mererdog

I was. Your earlier assertion I was replying to was- "Said academic snot was afraid to use his real name. Look to the left of these words. I am using my real name. Who has the courage of his convictions?" My point is that claiming to use your real name is not evidence of courage, any more than claiming to have a degree is evidence of authority. I am not anonymous because I am a coward. I am anonymous because my identity is irrelevant. It would do you no good to know my real name, just as it does me no good to know yours. In exactly the same way, it would do you no good to know my educational background, my work history, or my mailing address.

Why would I put any effort into verifying your identity? Just as it doesn't effect me whether or not he is honest about his degree, it does not effect me if you are honest about your name. It does me no danger to assume you are telling the truth, because it honestly doesn't matter to me either way. Its not like I'm going to date you or hire him.

I consider that to be one of the benefits of anonymity in dialogue. It acts as a sort of social equalizer. What matters is not your credentials, your age, or your economic status. All that matters is what you say.

Speaking only for myself, that is completely accurate.

Are you aware of the concept of the "sock puppet"? Absent a face to face meeting, I have no real way to verify your identity. Your claim that you use your real name or photograph is essentially the same as his claim that he has a degree.

That would depend on how broad your definition of the word is. Semantics is what makes logic useful. It does no good to know whether all A are B, if you don't actually know what an A or a B is. With purely conceptual things like creationism, beauty, or morality, that gets really complicated. With no physical object to point to, it can be difficult to assure we are talking about the same thing.

No, I do not have children. My wife and I are also each incapable of having children. I suppose the important question is whether the change in perspective makes you more able to see the truth or less able to see the truth. Which is a sort of difficult question to figure out, because the things that blind us to the truth usually blind us to the fact that they blind us to the truth. Strong emotional attachments can be very useful things, but they are also the root cause of a lot of tragedies. Because they have the ability to supress our critical thinking skills, they make us vulnerable to the sort of mistakes in judgement that are routinely exploited by our enemies. This is not an accusation against you or your arguments here, but a generalized lamentation about the human condition... Going back to my dog analogy, you mention the responsibility to protect your family. You understand that protecting your family and allowing the dog to live are not mutually exclusive propositions? Killing the dog is only one of many options for keeping the family safe. It has the benefit of being simple and fairly foolproof. It has the disadvantage of rendering you incapable of trying other options as you become aware of them. You can't unkill a dog, you know?

Would it be fair to say that your response is not about being protective, but about being vengeful? I ask because it looks that way, but looks can be deceiving. Imagine that your dog gets rabies (if you have no dog, you'll need to start by imagining you have a dog) and so you put it down. Now imagine that you run across a news article from a few months back that reads "Rabies cure found. Simple procedure removes all symptoms at any stage of disease." How would this effect you, emotionally? Would you feel that your ignorance of the cure justified your killing the dog, or would you just feel like a murderer?

What allowed Hitler to have power was a German nation that felt justified in using violence against anyone they perceived as enemies. Hitler could kill very few Jews by himself. He needed help to carry out his plans. Inevitably, evil starves to death on its own, and can only survive by convincing good people to join in. It does this by exploiting two basic human flaws- belief that "We" are more important than "Them," and fear that "They" are going to harm "Us." While pacifism may not be up to the task of defeating Nazis, societal opposition to the moral prinicples underpinning pacifism is what gives Nazis power in the first place. This simple truth played a big part in leading me to reject my intellectual inclinations toward situational ethics and embrace my instinctive belief in moral absolutism. The consequences of our actions extend beyond the purpose of our actions. There is little to be gained by winning a battle in a way that makes it impossible to win the war. It is tragic to gain the world by losing your soul. To paraphrase a Bible verse, the real threat posed by evil is not the damage it can do to our bodies, but the damage we do to our inner being when we embrace one evil to fight another.

Your phrasing is aggressively combative. This is not a matter of logic. It is a matter of communication and the common usage of language. If it is not your intention to be combative, I suggest putting some thought into your tone.

That isn't what I said, nor is it what I meant. Why so hostile?

No. It shows only that he is imperfect. Any assumption of ignorance or unintelligence is simply a result of bias. And he fell for the association fallacy, not reductio ad absurdum. It is a sort of blind spot he has. It is, of course, also the fallacy that sees missing a shot as evidence of not knowing how to make a shot.

