability judgment based on the objective knowledge. To evaluate motive without having first attempted to reach a decision based on the objective knowledge available is irrational.
Do you, as a selp proclaimed rationalist, investigate every faith healing you see on TV? Chances are you've probably formed a general opinion of faith healers and so you tend to distrust their actions based on prior assumptions. Presumably there was some rational thought and consideration that when into forming those assumptions in the first place, and that's fine.
Here is the error I mentioned above. I don't need to investigate any faith healers, none of them have come up with a falsifiable assertion. I can ignore them without losing rational integrity. It's not a matter of forming opinions, I cannot objectively investigate unobjective assertions. When a faith healer devises a test to falsify his practice that itself survives falsification, only then will I be obliged to investigate in order to maintain rationalist integrity.
It appears to me that you are making the mistake of a verificationalist. Verification does not increase objective knowledge, you already possessed the knowledge before you tested it, otherwise you could not have constructed the test. All verification does is provide you psychological comfort, falsification is the only method to increase objective knowledge. When something is falsified, I learn some new knowledge, when it is verified, it's only repeating knowledge I already possessed. Verification may help in a calculus of probabilities that we make decisions with, but rationally, repeated tests are attempts to falsify the previous tests not the assertion the first test attempted to falsify.
No, the beauty of objective thought is I don't put Vint Cerf on a pedistal. He's just a man. And where did the suggestion of putting Vint Cerf on a pedistal come from? I thought the focus was on what bias is and the limits of it's usefulness to criticism. Earning respect is not equivelent to being placed on a pedistal.
The beauty of objective thought is I can keep my perspective and his perspective and Google's perspective all in context without trying to tell people what to think, like you propose to (jumping off on the irrelevant ID tangent, telling mods to mod parent down, etc)...
You've missed the point here. Objective truth is provable in the object language according to Tarski. The object language here is the discussion of net neutrality. The objective truth according to the goals I have is a useful network, these goals are shared with the majority of Internet users. This isn't debatable, it's fact. How many people do you know claim that the usefulness of the Internet directly corresponds to the amount of profit a telecom pulls out of it through monopolistic control?
If you wish to claim objectivity and rationality, then you have to follow rules for rational thought. This parent made an assertion, while claiming rational identity, which failed to maintain rationalist integrity. It is not telling people what to think to demand that rational identity is backed by rational integrity; it's telling them to be objective when they claim objectivity. Asking that a community that claims rationality act accordingly is hardly illustrative of the characterization you've implied. It would be better characterized as demanding honesty, and I challenge you to falsify that assertion.
Pray tell, how do you see ID as irrelevant when the tactics are the same? You haven't falsified my assertions, why would I expend energy assuming any verisimilitude to your claim of irrelevance?
but let's face it, Vint is hardly an unbiased source
The beauty of rational and objective thought is, I DON'T HAVE TO CARE WHO VINT CERF WORKS FOR! Vint Cerf has laid out his proposals and assertions, as has Google and the monopolistic telecomm companies. As a rational person, I can decide the veracity of their statements based on the other information at my disposal. I can never know when or if a liar is lying, so the questioning of motives is moot.
This obsession with motives and bias is irrational and leads to subjective decisions, not objective ones. Usually, it is deployed to disingenuously sow doubts about established facts and hide one's own positions from criticism, not that I'm claiming that is the case here. This post appears to be more collateral damage than maliciousness. The point is, I don't have to care what Vint Cerf's motives are; regardless of the fact that he has in fact acted with far more integrity about what's good for the Internet than any telecom. You will never find an unbiased opinion, bias is another word for goals and no action takes place without a goal, therefore an unbiased opinion is a myth. To search for an objective view is biased in itself.
All that is required to maintain rational integrity is to be transparent about what goals you assume in your assertion. Vint Cerf has made his goals clear, to build a useful network. The telecoms have made their goals clear, to profit as much as possible off this network; they don't shout it, they disclose this type of information more appropriately, like in statements to investors. If my goal is to use a useful network, then I can evaluate each parties assertions accordingly.
IMNSHO, this increase is relativistic irrationality can be tracked closely with the Intelligent Design movement's efforts to wreck science. This is an example of how one of their tactics is dumbing the entire nation down. They've been running a scorched earth policy against reason for years, their efforts have paid off when the nihilistic and relativist garbage they've used for ID has seeped into the veins of public discourse.
For the sake of objective thought, mod the parent down.
Speaking of rubbish. You need to broaden your horizons young man, and develop a modicum of humility.
Broaden my horizons, develop humility? Oh please expound. What humility is there in letting someone repeat known falsehoods? And as for horizons, are you in possession of some mystical knowledge that I should know about? Is there something beyond the study of objective knowledge or faith that has entered the equation here? For you to claim that there is narrowness in my view and then fail to state what it is, is disingenuous.
You sound like you're talking straight out of your anus. I gave specific information, if it is not familiar to you, that's not my fault. You're free to google. Do you really expect me to take this criticism seriously when you can't state a single refutation of any of my assertions? As long as I've heard the term, talking out of one's ass, referred to making claims one couldn't defend. Either offer useful criticism or at least have the decency to only make flippant remarks that are entertaining. For all I know, you're the parent I replied to, unable to defend against criticism and thus taking a cheap parting shot to soothe your wounded ego.
A conjecture by its very nature is unscientific until it is tested.
Nonsense, a conjecture is scientific if it is falsifiable. I can conjecture that gravity is really 3.4m/s2, it is a scientific conjecture. The falsification of this conjecture adds to scientific knowledge. We do not gain objective knowledge through confirmation, only psychological reinforcement. Falsification is the only method by which scientific knowledge grows, if something is not falsifiable, it cannot be considered by science.
I cannot test for the existence of omnipotence, when by the very definition of omnipotence, it could choose not to let me see it.
What is lacking is an appropriate scientific hypothesis of creation, which, like most science, is being worked on and takes time.
Science isn't lacking anything. Scientific knowledge will continue to grow, as it always has, there will always be unanswered questions about the universe. We know that what we do know has yet to be falsified, that is all we can ever know. That existing conjectures do not satisfactorily answer all questions is why scientific knowledge will continue to grow; in time, some questions will be answered and new questions asked. So what?
If you disapprove with a specific stance or position paper of theirs, I'm not part of their organization, nor do I support them, but I'd be interested in hearing what it would be.
I just stated it a second time. The entire premise of their research program is flawed. The attempt to rationalize the body of scientific knowledge against a specific religious text is either a pointless excercise in semantic contortion or is simply doomed to failure. They'd be far better off helping people of faith cope with the reality of science than trying to make reality cope with their religion.
Yes let's be honest. This is buckum, BS, a load. Dr. Hugh Ross is either not qualified to be called a scientist or is full of it. Science is an exclusive set of knowledge. It's exclusivity is restricted to falsifiable ideas. Religious ideas are not falsifiable, therefore science cannot logically consider them. Can religious ideas inspire a scientist to think of a line of questioning that furthers scientific knowledge? Sure, but inspiration does not define whether knowledge is scientific or not. That's what makes scientific knowledge valuable, we can simply repeat the experiments and look at the facts. We don't have to question or even know the motives or mystical beliefs of those who practice it.
Creationism, intelligent design and the flying spaghetti monster are all the same to science, unscientific conjectures. Sites like this are nothing more than part of the televangelist network, conning ignorant people of faith into believing that they offer a special conduit to God. These people are nothing but relativistic nihilists, they're searching for a handout, not any sort of truth. Quit encouraging them.
I'm getting tired of the science community saying 'MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!' constantly.
