Kevin Blackstone says no to the National Anthem

#280
#280
therealUT said:
What am I avoiding? I'll be a doctor and a scientist. The fact that I won't be an MD or a rocket scientist doesn't make my answers false.
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Cool.

Have you narrowed down a field of study?

You are currently working at a think tank right?
 
#288
#288
govols/cc said:
Now prosthetic companies will be going out of business. I'm sure they were hardly even turning a profit on a $30K little kid hand. It's gonna be funny when these greedy ass companies start taking a hit because of huge mark ups when soon people can make their own parts, etc
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Yeah buddy, when you need that knee replacement, I'll gen one up on my comp. CC, you are normally pretty good but the above comment is f'ing stupid.
 
#289
#289
82_VOL_83 said:
Yeah buddy, when you need that knee replacement, I'll gen one up on my comp. CC, you are normally pretty good but the above comment is f'ing stupid.
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Are they not making weapons with the 3-D printers? I can only imagine over time the tech will get better and something like he suggested can become a reality
 
#291
#291
82_VOL_83 said:
Yeah buddy, when you need that knee replacement, I'll gen one up on my comp. CC, you are normally pretty good but the above comment is f'ing stupid.
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It's not like you can get a printer to perform surgery so that's not a very good comparison. My point was it could hurt a lot of businesses who have a huge mark up on simple to produce parts.
 
#292
#292
SamRebel35 said:
I think America is a great place to live relative to most places in the world. That doesn't change the fact that we live under a soft tyranny and applaud it with banners and parades and anthems.
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That's not my perspective. Does our government overstep its bounds? Absolutely. But we still have the ability to vote, to protest, to speak out against what we feel is wrong. I'll agree with your previous post that we have become a nation of sheep, but we've allowed that to happen. The Constitution and the rights guaranteed by it still exist, but we as a nation have failed to hold the government up to the law of the land.

As for the anthem, I don't see it as a way of applauding the govt. It honors the nation itself. It honors everything this nation was supposed to be and could still become. It also honors the history and the blood that went into building this nation. So many have spilt their blood for the ideas of this nation, ideas that are represented by symbols like our flag, the pledge of allegiance, and the National Anthem.

If you want to place blame for the state of the nation, it starts with we the people. We've put the politicians in office over the years that have led us to where we are. It's not just Obama, it's every politician who's put his party before his nation. Don't blame an anthem that we've failed to live up to.
 
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#293
#293
82_VOL_83 said:
No, you gave him an out. He is going to be an academic phd, scientist, not so much.
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I knew that's what he's getting at & that's fine even if he didn't wanna say it. The argument was practical vs theoretical which I guess at the moment depends on what he actually does with his education in the future.
 
#294
#294
Let me preface this post with the fact I just got home from the bar; I am buzzed. Hell. I might be drunk; not sure though. My apologies if this doesn't make any sense.

therealUT said:
1. Self-interest is not cashed out in resources or relations. For most, it is cashed out in terms of welfare or happiness, some simply cash it out in survival. Can resources and relations play roles? Yes, but they are instrumental. For greed, they are intrinsic.

2. I'm not sure why you cannot distinguish between the two concepts. It would be like being unable to conceptually distinguish red from beautiful because a red thing happens to coincide with a beautiful thing.
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Nobody is disputing that fact that there are means to ends with respect to self-interest. The ends are not always the same, but welfare, happiness, power, survival, etc. are some of the usual ones. However, I don't see why this would decouple the ends from the means. The means can be in comparison with others without the ends being in comparison to others. The means could be different to the same ends, and the ends could be different to the same means.

I view "greed" or "the accumulation of commodities in comparison to others" as nothing more than means. Greed is not a means onto itself. It has to serve an end; however weird or twisted that end is. The idea that greed is an end unto itself is absurd to me. Nobody accumulates **** without an end (conscious or subconscious) in mind.

