This is why I didn't want to use the jargon. I don't know, the Wikipedia article on determinism says that causality is a traditional method of reaching determinism but is not required. The article on fatalism says that determinism is strictly about causality. I am certainly more comfortable with the physics side of this than the philosophy side.
Looking for a more authoritative source, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a lengthy article (which I haven't read) but puts in a conveniently quotable bit near the top:
Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.
That's annoying. It implies causality but doesn't actually require it, even though the article is specifically on Causal Determinism, which is distinct from just plain determinism. I'm sure it's explained somewhere in there, but you know what? I don't care. You can have at it if you want.
If determinism is true, then given a complete, perfect and accurate description of the universe at one time, and enough memory and time to compute upon it, you could model any future state of the universe from that.
That's causality. If you have perfect causality, and perfect knowledge of the present, then you can predict the future. That's not determinism. Causality is one way of getting to determinism, but it isn't a requirement.
Determinism is basically what I described before as inevitability, although I didn't want to use the jargon because it has connotations which I'm not wholly comfortable discussing.
An electron doesn't magically have free will about its location just because its exact position isn't causally determined.
You've lost me on this analogy. Determinism doesn't require causality, it requires inevitability. The fact that an electron's position is random at any given point in time would only be significant if you had a time machine and could observe an electron being at different places at the same point in time. (Assuming the same observational conditions, I've not talking about wave-particle duality here.) This would represent a break in inevitability.
That seems like a convoluted way of explaining things though, let's go with a roulette wheel instead: you spin the wheel and get a random number, and we're going to assume that this is a special wheel which always produces a random number independent of all other observable factors in the universe (gravity, cosmic rays, everything). The wheel is not independent of time, however. We don't know how time influences the wheel. Then you get in your time machine, go back, and do it again. If you get a different number then you have proven that time is not immutable.
Causality can create inevitability, but it isn't a requirement.
You made a conscious decision, as opposed to an unconscious one, to stop drinking. Whether that was an exercise in free will comes down to whether or not you ever had the option to choose otherwise. If the future is predetermined and actions just march us toward inevitability, then free will does not exist and you chose to stop drinking because you were destined to do so. If the future is not predetermined then we have some influence over how the future takes shape, that's called free will.
At least by one definition. As I said, this is the domain of philosophers and they have tons of jargon for everything. A poster above mentioned that this is only the definition of free will in the domain of determinist thought, and that isn't the only way to look at it.
The reason why free will is the province of philosophers (and theologians) is because it has nothing to do with neuroscience. What they're talking about in the summary is conscious thought, not free will. Free will is the ability to influence your environment by your own volition, independent from the inexorable march of time or destiny or god's plan. Consciousness is your ability to think about how you're influencing your environment as you do it.
This is not representative. Yes from your perspective you're giving better care when you ignore the system, maybe it's easier and faster to glance through a chart and just remember what you need to know about a particular patient, but this system wasn't established to help you. This system was established to help patients who aren't always being treated by the same doctors, who need to go elsewhere sometimes, and who don't always have the stellar level of care that you no doubt give them. Where would we be if we built our infrastructure around helping only the best doctors and their tiny number of patients?
This same argument comes up all the time in other contexts. Whenever you make a change which helps the group, which provides a net benefit, but which may hinder some individuals you get this complaint. The talking heads love this stuff because anecdote plays very well on TV - put some photogenic people in front of the camera and get them to say, "X didn't help ME!" and then the talking heads turn to the audience: "We're not saying that X is bad, we'll let you decide."
Most of your argument there consists of, "I hate farmers." You throw in a bit at the end about how non-sale sales and customer lock-in are okay, although maybe that's only when they're directed at farmers, who you hate.
Ignoring the first part of your argument: when a company sells a product, but retains practical ownership over that product, that's a big problem and it's been happening more and more wherever the opportunity to do so has arisen. The farmers in this case are asking for nothing which hasn't already been addressed for other vehicles, and regardless of how greedy they may be this is a perfectly reasonable request.
::sigh:: This is just not true. Only the Xbox and Playstation have this problem, I have never connected my Wii U to the internet and it has never given me any trouble.
Forgot about that one, did you? If the other two are so bad, and they are, why do people keep ignoring the one that actually does what it's supposed to, and does it really well? I am sorely disappointed in how readily gamers have bought into this marketing meme that there are only two current-gen consoles. The only functional console of the lot is the one that's doing the worst commercially.