Too fucking bad! Tired of gravity being 9.8m/s2 too or the Earth revolving around the Sun? There's scientific knowledge, which adheres to a specific set of criteria and not-scientific knowledge, which is what doesn't adhere to that criteria. Either adhere to the criteria or hit the highway, that's how science works. Change that and it's not science.
Hating on conservatives because of your prejudice against all of them being texas-cowboy retards who drive giant trucks. It's pathetic that a community who is constantly speaking out against people who exclude them for having different views has to exclude other people, and ridicule them, just because they believe in something different then you do.
It's the conservatives doing the hating. You can't seem to get it through your thick fucking skulls that science has criteria and that your beliefs don't meet those criteria. No one is hatin on you for holding unscientific beliefs, we're hating on you for demanding that your clearly and demonstrably unscientific beliefs be categorized as scientific. You don't fucking make the rules here, logic does.
Creationism is a completely valid viewpoint, and so is evolution. No creationism isn't; stop repeating this ignorance. Creationism is no more falsifiable than the question of God's existence. Evolution is falsifiable and has survived falsification thus far. Evolution is science, creationism is metaphysical. Creationism is NOT a valid scientific viewpoint, no matter how much you wish and wish.
They're both *possible*. Not as scientific knowledge. Science does not consider creationism because it fails the first criteria of science, it is not falsifiable. Science will never consider creationism or the existence of God until someone has a falsifiable conjecture. But don't hold your breath, humanity hasn't come up with one yet, and it appears as if we aren't likely to ever.
I've always thought the internet was a place where you could get away from people being judgemental, conservative or liberal, believer in global warming or not. Are you kidding? Since when have you been able to go on the internet and demand that 2 + 2 = 5 over and over again, no matter how many times it's patiently explained that 2 + 2 = 4 and not get flamed for it?!
If you have a valid logical criticism, then go ahead, but just repeating this ignorance is flameworthy. You should expect derision to follow you wherever you try to trot out half-baked, illogical assertions and the participants know better.
It isn't fair for people like me who are christians to be told that they're outright wrong. It is fucking fair, you're more than "outright wrong"! There is no objective way for you to not be wrong, but perhaps I missed the part of your comment where you refute Tarski and then falsify falsificationism. And don't hide from objective criticism behind your religious views, I consider your belief in creationism to be heresy. The Christian view of the creation stories (that's right, stories as in there are 2 different ones in Genesis), were written as "my God is more powerful than your God" stories. This has been repeatedly confirmed by Talmudic scholars and is the standard understanding among Jews. Any attempt to claim that the story is literal is blasphemy and therefore heretical.
Your views aren't Christian, they're relativist and nihilist. To honestly conjecture that science is the same thing as a religious view, you've let your brain fall out of your head. It belies a belief that objective knowledge does not exist. Well this nihilistic viewpoint is objectively wrong. This goes for the idiot mods who gave this rubbish points too.
The requirement for rational integrity is illustrated by Russels Paradox of the Liar. If I say "I am a liar", am I telling the truth or lying, how could you ever know? If I claim to make a rational statement, then you should be able to analyze my position and determine if I have made an error in logic. You cannot do that if I have intentionally mislead you. Without rationalist integrity, you could not reproduce and analyze my assertions and their reasoning. If we understand that the most efficient way to find errors is to expose our ideas to the widest possible criticism, and it is rational to expose errors, then we can only say we are acting rationally if we do not attempt to mislead. In other words, the rationalist identity is tied to rationalist integrity. This, along with exploring the limits of criticism are the basis of Bill Bartley's "Retreat to Commitment"; which contains the logical proofs, if you're interested.
As for my.sig, Liberalism claims and has always claimed to be the application of rationalism to politics. If I claim to be a Liberal, then I claim to be a rationalist, if I do not maintain rationalist identity, then I cannot be considered Liberal. My assertion is that those assertions which can be considered Conservative contain errors of logic which make their conclusions illogical. Some ideas that Conservatives agree with, like price information theories, did not originate in Conservatism and have been adopted, but in this example Liberalism has also adopted this position.
There is a slight amount of polemics contained in my sig, if only because I have not completely sat down and catalogued the entire set of assertions that can be considered Conservative. However, thus far, this generalization has survived attempts at falsification.
I have been expounding on this over the past day or so with someone else if you check my posts, the Climate Change thread.
That's not science. Science defined as the objective knowledge about the world. It cannot be objective knowledge if it is not falsifiable. Science, by definition, excludes unfalsifiable conjectures from it's attention. One cannot logically falsify a liar due to the paradox of the liar. Rational integrity is therefore a requirement for something to fall in the pervue in science.
Science discriminates against ideas that do not have the property of falsifiability. What you believe is irrelevant, science doesn't care until you make a falsifiable assertion. You're entire first paragraph belies a misunderstanding of what science is. Something is not a pure science or a selective science; there is science and not-science. Religion is not the science of illogical reasoning or some such nonsense. Religion can be a rational system of thought based on metaphysical assertions, but then it's not scientific. Having the characteristic of rationalization of premises is not sufficient to be considered science.
You need to learn more on the limits of criticism and rationality. I recommend you read some Popper, Bartley and/or Miller.
Which principles are you defining as "Conservative"?
Those espoused by Conservative authors. Take the ID controversy. A simple analysis of the arguments from elected Conservative politicians and their surrogates on talk radio, cable news and the Internets allows one to deduce a logical structure to their arguments.
They believe that their metaphysical belief in an intelligent designer should be taken as seriously as the falsifiable assertions of evolution. Why would one hold this belief? If you research their writings and those they turn to in order to rationalize this position, it becomes obvious that they accept Hume's criticism of induction. They continuously attempt to initiate infinite logical regression in order to create doubt about the validity of falsifiable assertions, while offering their non-falsifiable assertions as an alternative. Knowingly doing this is called bait and switch.
The only reason one cannot really accuse many of them (supporters of Plato's Noble Lie, notwithstanding) of this, is that they really do believe that their position is equally valid in the realm of science and refuse to accept that the goal of science deliberately excludes metaphysical conjectures. Even Behe gave testimony under oath that the definition of science must change in order for ID to be science and that the resulting change would also admit astrology as a scientific field.
Since Conservatives also rail constantly about Relativism, then how do you rationalize this glaring relativist position, which denies objective knowledge to science? After all, wouldn't they support gay marriage if this was the position they held, wouldn't gay marriage be a logically equal position alongside heterosexual marriage?
The writings of Karl Barth and Francis Schaeffer show us how they escape this trap in reasoning. Schaeffer especially, is referenced throughout Conservative literature. They brag about studying under this man and following his teachings. The teachings of these guys rely on Wittgenstein's assertion that there are no true statements in math. Tarski disproved this, but they maintain that it is true in the realm of philosophy, including political science and ethics. The reason they do so is a belief in justified knowledge. This is central to the falsification of Wittgenstein's philosophical assertions. Since accepting all ethical positions as equal undermines goals of the Conservative movement, the solution is to believe anyone who asserts truth cannot possibly posses objective knowledge. Since they cannot posses objective knowledge, they are simply picking a side and defending it to the point of absurdity, or else they don't really believe what they are saying and are open to accusations of hypocrisy and unwillingness to stand up for what they believe. This is the basis behind most mainstream GOP attacks that Liberals and Democrats are flip-floppers, don't stand for anything, etc.