I have not found that to be the case. Of course, I tend to pay more attention to the people who quote Nietzche, Kant, and Humes than people who quote Plato, Aristotle, or Aquinas, so there is an obvious bias there. Do you have any studies to back the claim, or are you just going by personal experience?

For the record, he had evidence. Not 100% proof, but evidence, nonetheless. His logic ran along the lines of- Creationists cite the Argument From Design as evidence. You cited the Argument From Design as evidence. You are therefore a creationist. Faulty logic, to be sure, but no more so than your own response. You felt insulted, but he did not insult you. He mistakenly came to the conclusion that you are something you are not. If you walk into a bank wearing a mask, it is not an insult for people to assume you are a robber, even if they are wrong. To assume that only unintelligent people make mistakes is a fairly serious mistake to make.

That has a double meaning, doesn't it? Just so you know, I've missed you.

Sounds fairly accurate. I think We don't want is more often the impetus, though. Fear and loathing, you know? The primal stuff.

Why not?

I kind of disagree. A decade ago, I would have agreed completely. If we were talking about whether the Beatles are better than the Stones, I would also agree. But this is, quite literally, a life or death issue. Getting this right matters, perhaps more than anything else. I want us both to be right about this issue because I don't want either of us to do wrong, you know? I know I often need help seeing the truth. I have managed, in the past, to help others in that way. So I am actively trying to change your mind, and I am actively encouraging you to try to change mine. Not out of disrespect for each others beliefs, but out of respect for each other and a desire that we each have the best life possible. If anyone looks closely, they may notice that this is an example of how I prefer to handle enemies. Not that I consider anyone on the forum to be an enemy (other than Murph, of course), but intellectual opposition works as an analogue...

Fear of punishment causes people to avoid punishment. While this can theoretically cause people to avoid doing wrong, what it normally does is cause people to change tactics. The bully who backs down to your face will often stab you in the back. The bully who backs away from a fight often comes back with a gun or a gang. Convince the bully he can not get the best of you, and you usually just send him in search of a softer target. If these things were not true, prison recidivism rates would be zero, wouldn't they? Once the police stand up to the bully, why does the bully keep victimizing? And why is it not a rarity for this repeat offending to happen, instead of the norm?

It is like saying I am unwilling to punch a baby for crying. The baby's crying causes me harm, but that does not justify me doing harm to the baby. By not being violent, I give the baby the opportunity to grow out of the crying without being saddled with a bunch of unnecessary scarring. When we respond to violence with violence, we teach that violence should be used to solve problems. That lesson reinforces the preexisting beliefs that led to the original violence, increasing the potential for further violence from that original source. If noone takes the high road, noone will see the high road as a viable option. If noone sees the high road as a viable option, noone will take the high road. Vicious cycles and self-fulfilling prophesies...

The best way to ensure you never succeed is to never try.

You should try it. People do not know how to react to it.

That is true. Which is part of the point. The value of a man lies in his potential, as much as in his actuality. This is usually considered patently obvious to everyone when talking about babies or themselves. People make choices, and so they are not doomed to stay on the same path. Redemption and reformation happen. Even the unrepentant and seemingly iredeemable can make one right decision at one key moment that has a bigger positive impact on the world than anything I will ever do. And they can do it for all the wrong reasons or completely on accident. Tom Paine also reminds that virtue is not hereditary, thus muggers can produce doctors as easily as doctors can produce muggers. And, of course, many doctors have proven to be pedophiles, rapists, or murderers. Which illustrates nicely the point that when we judge one another we necessarily do so based on limited and faulty information. That is not how I wish to be judged, so I try not to judge others that way. Seems like common courtesy, you know?

Hi. Nice to meet you.

Ever watch the original The Magnificent Seven? Whether or not it helps to bring a knife to a gunfight depends entirely on how you use the knife. Nonviolence is the same way. There are nonviolent solutions to violence. They are sometimes not obvious, usually not easy, and never without risk. Now, you can claim that situations exist where no nonviolent solutions can be effective. But if you didn't try, you don't really know. And even if you did try, you don't really know whether the problem was your plan or your implementation. I do not believe my life or the lives of my family to be more valuable than that of a stranger. As a result, I am willing to risk our lives to protect the life of the stranger. You ask what help pacifism is. The answer is that it protects others from me. This can only make sense if you take as a given that human life has intrinsic value that is unchanged by what a human chooses to do with that life. If you do not believe a mugger has as much value as a doctor, my words will be meaningless to you.