Every one of the arguments raised in this thread was acknowledged and addressed in TFA. I know it not fashionable to read the article, but this is silly. Eliminating administrative overhead? Specifically mentioned and accounted for. Raising taxes (especially on the rich)? Also discussed. Eliminating other social programs? Yes, also accounted for.
And yes, raising taxes is the only way that UBI could work. The problem is that it would require raising taxes by a very large amount, and his argument is that with Americans' attitude towards taxation this is politically infeasible.
And Soros hates Universal Basic Income, so this guy is acting as Soros' shill? Is that what you're saying? I don't know squat about what George Soros thinks, so that's a legitimate question.
I do know a little bit about Robert Greenstein though, just a little, and he's run the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities since well before Soros did the thing with the currency trading. He's been around for a while, and he can think for himself.
Sellout to Iran? The Republicans certainly used the hostage crisis to campaign against Carter, but they didn't really do anything special to get the hostages released. Apparently the Iranians just didn't like Carter.
It's the best example that I know of of a foreign power successfully choosing an American president (or anti-choosing one, this was anti-Carter rather than pro-Reagan). But the point is: this wasn't the Republicans selling out to Iran, it was Iran giving them a gift and they just ran with it.
If you quote the whole paragraph it's mostly just confusing:
Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill. In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer. This is not to say that smoking is good for you.... news flash: smoking is not good for you. If you are reading this article through the blue haze of cigarette smoke you should quit. The relevant question is, what is more harmful to the nation, second hand smoke or back handed big government disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric.
Smoking doesn't kill... except for those one out of every three smokers who die from a smoking related illness. Then he tries to say that the relevant part of a conversation about smoking is really about second hand smoking... On the whole, it's just a bunch of nonsense.
If you take just the part about "smoking doesn't kill" it does make him sound worse than he deserves, but similarly the bit that you quote makes him sound better than he deserves. Mostly he's just spewing gibberish here.
They mentioned several of the offending publications in the summary. Worth noting that none of those are exactly first-tier when it comes to reputability.... Which raises the question of why I'm hearing about this stupid thing for the first time on Slashdot via The Guardian. I avoid those crap news organizations for a reason, but it seems as though Amazon has pulled a marketing coup by paying for publication in the trash press, and then getting coverage for free in the reputable press with this story about how trashy those other publications are.
I've heard the name D.B. Cooper a number of times before (on Newsradio, among other places) but had always thought that I was missing something about the story, since it just sounded like someone who stole some money. "What was the big deal?" I said to myself.
I appreciate the concise summary, since most times I've tried to look this up the articles just go on and on about it... "What was the big deal?" I would say as I read them, but this was the one question which they were apparently unwilling to answer. Turns out it wasn't a big deal, just a bunch of news fluff. Thanks for finally settling that for me.
Starting from the principle that something is wrong allows people to criminalize things that have no business being criminalized and that is at least one of the points I am trying to get across to you.
Really? Here I thought you were just very very passionate about semantics for some baffling reason.
Okay, so if that's your real argument here then how do you suggest laws be made? I'm not clear on how that would work, since this is how it's always done: "Murder is wrong! We should make some laws about it. Also stealing. Also people who take too many items through the express lane." Lawmaking is inevitably reactionary.
Your quibble over harassment is unimportant to the argument, but there certainly are forms of harassment which are illegal. Less so in the United States than in many other places. This demonstrates the need for specificity in lawmaking, which shows why there's a difference between common speech and legal speech, but it doesn't really change anything. Laws about harassment still stem from the "harassment is bad" principle.
I'm not sure where you're going with the copyright talk, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act isn't about copyright. The person in the article is being tried for accessing a computer without authorization. You don't want to know what "common-term understanding of criminal activity" I think that law was meant to address? I'll tell you anyway: part of it was meant to address accessing a computer without authorization.
I... am having some trouble interpreting your replies, I have no idea why you feel this way, but to try and clarify:
Lawmaker A: "This person was trying to take the law into their own hands! Harrassing someone they decided was guilty, trying to stir up a mob. There was even talk about lynching!"
Lawmaker B: "That's terrible, we can't have vigilantes acting outside the law. Lynching is already illegal, no need to do anything there, but they're going to get away with the harrassment, since there's nothing currently on the books preventing them from doing it in the way that they did it."
Lawmaker A: "You're right, this will take a new law about harassment. Let's get on that. It'll help me score some 'tough on crime' points with my electorate..."