What Barth and Schaeffer do is take specific interpretations of Protestant faith and make this "retreat to commitment", which is really a retreat to absurdity. This is a major theme in Bartley's "Retreat to Commitment". If one removes the logical fallacy of justified knowledge, one may obtain objective knowledge, given a problem situation and a set of goals. Conservative and fundamentalist thought is rationalized. Meaning that Conservatives do claim to support some set of goals, how they rationalize the means for reaching these goals is based on the basic assumptions that I've identified: that the only way to avoid a nihilistic position that there is no objective truth is to completely commit oneself to a dogma and declare that dogma as objective truth. This spills over into the free market worship of the Milton Friedman / U of Chicago classical liberal and libertarian factions; although actual Libertarians suffer a logically similar, but differently rationalized error.
Now, do you really think that I should continue to advance the evidence for this in a freaking/. story, witho
Unless of course a scientist is fudging his results to maintain a desired result. Science as a community product isn't faith based, but only a fool would extend that to mean that anyone in a lab coat is an impartial participant.
Then how is this practicing science? You can't say that someone is practicing science when they give up rational integrity. Science explicitly demands rational integrity. The communal process makes the growth of scientific knowledge more efficient. It exposes ideas to a greater number of criticisms. Assertions receive increased attempts at falsification; this quickly weeds out assertions that are not falsifiable. Weeding out non-falsifiable ideas is essential to maintaining rationalist integrity.
If one professes faith in a religion and then acts unconscientiously, against the explicit teachings of that faith, would you then claim the religion isn't really what it says it is? I'm curious as to how any of your ideal institutions or shared processes might deal with the fallibility of humans.
I just gave you several examples of fallacies that Conservatives hold, most visible with those aligned with the Religious Right. If you haven't falsified those, why should I bother to continue? I don't intend on writing a book on the pages of/.. While categorically falsifying your critics' and rivals' assertions and refutations while showing how your own assertions survive is a standard Critical Rationalist form. It's usally reserved for books, like David Miller's Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defense. The shortest form I've seen this in is a published paper, as I stated, I don't intend to write either in a/. story.
The provable errors are theory by theory, the entire set of Conservative principles contain logical errors. The basic error is the fallacy of justified knowledge. You'll find this as the root of most Conservative principles. This ultimately leads Conservatives into a nihilist position that objective knowledge is not obtainable. Since that does not satisfy their goals, they make a "retreat to commitment" and assume that everybody else does as well, again since objective knowledge is not obtainable, they accept Hume's criticism of induction. Knowledge does not grow through induction though, only through falsification.
The belief that one must show evidence or otherwise prove their position is logically incorrect. One's position must survive falsification attempts. It is through falsification that objective knowledge grows. I do not need to prove my position, only attempt to falsify it, Conservative ideas do not withstand falsification.
If you look at the leaders of the religious right, particularly Karl Barth and Francis Schaeffer, you'll see that they have made a retreat to commitment that requires dedication to absudity; a la Wittgenstein.
Confounding Liberalism with Leftism has been a deceite created by the Conservative movement in this country. Read "The Open Society and Its Enemies" by Karl Popper is you need the difference explained to you. So-called Classical Liberalism, a la Milton Friedman, is not Liberalism, nor does it have anything to do with the Liberalism of the Founding Fathers. It directly ignores many ideas that the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution and contains several logical falicies.
Your ancedotal evidence of confused people making confused claims does not lend clarity, as it has obviously confused you as well.
The logical fallacies used by the ID crowd are the same set of logical fallacies used to attack climate research, ergo, criticisms of ID pertain directly to the climate research debate.
The enlightened person realizes this and points out the symmetry. That way, we can use the same logical basis for defeating these intellectually dishonest criticisms on climate research that we use to defeat ID.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you've discovered the new Godwin here.
In all fairness, nobody talks about how government orgs like the EPA allocate funds for climate reasearch with heavy biases in favor of research that tends to promote the necissity of a larger EPA.
How is that fair when it ignores the peer review process that is designed to eliminate these biases?
Get the government money out of the freakin cliamte research studies to begin with, and they might actually become credible.
Straw man. You give no explanation as to how they are not credible, nor do you state how a non-government entity would be able to avoid this charge of budget increase bias. If one was to look at the credibility of the Bush Administration vs. the credibility of NOAA and EPA scientists, I don't see a scenario where the Bush Administration has higher credibility.
The GOP has been cynically playing the role of the skeptic, but they are not offering rational criticisms, just hyperbole and rhetoric. This is an old tactic of theirs, they prey on the idea that to be intellectually honest, one must consider all evidence and the misunderstanding that induction increases scientific knowledge. They do not offer counter evidence, or attempt to falsify the claims of climatologists, they attack the integrity of the climatologists using the old trick of infinite logical regression. Using infinite logical regression exposes the logical fallacy of justified knowledge, the root cause of the problem of induction. The Bush Administration and it's allies have simply not offered scientifically valid criticisms, yet they claim that they are correct in a matter of science.
The only way to defeat this utter absurdity is to realize that science does not rely on induction. They have not falsified theories on global warming, they have only attacked the inductionist view of the evidence pertaining to climate change. Unless you believe that scientific knowledge is increased by induction (a logical fallacy), their criticisms are useless to furthering the search for truth on climate change.
This is either more incompetence or dishonesty on the part of the Bush Administration. As before, neither is acceptable.
Given that Liberalism is Enlightenment rationality applied to political processes, intellectual usually does walk hand in hand with Liberal. As for the poisoned connotations, these are attacks by those who seek to disingenuously protect their ideas from rational criticism. So yes, according to certain intellectually dishonest groups, like the GOP, you must ignore the rest of the world and rational criticism to be a proper American.
Of course the GOP view completely ignores the fact that the entire group of Founding Fathers were a bunch of self-proclaimed raging Liberals and that making America not-Liberal would destroy the US. My readings of the various writings of the time show that a 'proper American' would need to be a Liberal with a dedication to applying rational criticism to the political process.
As far as Entertainment Tonight goes, I figure the intellectually lazy Left might enjoy it as much as the intellectually lazy Right or a Liberal who has turned off there intellect. Couldn't really say though, I didn't even know that show was still on.
If your employees only need particular websites and particular applications to do their jobs, then why would you willingly open up additional attack vectors? It's a completely unnecessary business risk.
How much of a business risk is the lack of innovation due to information starvation and the inability of employees to experience new tech? I can see a case for this with call center workers, whose job functions might be more akin to a piece of desktop hardware, but for employees that are expected to provide creative solutions, it's a handicap. This position assumes that you know a priori, everything that your employees will need. If you know this, then your employee is a widget. Widgets get offshored, so who's left will need the tools and information available to them to provide new solutions to business problems.
(what did they do before email in the workplace was common?)
They used the company phone. Call center workers don't get an outside line that isn't monitored, creative workers do. If personal calls were not an issue before, then this is a new restriction being placed on those workers.
Your idea about the breakroom machine isn't bad, I just don't think it encompasses a large enough scope of workplace's needs.
Financially I tend to agree with (TRUE) conservative principals: Let people take care of their own money, charge as little as possible, and don't let the government interfere any more than is necessary.
These are Liberal principles. All those Liberals who designed the Constitution and wrote the Federalist Papers pretty much said the same thing. The only real difference between "Conservatives" and "Liberals" in the modern US political environment is disagreement on what government interference is necessary.
Those who call themselves "Conservative" like to also call themselves "Classical Liberals", I believe this a provable error in logic. Essentially, the Conservative argument is that what was necessary government interference classically, is still all that is necessary. Milton Friedman would be a classic example as he is considered a Conservative, identifies himself as a Classical Liberal and believes that the state should not interfere in racial discrimination in employment (Freedom and Capitalism).