Thus, I view the fundamental difference between greed and self-interest as a difference between the mean and the end. I tend to think self-interest (in whatever capacity) is the root cause/end to greed (a mere mean).

therealUT said:
To distinguish between the concepts, one need only see two distinct definitions. I have provided such, and what we label the definitions is irrelevant. For ease, let's call one "shmeed" and the other "shmelf-shminterest". An outside person is unnecessary. What matters is for one person to come to the understanding that their happiness/survival does not necessarily depend upon others. External evaluation and judgment is wholly unnecessary.
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I said nothing of the word which is defined. I stated solely that the there would be a difference in application of such concepts between any two given people given an infinite amount of (real or hypothetical) situations.

therealUT said:
While internal reflection and understanding is necessary, true trust is superfluous and redundant in multiple iteration dilemmas.
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I agree. One can never truly trust (in the absolute) another person.

Internal reflection does not take away the uncertainty of the future for the individual making the decision, the possible options, or the possible outcome/consequences for said options. The general possibilities and equations stay the same; no different than my poker hands tonight.

therealUT said:
The steep declining sawtooth holds for the following:
1. Homicide
2. War deaths
3. (1) and (2)

The decline begins slowly in the thirteenth century and the sharp drop starts near the end of the seventeenth.
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I'll have to pull those charts when I find my external hard drive. We are obviously talking past one another.
 
#295
#295
Obsessed said:
Philosophy is the back bone of higher learning?

I always enjoy your debates. Especially with pkt. I learn a lot. I learn how you two think.

(Obviously way above me) but I enjoy it none the less
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Philosophy is like starting a campfire by rubbing sticks together. It was great a long time ago, almost serves no purpose now.
 
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#296
#296
therealUT said:
Because if individuals always prioritized the practical, you'd definitely be using satellites to communicate this sentiment.
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Theoretically if I could defy the laws of gravity and fly like superman that would be the best mode of travel to get to and from work..practically I have to drive my gas guzzling SUV.
 
#299
#299
FLVOL_79 said:
Philosophy is like starting a campfire by rubbing sticks together. It was great a long time ago, almost serves no purpose now.
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I have more to say about this example as well, but I did not respond with my previous post because I was walking.

The example of fire is actually a good example, but not to serve your purpose (i.e., saying there is no place for philosophy anymore and that the practical has greater weight than the theoretical).

Early man got fire where there was already fire, and searching for sources of fire, as well as fuel to transport and keep the fire going, was probably quite time consuming and tedious, as early man would have needed to understand how to keep a fire going throughout the day and in the face of wind, rain, etc.. I imagine that, at some point, one man (and it probably happened on multiple occasions) noticed that when certain rocks strike other rocks, a brief bright flash occurred. Maybe he thought, "Hmm...this spark might be able to start a fire, and maybe I can reproduce this spark." That man, then, might have told the others, as they went out to again gather fire, that he was going to stay back and work on his theory. He might have spent the whole day, maybe multiple days, not only finding the right stones to strike, but how exactly to strike them, and how exactly to get that spark to start a fire. Practically, during these days, this represented an overall loss of productivity to the clan, since he could have been out helping to gather sticks and kindling, and searching for sources of fire. Yet, upon perfecting the theory and the technique, this resulting in massive time savings.

Moving forward, then, and as man moved to climates that were not only cold at night (the desert) but also cold during the day, keeping a fire lit at all times became crucial. Again, I'd imagine great time was spent gathering and covering sticks and logs, to keep them dry, but, even then, some downpours soaked the entire lot. Thus, I imagine that some men thought and spent time looking both into making certain materials impervious to water as well as inquiring into alternative fuel sources. Maybe someone in a northern coastal area, where whales were hunted for food, noticed that the more fatty parts of the meat caught fire when cooked. This person then might have hypothesized that this fat (whale blubber) could serve as a fuel source and, further, did not require dry storage conditions. This person then might have told the hunting party, or if he was in the hunting party, to not only cut up the whale and take the meat, but also to bring back all the fat they could bring. Of course, if the theory did not hold, this would be a huge waste of time and resources. Instead, the theory held, and a better fuel source was born.