Is that any better? If you start from the principle that vigilantism is wrong, then it just comes down to recognizing when it happens and when it might happen and making laws to address those instances. Likewise rape, likewise theft, and so on.
I don't go by that book. Things in my book can be crimes even when there is not a law on the books specifically by that name. I gave the example of rape, in addition to vigilantism. Stealing would be another example.
Laws require greater specificity than these common terms give, but the common terms do represent real crimes: laws are made to address the common-term understanding of criminal activity, rather than the other way around. So starting from the initial position that vigilantism should be illegal, the lawmakers then craft a set of laws which insure that all of the actions with which vigilantism can be expressed have been addressed. The resulting laws don't say they're against vigilantism, they say they're against lynching or harassment or whatever, but the effect and the goal are the same.
Employees are exposed to pathogens every second of every day. The question is whether this one represents a greater threat, and... it certainly doesn't seem to. The WHO says there have been fewer than 1700 cases of microcephaly in Brazil which "may have been caused by the Zika virus," and further: apparently this poses very little threat to anyone who isn't planning on having children within the next six months after exposure.
I don't know what OSHA's rules are, but unless my employee was actively seeking children there doesn't seem to be much cause for concern here. At least on an individual level - the main thing that the WHO is afraid of is the disease spreading to other countries, and the Olympics could certainly represent a problem in that regard.
Vigilantism is the common name, not a legal term, for any of a set of actions which are illegal. There aren't any laws specifically against "vigilantism," by that name, but it is none the less illegal. Many other common names for crimes are like this. Rape, for example, is not illegal by that name, but it is none the less illegal to commit rape.
Colors it how? I think I was pretty clear that I'm against this individual, or any individual, deciding for themselves how a case should go without the benefit of due process, and acting on it. If that wasn't clear before then I am stating it now. I'm making no claims about being impartial, I am stating unequivocally that I think this was a negative action.
Further, I don't know where you're getting your definition that vigilantism requires violent action but Oxford says no it doesn't.
You're comparing a maximum sentence to an actual sentence, he is not getting more time than the other offenders. And they are all real offenders (provided that he is found guilty): vigilantism is a real crime and it is right and just that it be prosecuted. Yes the maximum penalties are excessive, there are many problems with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, but it's minimum sentences, not maximum ones, which tend to be the real affront to justice.
Slashdot Mirror
Looking for a more authoritative source, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a lengthy article (which I haven't read) but puts in a conveniently quotable bit near the top:
Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.
That's annoying. It implies causality but doesn't actually require it, even though the article is specifically on Causal Determinism, which is distinct from just plain determinism. I'm sure it's explained somewhere in there, but you know what? I don't care. You can have at it if you want.
If determinism is true, then given a complete, perfect and accurate description of the universe at one time, and enough memory and time to compute upon it, you could model any future state of the universe from that.
That's causality. If you have perfect causality, and perfect knowledge of the present, then you can predict the future. That's not determinism. Causality is one way of getting to determinism, but it isn't a requirement.
Determinism is basically what I described before as inevitability, although I didn't want to use the jargon because it has connotations which I'm not wholly comfortable discussing.
An electron doesn't magically have free will about its location just because its exact position isn't causally determined.
You've lost me on this analogy. Determinism doesn't require causality, it requires inevitability. The fact that an electron's position is random at any given point in time would only be significant if you had a time machine and could observe an electron being at different places at the same point in time. (Assuming the same observational conditions, I've not talking about wave-particle duality here.) This would represent a break in inevitability.
That seems like a convoluted way of explaining things though, let's go with a roulette wheel instead: you spin the wheel and get a random number, and we're going to assume that this is a special wheel which always produces a random number independent of all other observable factors in the universe (gravity, cosmic rays, everything). The wheel is not independent of time, however. We don't know how time influences the wheel. Then you get in your time machine, go back, and do it again. If you get a different number then you have proven that time is not immutable.
Causality can create inevitability, but it isn't a requirement.
You made a conscious decision, as opposed to an unconscious one, to stop drinking. Whether that was an exercise in free will comes down to whether or not you ever had the option to choose otherwise. If the future is predetermined and actions just march us toward inevitability, then free will does not exist and you chose to stop drinking because you were destined to do so. If the future is not predetermined then we have some influence over how the future takes shape, that's called free will.
At least by one definition. As I said, this is the domain of philosophers and they have tons of jargon for everything. A poster above mentioned that this is only the definition of free will in the domain of determinist thought, and that isn't the only way to look at it.