"Liberals", on the other hand, claim that what is necessary government interference changes with time and that in order to actually maintain the goals that the Constitution was designed to achieve, we have to modify how and when government interferes. George Soros and Karl Popper are examples of this Liberalism. Each have described "subjective rights" (Popper) and "special drawing rights" (Soros) based on the idea that the Liberal system cannot allow for concentration of power in economic spheres without inviting it's own destruction. In other words, every citizen has the right to the opportunities afforded to first class citizens and the creation of groups that are effectively (not just the legal codification, but economically as well) second class citizens are a threat to the entire Liberal system. These rights today would be access to the global communications network and other parts of the national infrastructure that are necessary to compete in the free market, regardless of an individual's financial means.
This is, I believe, the main reason that Liberals are confused with leftists. As Popper stated in the Open Society and Its Enemies, Liberalism sympathizes with the goals of leftists, but vehemently disagrees with the methodology and means to achieve those goals.
Now, in US politics, there are a lot of theocrats (both left and right wing), leftists and fascists. These people are not Liberal, either Classically or otherwise. Many of their respective goals may match up with Liberal or Conservative goals, but their theoretical basis for these goals are different.
Only if clinton gets held responsible for 9/11. He had many chances to take out the people responsible for the attacks, yet didn't do anything about it.
Sure, I'll hold Clinton responsible for whatever you want. He's out of office, I figured we'd hold people accountable who actually could screw something else up, but it doesn't matter to me at this point. If that'll stop Rambozo the Clown from completely wrecking the country, I'm on board. How is it though, that Clinton is the one to blame, when he was the one who blew up the camps in Afghanistan yet it was the GOP members of Congress who went on record as claiming Clinton was wagging the dog? By Dear Leader's logic, wasn't this helping the enemy? Weren't these GOP Congressmen doubting the Commander in Chief and bringing aid to our enemies? Maybe they share more of the blame than Clinton. Perhaps Clinton could have more effectively dealt with Al-Qaeda in 99' if the GOP hadn't been so concerned about a blow job.
He also fucked around in the whitehouse and it seemed perfectly okay to most democrats.
Speaking of other things I'd do to stop Dear Leader, if it's not the torturing that bothers you but the dirty dirty sex, then you probably don't want to know what degrading things I'd be willing to do to save my country. You know what, I sooo don't care about Clinton's sex life. Didn't then, still don't today. Really, truly, do not give a rat's ass, it's none of my business and I still can't figure out how it's yours. I have no idea what bearing this had on the man's ability to govern. As far as I can tell, none. As they say, "When Clinton lied, No one Died".
BTW. Bush may have lied about WMDs, but only because he didn't know any better.
If he lied, then he knew, if he didn't know he's incompetent; these are equally unacceptable.
His operatives told him inaccurate information.
Keep telling yourself that, talk to anyone who's actually done intelligence for a living and see if they don't die of laughter. The so-called intelligence that bolstered the case for WMD was amateur. The Niger yellowcake documents were a joke, but that didn't stop Cheney from pushing it as hard as he could. If Chimpy was a competent manager, he wouldn't have such incompetent people giving him such bad information from people the professional intelligence community considered undependable. He would have had compentent people, who could judge the reliability of the information. The CIA and the DIA knew there were most likely no WMDs and that Saddam was contained. Only the Office of Special Plans, the little Pentagon fiefdom of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz didn't think so. You know, funny thing about the 2000 election, I knew quite a few people who were going to vote for Bush, not because they thought Bush was any good, they just thought the people around him would be adults. The consensus among them now seems to be, "Fool me once.... Fool me, Fool me.. You can't get fooled again!".
The Democrats have been spreading this around for some time now. Don't you have anything new?
Yeah, so has the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (2002,2003 and 2004 reports), the State Department, British Intelligence and the British Foreign Secretary's office. We're still saying it because no one has been held accountable. This was the biggest military blunder since Augustus sent the legions to Germany (and lost them all). Why would I need something new, you still don't have the old facts straight. Maybe if you can get this much right, we can move on to something else. Now remember, there was no credible threat of WMD, Saddam was considered contained by the professional intelligence community. This was a war of choice, as shown by Bush's statements in the Downing Street Memo. He didn't care about the evidence, he didn't care what stories he had to tell, he defrauded this nation and stole our wealth by presenting the American public with these lies. If you had any sense about the principles that this country was founded on an
I am sick of everyone blaming Bush alone for the mistakes made in New Orleans. Yes, Bush made mistakes, but the blame is to be shared with the mayor.
Make a deal with you. I'll hold the Mayor accountable once Bush gets held accountable for any one of the completely incompetent decisions he's made since in office. This is really a freebie for you here, get Bush held accountable for say, lying about WMDs, I'll hold Nagin accountable. Hold Bush accountable for completely screwing up the nuclear proliferation in Iran by tying our military force up elsewhere, I'll hold Nagin accountable. Hold Bush accountable for violations of either the 4th or 8th Amendments (domestic spying, torture) and I'll gladly hold Nagin accountable.
Personally, I'm getting sick of having my country destroyed, it's military and treasure wasted, and a tyrant who thinks he's king. Bush hasn't just made mistakes, he's played into the hands of this nation's enemies, eroded our ancient freedoms and weakened it's ability to adapt to new dangers. I'm sick of hearing people claiming criticism of this unprofessional slacker is somehow unfair. He's in charge of national disasters (FEMA) and I'd call a 3 state storm, a national disaster.
BTW, after I hold Nagin accountable, are you going to hold the Republicans in local office in Missippi and Alabama accountable, or does holding one Democrat accountable for each Republican held accountable the only way to avoid accusations of bias? NOLA wasn't the only place that was properly evacuated.
Just wondering the same thing. Isn't this criticism:
What is the use of a blog if bloggers are just going to copy sentences and sentiments from the puppetmaster's email?
just as applicable to traditional media? When the Katrina tapes came out, it took several stories before anyone picked up on the fact that the contents of the tapes directly contradicted Bush's claims made right after the storm that "nobody could have anticipated the levee failure". What's the point of a news outlet that manages to miss such an important element of the story?
Weren't all the mea culpa's from the nation's papers on coverage of the lead-up to Iraq about how they failed to actually investigate the administration's claims and those of sources referred by the administration?
Let's not forget the "common wisdom" of the Beltway pundocracy that has no basis in reality and is usually a rehash of memes conjured in isolation from the real world. See either, the Democrats are weak on National Security meme, or the Republicans believe in small government meme.
At least bloggers are easier to ignore, they don't have advertising budgets.
Slashdot Mirror
Think about it. Everything Google is building is going to allow you integrate many of the features articles are talking about with Second Life. Only you'll be able to do it over HTTP with AJAX and their web service APIs.
The map server can be used to create worlds, the 3d stuff can be used to populate them. They can create new environments based on domains, so the real world domain might only have real world details. But they could also build another model for say Google Groups Clubhouses®©. We've been seeing people use Second Life for these purposes, what if Google made it so anyone could integrate a Second Life type feature into their website or web services application?
It's an interesting arguement, but one that doesn't hold much water in the real world. Neither you nor I have the time to research the veracity of every statement we read or hear. What's more, the information we would need to do so is rarely, if ever, completely available to us.
Granted, however, I believe your argument has a subtle error to it. We cannot know what we do not know, therefore we can never know if we possess perfect information, even if we actually do possess it. This means that you can never be certain, you must always make a decision with the assumption that you do not have perfect information.
In decisions, we rely on probabilities and that's why we're so fallible. That one makes a rational assertion does not mean that the assertion will survive falsification, only that it can be objectively tested.
Understanding a person's trustworthiness helps guide us as to whether it's even worth considering their claims. Sure, it may be irrelevant who Vint Cerf works for, or it may not. It really depends on Vint Cerf himself. I don't know Vint Cerf, so I can't particularly judge how honest he is. But I can notice who signs his paychecks and presume he generally favors ideas that align with his financial interests.
I agree to an extent, I know VC's background and his past actions. His actions have acted in accordance with my goal of a useful network. I know telecoms and their past actions. Their past actions betray a different set of goals, some that require the network not be as useful as my goals dictate. I am therefore more willing to take VC's word on a subject without as much background investigation as I would the telecom. While I may be wrong about VC, my decision is only required to be arrived at rationally in order to maintain rationalist integrity; again, my assertion can be both rational and false.
On the other hand, how do I know if he decided to take Google's money because he thought Google was the company who's action most aligned with his goal of a useful network? Therein lies the problem with worrying too much about motive or simply assuming that it must be equally evaluated like objective knowledge would be. You can never know motive or be objective about motive; motive is a resort when you can't make a probability judgment based on the objective knowledge. To evaluate motive without having first attempted to reach a decision based on the objective knowledge available is irrational.
Do you, as a selp proclaimed rationalist, investigate every faith healing you see on TV? Chances are you've probably formed a general opinion of faith healers and so you tend to distrust their actions based on prior assumptions. Presumably there was some rational thought and consideration that when into forming those assumptions in the first place, and that's fine.
Here is the error I mentioned above. I don't need to investigate any faith healers, none of them have come up with a falsifiable assertion. I can ignore them without losing rational integrity. It's not a matter of forming opinions, I cannot objectively investigate unobjective assertions. When a faith healer devises a test to falsify his practice that itself survives falsification, only then will I be obliged to investigate in order to maintain rationalist integrity.
It appears to me that you are making the mistake of a verificationalist. Verification does not increase objective knowledge, you already possessed the knowledge before you tested it, otherwise you could not have constructed the test. All verification does is provide you psychological comfort, falsification is the only method to increase objective knowledge. When something is falsified, I learn some new knowledge, when it is verified, it's only repeating knowledge I already possessed. Verification may help in a calculus of probabilities that we make decisions with, but rationally, repeated tests are attempts to falsify the previous tests not the assertion the first test attempted to falsify.
As for this case in par
No, the beauty of objective thought is I don't put Vint Cerf on a pedistal. He's just a man.
...
And where did the suggestion of putting Vint Cerf on a pedistal come from? I thought the focus was on what bias is and the limits of it's usefulness to criticism. Earning respect is not equivelent to being placed on a pedistal.
The beauty of objective thought is I can keep my perspective and his perspective and Google's perspective all in context without trying to tell people what to think, like you propose to (jumping off on the irrelevant ID tangent, telling mods to mod parent down, etc)
You've missed the point here. Objective truth is provable in the object language according to Tarski. The object language here is the discussion of net neutrality. The objective truth according to the goals I have is a useful network, these goals are shared with the majority of Internet users. This isn't debatable, it's fact. How many people do you know claim that the usefulness of the Internet directly corresponds to the amount of profit a telecom pulls out of it through monopolistic control?
If you wish to claim objectivity and rationality, then you have to follow rules for rational thought. This parent made an assertion, while claiming rational identity, which failed to maintain rationalist integrity. It is not telling people what to think to demand that rational identity is backed by rational integrity; it's telling them to be objective when they claim objectivity. Asking that a community that claims rationality act accordingly is hardly illustrative of the characterization you've implied. It would be better characterized as demanding honesty, and I challenge you to falsify that assertion.
Pray tell, how do you see ID as irrelevant when the tactics are the same? You haven't falsified my assertions, why would I expend energy assuming any verisimilitude to your claim of irrelevance?
but let's face it, Vint is hardly an unbiased source
The beauty of rational and objective thought is, I DON'T HAVE TO CARE WHO VINT CERF WORKS FOR!
Vint Cerf has laid out his proposals and assertions, as has Google and the monopolistic telecomm companies. As a rational person, I can decide the veracity of their statements based on the other information at my disposal. I can never know when or if a liar is lying, so the questioning of motives is moot.
This obsession with motives and bias is irrational and leads to subjective decisions, not objective ones. Usually, it is deployed to disingenuously sow doubts about established facts and hide one's own positions from criticism, not that I'm claiming that is the case here. This post appears to be more collateral damage than maliciousness. The point is, I don't have to care what Vint Cerf's motives are; regardless of the fact that he has in fact acted with far more integrity about what's good for the Internet than any telecom. You will never find an unbiased opinion, bias is another word for goals and no action takes place without a goal, therefore an unbiased opinion is a myth. To search for an objective view is biased in itself.
All that is required to maintain rational integrity is to be transparent about what goals you assume in your assertion. Vint Cerf has made his goals clear, to build a useful network. The telecoms have made their goals clear, to profit as much as possible off this network; they don't shout it, they disclose this type of information more appropriately, like in statements to investors. If my goal is to use a useful network, then I can evaluate each parties assertions accordingly.
IMNSHO, this increase is relativistic irrationality can be tracked closely with the Intelligent Design movement's efforts to wreck science. This is an example of how one of their tactics is dumbing the entire nation down. They've been running a scorched earth policy against reason for years, their efforts have paid off when the nihilistic and relativist garbage they've used for ID has seeped into the veins of public discourse.
For the sake of objective thought, mod the parent down.
Speaking of rubbish. You need to broaden your horizons young man, and develop a modicum of humility.
Broaden my horizons, develop humility? Oh please expound. What humility is there in letting someone repeat known falsehoods? And as for horizons, are you in possession of some mystical knowledge that I should know about? Is there something beyond the study of objective knowledge or faith that has entered the equation here? For you to claim that there is narrowness in my view and then fail to state what it is, is disingenuous.
You sound like you're talking straight out of your anus.
I gave specific information, if it is not familiar to you, that's not my fault. You're free to google. Do you really expect me to take this criticism seriously when you can't state a single refutation of any of my assertions? As long as I've heard the term, talking out of one's ass, referred to making claims one couldn't defend. Either offer useful criticism or at least have the decency to only make flippant remarks that are entertaining. For all I know, you're the parent I replied to, unable to defend against criticism and thus taking a cheap parting shot to soothe your wounded ego.
A conjecture by its very nature is unscientific until it is tested.
Nonsense, a conjecture is scientific if it is falsifiable. I can conjecture that gravity is really 3.4m/s2, it is a scientific conjecture. The falsification of this conjecture adds to scientific knowledge. We do not gain objective knowledge through confirmation, only psychological reinforcement. Falsification is the only method by which scientific knowledge grows, if something is not falsifiable, it cannot be considered by science.
I cannot test for the existence of omnipotence, when by the very definition of omnipotence, it could choose not to let me see it.
What is lacking is an appropriate scientific hypothesis of creation, which, like most science, is being worked on and takes time.
Science isn't lacking anything. Scientific knowledge will continue to grow, as it always has, there will always be unanswered questions about the universe. We know that what we do know has yet to be falsified, that is all we can ever know. That existing conjectures do not satisfactorily answer all questions is why scientific knowledge will continue to grow; in time, some questions will be answered and new questions asked. So what?
If you disapprove with a specific stance or position paper of theirs, I'm not part of their organization, nor do I support them, but I'd be interested in hearing what it would be.
I just stated it a second time. The entire premise of their research program is flawed. The attempt to rationalize the body of scientific knowledge against a specific religious text is either a pointless excercise in semantic contortion or is simply doomed to failure. They'd be far better off helping people of faith cope with the reality of science than trying to make reality cope with their religion.