The reason why free will is the province of philosophers (and theologians) is because it has nothing to do with neuroscience. What they're talking about in the summary is conscious thought, not free will. Free will is the ability to influence your environment by your own volition, independent from the inexorable march of time or destiny or god's plan. Consciousness is your ability to think about how you're influencing your environment as you do it.
This is not representative. Yes from your perspective you're giving better care when you ignore the system, maybe it's easier and faster to glance through a chart and just remember what you need to know about a particular patient, but this system wasn't established to help you. This system was established to help patients who aren't always being treated by the same doctors, who need to go elsewhere sometimes, and who don't always have the stellar level of care that you no doubt give them. Where would we be if we built our infrastructure around helping only the best doctors and their tiny number of patients?
This same argument comes up all the time in other contexts. Whenever you make a change which helps the group, which provides a net benefit, but which may hinder some individuals you get this complaint. The talking heads love this stuff because anecdote plays very well on TV - put some photogenic people in front of the camera and get them to say, "X didn't help ME!" and then the talking heads turn to the audience: "We're not saying that X is bad, we'll let you decide."
Most of your argument there consists of, "I hate farmers." You throw in a bit at the end about how non-sale sales and customer lock-in are okay, although maybe that's only when they're directed at farmers, who you hate.
Ignoring the first part of your argument: when a company sells a product, but retains practical ownership over that product, that's a big problem and it's been happening more and more wherever the opportunity to do so has arisen. The farmers in this case are asking for nothing which hasn't already been addressed for other vehicles, and regardless of how greedy they may be this is a perfectly reasonable request.
::sigh:: This is just not true. Only the Xbox and Playstation have this problem, I have never connected my Wii U to the internet and it has never given me any trouble.
Forgot about that one, did you? If the other two are so bad, and they are, why do people keep ignoring the one that actually does what it's supposed to, and does it really well? I am sorely disappointed in how readily gamers have bought into this marketing meme that there are only two current-gen consoles. The only functional console of the lot is the one that's doing the worst commercially.
They were willing to show it with ads, you mean. Yes it's the same answer, but lets keep some things in perspective here.
I use a functioning laptop, sitting on top of another non-functioning laptop.
Every one of the arguments raised in this thread was acknowledged and addressed in TFA. I know it not fashionable to read the article, but this is silly. Eliminating administrative overhead? Specifically mentioned and accounted for. Raising taxes (especially on the rich)? Also discussed. Eliminating other social programs? Yes, also accounted for.
And yes, raising taxes is the only way that UBI could work. The problem is that it would require raising taxes by a very large amount, and his argument is that with Americans' attitude towards taxation this is politically infeasible.
And Soros hates Universal Basic Income, so this guy is acting as Soros' shill? Is that what you're saying? I don't know squat about what George Soros thinks, so that's a legitimate question.
I do know a little bit about Robert Greenstein though, just a little, and he's run the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities since well before Soros did the thing with the currency trading. He's been around for a while, and he can think for himself.
Today's Virtual Boy, maybe?
You're talking about the wrong hostages.
Sellout to Iran? The Republicans certainly used the hostage crisis to campaign against Carter, but they didn't really do anything special to get the hostages released. Apparently the Iranians just didn't like Carter.
It's the best example that I know of of a foreign power successfully choosing an American president (or anti-choosing one, this was anti-Carter rather than pro-Reagan). But the point is: this wasn't the Republicans selling out to Iran, it was Iran giving them a gift and they just ran with it.
Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill. In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer. This is not to say that smoking is good for you.... news flash: smoking is not good for you. If you are reading this article through the blue haze of cigarette smoke you should quit. The relevant question is, what is more harmful to the nation, second hand smoke or back handed big government disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric.
Smoking doesn't kill... except for those one out of every three smokers who die from a smoking related illness. Then he tries to say that the relevant part of a conversation about smoking is really about second hand smoking... On the whole, it's just a bunch of nonsense.
If you take just the part about "smoking doesn't kill" it does make him sound worse than he deserves, but similarly the bit that you quote makes him sound better than he deserves. Mostly he's just spewing gibberish here.
They mentioned several of the offending publications in the summary. Worth noting that none of those are exactly first-tier when it comes to reputability. ... Which raises the question of why I'm hearing about this stupid thing for the first time on Slashdot via The Guardian. I avoid those crap news organizations for a reason, but it seems as though Amazon has pulled a marketing coup by paying for publication in the trash press, and then getting coverage for free in the reputable press with this story about how trashy those other publications are.