Yes let's be honest. This is buckum, BS, a load. Dr. Hugh Ross is either not qualified to be called a scientist or is full of it. Science is an exclusive set of knowledge. It's exclusivity is restricted to falsifiable ideas. Religious ideas are not falsifiable, therefore science cannot logically consider them. Can religious ideas inspire a scientist to think of a line of questioning that furthers scientific knowledge? Sure, but inspiration does not define whether knowledge is scientific or not. That's what makes scientific knowledge valuable, we can simply repeat the experiments and look at the facts. We don't have to question or even know the motives or mystical beliefs of those who practice it.
Creationism, intelligent design and the flying spaghetti monster are all the same to science, unscientific conjectures. Sites like this are nothing more than part of the televangelist network, conning ignorant people of faith into believing that they offer a special conduit to God. These people are nothing but relativistic nihilists, they're searching for a handout, not any sort of truth. Quit encouraging them.
I'm getting tired of the science community saying 'MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!' constantly.
Too fucking bad! Tired of gravity being 9.8m/s2 too or the Earth revolving around the Sun? There's scientific knowledge, which adheres to a specific set of criteria and not-scientific knowledge, which is what doesn't adhere to that criteria. Either adhere to the criteria or hit the highway, that's how science works. Change that and it's not science.
Hating on conservatives because of your prejudice against all of them being texas-cowboy retards who drive giant trucks. It's pathetic that a community who is constantly speaking out against people who exclude them for having different views has to exclude other people, and ridicule them, just because they believe in something different then you do.
It's the conservatives doing the hating. You can't seem to get it through your thick fucking skulls that science has criteria and that your beliefs don't meet those criteria. No one is hatin on you for holding unscientific beliefs, we're hating on you for demanding that your clearly and demonstrably unscientific beliefs be categorized as scientific. You don't fucking make the rules here, logic does.
Creationism is a completely valid viewpoint, and so is evolution.
No creationism isn't; stop repeating this ignorance. Creationism is no more falsifiable than the question of God's existence. Evolution is falsifiable and has survived falsification thus far. Evolution is science, creationism is metaphysical. Creationism is NOT a valid scientific viewpoint, no matter how much you wish and wish.
They're both *possible*.
Not as scientific knowledge. Science does not consider creationism because it fails the first criteria of science, it is not falsifiable. Science will never consider creationism or the existence of God until someone has a falsifiable conjecture. But don't hold your breath, humanity hasn't come up with one yet, and it appears as if we aren't likely to ever.
I've always thought the internet was a place where you could get away from people being judgemental, conservative or liberal, believer in global warming or not.
Are you kidding? Since when have you been able to go on the internet and demand that 2 + 2 = 5 over and over again, no matter how many times it's patiently explained that 2 + 2 = 4 and not get flamed for it?!
If you have a valid logical criticism, then go ahead, but just repeating this ignorance is flameworthy. You should expect derision to follow you wherever you try to trot out half-baked, illogical assertions and the participants know better.
It isn't fair for people like me who are christians to be told that they're outright wrong.
It is fucking fair, you're more than "outright wrong"! There is no objective way for you to not be wrong, but perhaps I missed the part of your comment where you refute Tarski and then falsify falsificationism. And don't hide from objective criticism behind your religious views, I consider your belief in creationism to be heresy. The Christian view of the creation stories (that's right, stories as in there are 2 different ones in Genesis), were written as "my God is more powerful than your God" stories. This has been repeatedly confirmed by Talmudic scholars and is the standard understanding among Jews. Any attempt to claim that the story is literal is blasphemy and therefore heretical.
Your views aren't Christian, they're relativist and nihilist. To honestly conjecture that science is the same thing as a religious view, you've let your brain fall out of your head. It belies a belief that objective knowledge does not exist. Well this nihilistic viewpoint is objectively wrong. This goes for the idiot mods who gave this rubbish points too.
I thought this was why we built the Internet in the first place?
The requirement for rational integrity is illustrated by Russels Paradox of the Liar. If I say "I am a liar", am I telling the truth or lying, how could you ever know? If I claim to make a rational statement, then you should be able to analyze my position and determine if I have made an error in logic. You cannot do that if I have intentionally mislead you. Without rationalist integrity, you could not reproduce and analyze my assertions and their reasoning. If we understand that the most efficient way to find errors is to expose our ideas to the widest possible criticism, and it is rational to expose errors, then we can only say we are acting rationally if we do not attempt to mislead. In other words, the rationalist identity is tied to rationalist integrity. This, along with exploring the limits of criticism are the basis of Bill Bartley's "Retreat to Commitment"; which contains the logical proofs, if you're interested.
.sig, Liberalism claims and has always claimed to be the application of rationalism to politics. If I claim to be a Liberal, then I claim to be a rationalist, if I do not maintain rationalist identity, then I cannot be considered Liberal. My assertion is that those assertions which can be considered Conservative contain errors of logic which make their conclusions illogical. Some ideas that Conservatives agree with, like price information theories, did not originate in Conservatism and have been adopted, but in this example Liberalism has also adopted this position.
As for my
There is a slight amount of polemics contained in my sig, if only because I have not completely sat down and catalogued the entire set of assertions that can be considered Conservative. However, thus far, this generalization has survived attempts at falsification.
I have been expounding on this over the past day or so with someone else if you check my posts, the Climate Change thread.
That's not science. Science defined as the objective knowledge about the world. It cannot be objective knowledge if it is not falsifiable. Science, by definition, excludes unfalsifiable conjectures from it's attention. One cannot logically falsify a liar due to the paradox of the liar. Rational integrity is therefore a requirement for something to fall in the pervue in science.
Science discriminates against ideas that do not have the property of falsifiability. What you believe is irrelevant, science doesn't care until you make a falsifiable assertion. You're entire first paragraph belies a misunderstanding of what science is. Something is not a pure science or a selective science; there is science and not-science. Religion is not the science of illogical reasoning or some such nonsense. Religion can be a rational system of thought based on metaphysical assertions, but then it's not scientific. Having the characteristic of rationalization of premises is not sufficient to be considered science.
You need to learn more on the limits of criticism and rationality. I recommend you read some Popper, Bartley and/or Miller.
Which principles are you defining as "Conservative"?
/. story, witho
Those espoused by Conservative authors. Take the ID controversy. A simple analysis of the arguments from elected Conservative politicians and their surrogates on talk radio, cable news and the Internets allows one to deduce a logical structure to their arguments.
They believe that their metaphysical belief in an intelligent designer should be taken as seriously as the falsifiable assertions of evolution. Why would one hold this belief? If you research their writings and those they turn to in order to rationalize this position, it becomes obvious that they accept Hume's criticism of induction. They continuously attempt to initiate infinite logical regression in order to create doubt about the validity of falsifiable assertions, while offering their non-falsifiable assertions as an alternative. Knowingly doing this is called bait and switch.
The only reason one cannot really accuse many of them (supporters of Plato's Noble Lie, notwithstanding) of this, is that they really do believe that their position is equally valid in the realm of science and refuse to accept that the goal of science deliberately excludes metaphysical conjectures. Even Behe gave testimony under oath that the definition of science must change in order for ID to be science and that the resulting change would also admit astrology as a scientific field.
Since Conservatives also rail constantly about Relativism, then how do you rationalize this glaring relativist position, which denies objective knowledge to science? After all, wouldn't they support gay marriage if this was the position they held, wouldn't gay marriage be a logically equal position alongside heterosexual marriage?