I've heard the name D.B. Cooper a number of times before (on Newsradio, among other places) but had always thought that I was missing something about the story, since it just sounded like someone who stole some money. "What was the big deal?" I said to myself.
I appreciate the concise summary, since most times I've tried to look this up the articles just go on and on about it... "What was the big deal?" I would say as I read them, but this was the one question which they were apparently unwilling to answer. Turns out it wasn't a big deal, just a bunch of news fluff. Thanks for finally settling that for me.
Starting from the principle that something is wrong allows people to criminalize things that have no business being criminalized and that is at least one of the points I am trying to get across to you.
Really? Here I thought you were just very very passionate about semantics for some baffling reason.
Okay, so if that's your real argument here then how do you suggest laws be made? I'm not clear on how that would work, since this is how it's always done: "Murder is wrong! We should make some laws about it. Also stealing. Also people who take too many items through the express lane." Lawmaking is inevitably reactionary.
Your quibble over harassment is unimportant to the argument, but there certainly are forms of harassment which are illegal. Less so in the United States than in many other places. This demonstrates the need for specificity in lawmaking, which shows why there's a difference between common speech and legal speech, but it doesn't really change anything. Laws about harassment still stem from the "harassment is bad" principle.
I'm not sure where you're going with the copyright talk, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act isn't about copyright. The person in the article is being tried for accessing a computer without authorization. You don't want to know what "common-term understanding of criminal activity" I think that law was meant to address? I'll tell you anyway: part of it was meant to address accessing a computer without authorization.
I... am having some trouble interpreting your replies, I have no idea why you feel this way, but to try and clarify:
Lawmaker A: "This person was trying to take the law into their own hands! Harrassing someone they decided was guilty, trying to stir up a mob. There was even talk about lynching!"
Lawmaker B: "That's terrible, we can't have vigilantes acting outside the law. Lynching is already illegal, no need to do anything there, but they're going to get away with the harrassment, since there's nothing currently on the books preventing them from doing it in the way that they did it."
Lawmaker A: "You're right, this will take a new law about harassment. Let's get on that. It'll help me score some 'tough on crime' points with my electorate..."
Is that any better? If you start from the principle that vigilantism is wrong, then it just comes down to recognizing when it happens and when it might happen and making laws to address those instances. Likewise rape, likewise theft, and so on.
I don't go by that book. Things in my book can be crimes even when there is not a law on the books specifically by that name. I gave the example of rape, in addition to vigilantism. Stealing would be another example.
Laws require greater specificity than these common terms give, but the common terms do represent real crimes: laws are made to address the common-term understanding of criminal activity, rather than the other way around. So starting from the initial position that vigilantism should be illegal, the lawmakers then craft a set of laws which insure that all of the actions with which vigilantism can be expressed have been addressed. The resulting laws don't say they're against vigilantism, they say they're against lynching or harassment or whatever, but the effect and the goal are the same.
Employees are exposed to pathogens every second of every day. The question is whether this one represents a greater threat, and... it certainly doesn't seem to. The WHO says there have been fewer than 1700 cases of microcephaly in Brazil which "may have been caused by the Zika virus," and further: apparently this poses very little threat to anyone who isn't planning on having children within the next six months after exposure.
I don't know what OSHA's rules are, but unless my employee was actively seeking children there doesn't seem to be much cause for concern here. At least on an individual level - the main thing that the WHO is afraid of is the disease spreading to other countries, and the Olympics could certainly represent a problem in that regard.
Vigilantism is the common name, not a legal term, for any of a set of actions which are illegal. There aren't any laws specifically against "vigilantism," by that name, but it is none the less illegal. Many other common names for crimes are like this. Rape, for example, is not illegal by that name, but it is none the less illegal to commit rape.
Colors it how? I think I was pretty clear that I'm against this individual, or any individual, deciding for themselves how a case should go without the benefit of due process, and acting on it. If that wasn't clear before then I am stating it now. I'm making no claims about being impartial, I am stating unequivocally that I think this was a negative action.
Further, I don't know where you're getting your definition that vigilantism requires violent action but Oxford says no it doesn't.
You're comparing a maximum sentence to an actual sentence, he is not getting more time than the other offenders. And they are all real offenders (provided that he is found guilty): vigilantism is a real crime and it is right and just that it be prosecuted. Yes the maximum penalties are excessive, there are many problems with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, but it's minimum sentences, not maximum ones, which tend to be the real affront to justice.