The writings of Karl Barth and Francis Schaeffer show us how they escape this trap in reasoning. Schaeffer especially, is referenced throughout Conservative literature. They brag about studying under this man and following his teachings. The teachings of these guys rely on Wittgenstein's assertion that there are no true statements in math. Tarski disproved this, but they maintain that it is true in the realm of philosophy, including political science and ethics. The reason they do so is a belief in justified knowledge. This is central to the falsification of Wittgenstein's philosophical assertions. Since accepting all ethical positions as equal undermines goals of the Conservative movement, the solution is to believe anyone who asserts truth cannot possibly posses objective knowledge. Since they cannot posses objective knowledge, they are simply picking a side and defending it to the point of absurdity, or else they don't really believe what they are saying and are open to accusations of hypocrisy and unwillingness to stand up for what they believe. This is the basis behind most mainstream GOP attacks that Liberals and Democrats are flip-floppers, don't stand for anything, etc.
What Barth and Schaeffer do is take specific interpretations of Protestant faith and make this "retreat to commitment", which is really a retreat to absurdity. This is a major theme in Bartley's "Retreat to Commitment". If one removes the logical fallacy of justified knowledge, one may obtain objective knowledge, given a problem situation and a set of goals.
Conservative and fundamentalist thought is rationalized. Meaning that Conservatives do claim to support some set of goals, how they rationalize the means for reaching these goals is based on the basic assumptions that I've identified: that the only way to avoid a nihilistic position that there is no objective truth is to completely commit oneself to a dogma and declare that dogma as objective truth. This spills over into the free market worship of the Milton Friedman / U of Chicago classical liberal and libertarian factions; although actual Libertarians suffer a logically similar, but differently rationalized error.
Now, do you really think that I should continue to advance the evidence for this in a freaking
Unless of course a scientist is fudging his results to maintain a desired result. Science as a community product isn't faith based, but only a fool would extend that to mean that anyone in a lab coat is an impartial participant.
Then how is this practicing science? You can't say that someone is practicing science when they give up rational integrity. Science explicitly demands rational integrity. The communal process makes the growth of scientific knowledge more efficient. It exposes ideas to a greater number of criticisms. Assertions receive increased attempts at falsification; this quickly weeds out assertions that are not falsifiable. Weeding out non-falsifiable ideas is essential to maintaining rationalist integrity.
If one professes faith in a religion and then acts unconscientiously, against the explicit teachings of that faith, would you then claim the religion isn't really what it says it is? I'm curious as to how any of your ideal institutions or shared processes might deal with the fallibility of humans.
I just gave you several examples of fallacies that Conservatives hold, most visible with those aligned with the Religious Right. If you haven't falsified those, why should I bother to continue? I don't intend on writing a book on the pages of /.. While categorically falsifying your critics' and rivals' assertions and refutations while showing how your own assertions survive is a standard Critical Rationalist form. It's usally reserved for books, like David Miller's Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defense. The shortest form I've seen this in is a published paper, as I stated, I don't intend to write either in a /. story.
The provable errors are theory by theory, the entire set of Conservative principles contain logical errors. The basic error is the fallacy of justified knowledge. You'll find this as the root of most Conservative principles. This ultimately leads Conservatives into a nihilist position that objective knowledge is not obtainable. Since that does not satisfy their goals, they make a "retreat to commitment" and assume that everybody else does as well, again since objective knowledge is not obtainable, they accept Hume's criticism of induction. Knowledge does not grow through induction though, only through falsification.
The belief that one must show evidence or otherwise prove their position is logically incorrect. One's position must survive falsification attempts. It is through falsification that objective knowledge grows. I do not need to prove my position, only attempt to falsify it, Conservative ideas do not withstand falsification.
If you look at the leaders of the religious right, particularly Karl Barth and Francis Schaeffer, you'll see that they have made a retreat to commitment that requires dedication to absudity; a la Wittgenstein.
Still believe your point stands?
Proof by assertion! Are you sure you're not a Republican?
A provable error means falsification. Given the theory, errors can be logically shown. Nice snark though.
Confounding Liberalism with Leftism has been a deceite created by the Conservative movement in this country. Read "The Open Society and Its Enemies" by Karl Popper is you need the difference explained to you. So-called Classical Liberalism, a la Milton Friedman, is not Liberalism, nor does it have anything to do with the Liberalism of the Founding Fathers. It directly ignores many ideas that the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution and contains several logical falicies.
Your ancedotal evidence of confused people making confused claims does not lend clarity, as it has obviously confused you as well.
The logical fallacies used by the ID crowd are the same set of logical fallacies used to attack climate research, ergo, criticisms of ID pertain directly to the climate research debate.
The enlightened person realizes this and points out the symmetry. That way, we can use the same logical basis for defeating these intellectually dishonest criticisms on climate research that we use to defeat ID.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you've discovered the new Godwin here.
In all fairness, nobody talks about how government orgs like the EPA allocate funds for climate reasearch with heavy biases in favor of research that tends to promote the necissity of a larger EPA.
How is that fair when it ignores the peer review process that is designed to eliminate these biases?
Get the government money out of the freakin cliamte research studies to begin with, and they might actually become credible.
Straw man. You give no explanation as to how they are not credible, nor do you state how a non-government entity would be able to avoid this charge of budget increase bias. If one was to look at the credibility of the Bush Administration vs. the credibility of NOAA and EPA scientists, I don't see a scenario where the Bush Administration has higher credibility.
The GOP has been cynically playing the role of the skeptic, but they are not offering rational criticisms, just hyperbole and rhetoric. This is an old tactic of theirs, they prey on the idea that to be intellectually honest, one must consider all evidence and the misunderstanding that induction increases scientific knowledge. They do not offer counter evidence, or attempt to falsify the claims of climatologists, they attack the integrity of the climatologists using the old trick of infinite logical regression. Using infinite logical regression exposes the logical fallacy of justified knowledge, the root cause of the problem of induction. The Bush Administration and it's allies have simply not offered scientifically valid criticisms, yet they claim that they are correct in a matter of science.
The only way to defeat this utter absurdity is to realize that science does not rely on induction. They have not falsified theories on global warming, they have only attacked the inductionist view of the evidence pertaining to climate change. Unless you believe that scientific knowledge is increased by induction (a logical fallacy), their criticisms are useless to furthering the search for truth on climate change.
This is either more incompetence or dishonesty on the part of the Bush Administration. As before, neither is acceptable.
Given that Liberalism is Enlightenment rationality applied to political processes, intellectual usually does walk hand in hand with Liberal. As for the poisoned connotations, these are attacks by those who seek to disingenuously protect their ideas from rational criticism. So yes, according to certain intellectually dishonest groups, like the GOP, you must ignore the rest of the world and rational criticism to be a proper American.
Of course the GOP view completely ignores the fact that the entire group of Founding Fathers were a bunch of self-proclaimed raging Liberals and that making America not-Liberal would destroy the US. My readings of the various writings of the time show that a 'proper American' would need to be a Liberal with a dedication to applying rational criticism to the political process.
As far as Entertainment Tonight goes, I figure the intellectually lazy Left might enjoy it as much as the intellectually lazy Right or a Liberal who has turned off there intellect. Couldn't really say though, I didn't even know that show was still on.
If your employees only need particular websites and particular applications to do their jobs, then why would you willingly open up additional attack vectors? It's a completely unnecessary business risk.
How much of a business risk is the lack of innovation due to information starvation and the inability of employees to experience new tech? I can see a case for this with call center workers, whose job functions might be more akin to a piece of desktop hardware, but for employees that are expected to provide creative solutions, it's a handicap. This position assumes that you know a priori, everything that your employees will need. If you know this, then your employee is a widget. Widgets get offshored, so who's left will need the tools and information available to them to provide new solutions to business problems.
(what did they do before email in the workplace was common?)
They used the company phone. Call center workers don't get an outside line that isn't monitored, creative workers do. If personal calls were not an issue before, then this is a new restriction being placed on those workers.
Your idea about the breakroom machine isn't bad, I just don't think it encompasses a large enough scope of workplace's needs.
Financially I tend to agree with (TRUE) conservative principals: Let people take care of their own money, charge as little as possible, and don't let the government interfere any more than is necessary.
These are Liberal principles. All those Liberals who designed the Constitution and wrote the Federalist Papers pretty much said the same thing. The only real difference between "Conservatives" and "Liberals" in the modern US political environment is disagreement on what government interference is necessary.
Those who call themselves "Conservative" like to also call themselves "Classical Liberals", I believe this a provable error in logic. Essentially, the Conservative argument is that what was necessary government interference classically, is still all that is necessary. Milton Friedman would be a classic example as he is considered a Conservative, identifies himself as a Classical Liberal and believes that the state should not interfere in racial discrimination in employment (Freedom and Capitalism).
"Liberals", on the other hand, claim that what is necessary government interference changes with time and that in order to actually maintain the goals that the Constitution was designed to achieve, we have to modify how and when government interferes. George Soros and Karl Popper are examples of this Liberalism. Each have described "subjective rights" (Popper) and "special drawing rights" (Soros) based on the idea that the Liberal system cannot allow for concentration of power in economic spheres without inviting it's own destruction. In other words, every citizen has the right to the opportunities afforded to first class citizens and the creation of groups that are effectively (not just the legal codification, but economically as well) second class citizens are a threat to the entire Liberal system. These rights today would be access to the global communications network and other parts of the national infrastructure that are necessary to compete in the free market, regardless of an individual's financial means.
This is, I believe, the main reason that Liberals are confused with leftists. As Popper stated in the Open Society and Its Enemies, Liberalism sympathizes with the goals of leftists, but vehemently disagrees with the methodology and means to achieve those goals.
Now, in US politics, there are a lot of theocrats (both left and right wing), leftists and fascists. These people are not Liberal, either Classically or otherwise. Many of their respective goals may match up with Liberal or Conservative goals, but their theoretical basis for these goals are different.
Only if clinton gets held responsible for 9/11. He had many chances to take out the people responsible for the attacks, yet didn't do anything about it.
Sure, I'll hold Clinton responsible for whatever you want. He's out of office, I figured we'd hold people accountable who actually could screw something else up, but it doesn't matter to me at this point. If that'll stop Rambozo the Clown from completely wrecking the country, I'm on board. How is it though, that Clinton is the one to blame, when he was the one who blew up the camps in Afghanistan yet it was the GOP members of Congress who went on record as claiming Clinton was wagging the dog? By Dear Leader's logic, wasn't this helping the enemy? Weren't these GOP Congressmen doubting the Commander in Chief and bringing aid to our enemies? Maybe they share more of the blame than Clinton. Perhaps Clinton could have more effectively dealt with Al-Qaeda in 99' if the GOP hadn't been so concerned about a blow job.
He also fucked around in the whitehouse and it seemed perfectly okay to most democrats.
Speaking of other things I'd do to stop Dear Leader, if it's not the torturing that bothers you but the dirty dirty sex, then you probably don't want to know what degrading things I'd be willing to do to save my country. You know what, I sooo don't care about Clinton's sex life. Didn't then, still don't today. Really, truly, do not give a rat's ass, it's none of my business and I still can't figure out how it's yours. I have no idea what bearing this had on the man's ability to govern. As far as I can tell, none. As they say, "When Clinton lied, No one Died".
BTW. Bush may have lied about WMDs, but only because he didn't know any better.
If he lied, then he knew, if he didn't know he's incompetent; these are equally unacceptable.
His operatives told him inaccurate information.
Keep telling yourself that, talk to anyone who's actually done intelligence for a living and see if they don't die of laughter. The so-called intelligence that bolstered the case for WMD was amateur. The Niger yellowcake documents were a joke, but that didn't stop Cheney from pushing it as hard as he could. If Chimpy was a competent manager, he wouldn't have such incompetent people giving him such bad information from people the professional intelligence community considered undependable. He would have had compentent people, who could judge the reliability of the information. The CIA and the DIA knew there were most likely no WMDs and that Saddam was contained. Only the Office of Special Plans, the little Pentagon fiefdom of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz didn't think so. You know, funny thing about the 2000 election, I knew quite a few people who were going to vote for Bush, not because they thought Bush was any good, they just thought the people around him would be adults. The consensus among them now seems to be, "Fool me once.... Fool me, Fool me.. You can't get fooled again!".
The Democrats have been spreading this around for some time now. Don't you have anything new?
Yeah, so has the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (2002,2003 and 2004 reports), the State Department, British Intelligence and the British Foreign Secretary's office. We're still saying it because no one has been held accountable. This was the biggest military blunder since Augustus sent the legions to Germany (and lost them all). Why would I need something new, you still don't have the old facts straight. Maybe if you can get this much right, we can move on to something else. Now remember, there was no credible threat of WMD, Saddam was considered contained by the professional intelligence community. This was a war of choice, as shown by Bush's statements in the Downing Street Memo. He didn't care about the evidence, he didn't care what stories he had to tell, he defrauded this nation and stole our wealth by presenting the American public with these lies. If you had any sense about the principles that this country was founded on an
I am sick of everyone blaming Bush alone for the mistakes made in New Orleans. Yes, Bush made mistakes, but the blame is to be shared with the mayor.
Make a deal with you. I'll hold the Mayor accountable once Bush gets held accountable for any one of the completely incompetent decisions he's made since in office. This is really a freebie for you here, get Bush held accountable for say, lying about WMDs, I'll hold Nagin accountable. Hold Bush accountable for completely screwing up the nuclear proliferation in Iran by tying our military force up elsewhere, I'll hold Nagin accountable. Hold Bush accountable for violations of either the 4th or 8th Amendments (domestic spying, torture) and I'll gladly hold Nagin accountable.
Personally, I'm getting sick of having my country destroyed, it's military and treasure wasted, and a tyrant who thinks he's king. Bush hasn't just made mistakes, he's played into the hands of this nation's enemies, eroded our ancient freedoms and weakened it's ability to adapt to new dangers. I'm sick of hearing people claiming criticism of this unprofessional slacker is somehow unfair. He's in charge of national disasters (FEMA) and I'd call a 3 state storm, a national disaster.
BTW, after I hold Nagin accountable, are you going to hold the Republicans in local office in Missippi and Alabama accountable, or does holding one Democrat accountable for each Republican held accountable the only way to avoid accusations of bias? NOLA wasn't the only place that was properly evacuated.
Just wondering the same thing. Isn't this criticism:
What is the use of a blog if bloggers are just going to copy sentences and sentiments from the puppetmaster's email?
just as applicable to traditional media? When the Katrina tapes came out, it took several stories before anyone picked up on the fact that the contents of the tapes directly contradicted Bush's claims made right after the storm that "nobody could have anticipated the levee failure". What's the point of a news outlet that manages to miss such an important element of the story?
Weren't all the mea culpa's from the nation's papers on coverage of the lead-up to Iraq about how they failed to actually investigate the administration's claims and those of sources referred by the administration?
Let's not forget the "common wisdom" of the Beltway pundocracy that has no basis in reality and is usually a rehash of memes conjured in isolation from the real world. See either, the Democrats are weak on National Security meme, or the Republicans believe in small government meme.
At least bloggers are easier to ignore, they don't have advertising budgets.