Moving forward to your SUV example, I find this quite ironic. Early motorized carriages were very cumbersome, very inefficient, and extremely time consuming. They were not faster than horse drawn carriages. They were not cheaper to keep than horse drawn carriages. The maintenance was not less time consuming than the care of horses. In fact, early owners of motorized carriages were seen as little more than wealthy eccentrics. But, the theory that motorized carriages could be more efficient than horse-drawn carriages persisted and, eventually, cheap and efficient motorized carriages were born.

Finally, a personal anecdote. I remember the day when my elementary school got the world wide web. My class was ushered into the library, where we stood in front of a single computer, listened to the dial up, waited minutes and minutes, and finally connected to the web via Prodigy. Our teacher then asked what we would like to look up. Being Kansas, someone said 'basketball'. The teacher typed basketball and hit enter. Another ten minutes passed as Prodigy pulled up a desk encyclopedia sized article on basketball. The entire time (over twenty minutes) I spent constantly turning my eyes to and from the computer to the shelf, no more than fifteen feet away, of World Book Encyclopedias, specifically volume B, in which I knew an entry for 'Basketball' existed and which I could access quite rapidly. At the time, I failed to understand the excitement, expressed almost solely by the teachers and not my classmates, of this internet. At the time, it was practically near-useless. The theory, however, held that if resources were applied (that is, diverted away from other endeavors), the internet would, eventually, be practically useful, in fact very useful. But, if one always held that the practical is greater than the theoretical, then one would not get to the theory of the future practical value, and they would have discarded the machine in favor of the World Book Encyclopedia at that very moment.

And, since computer and the internet are all based on logical algorithms, a logic that was formalized in the early twentieth century by philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Russell, Turing, Boole, etc., then philosophy and theory was still an enormous impetus for great practical advantages as near back as the 1950s.

And, if you care about civil rights (maybe you don't), the civil rights movement in the 1960s relied heavily on philosophical theories regarding non-violent resistance. Non-violent resistance, especially in the face of violent, and very violent, oppression and repression is not exactly the most 'practical' approach, but faith was placed in the theory that it would bear practically beneficial results. And, this faith in theory was great enough that it held, even while many civil rights demonstrators were being beaten, shot with fire hoses, bitten by police dogs, etc.
 
#300
#300
PKT_VOL said:
Nobody is disputing that fact that there are means to ends with respect to self-interest. The ends are not always the same, but welfare, happiness, power, survival, etc. are some of the usual ones. However, I don't see why this would decouple the ends from the means. The means can be in comparison with others without the ends being in comparison to others. The means could be different to the same ends, and the ends could be different to the same means.
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You do see how means and ends are conceptually distinct, right?

Sure, someone could think that the way to attain happiness is to have more x than others. That does not present a theoretical problem, since happiness is intrinsic and not extrinsic, it just means that person's belief is false. It is a practical problem of correcting said belief.

PKT_VOL said:
I view "greed" or "the accumulation of commodities in comparison to others" as nothing more than means. Greed is not a means onto itself. It has to serve an end; however weird or twisted that end is. The idea that greed is an end unto itself is absurd to me. Nobody accumulates **** without an end (conscious or subconscious) in mind.
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Many do view the concepts of both 'greed' and 'envy' as absurd and non-existent. That means that when I say a could be either b or c, one is merely rejecting c. In this case, then, greed can only be understood as self-interest, not greed proper (as I defined it). But, since self-interest does not present theoretical problems, this objection does nothing to the argument. I'll grant the objection that true greed and true envy are non-existent (as well as diabolical evil).

PKT_VOL said:
Thus, I view the fundamental difference between greed and self-interest as a difference between the mean and the end. I tend to think self-interest (in whatever capacity) is the root cause/end to greed (a mere mean).
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Not a problem for the theory. If self-interest is the end, then one can easily argue, within theory, that greed is not a necessary nor sufficient means to said end. Thus, one can focus on what are necessary and sufficient conditions and constituents. The practical problem still remains. But, since it is not a theoretical problem, the possibility of peace is not negated by the appeal to the concept of greed.

PKT_VOL said:
I said nothing of the word which is defined. I stated solely that the there would be a difference in application of such concepts between any two given people given an infinite amount of (real or hypothetical) situations.
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A practical problem. In theory, one can distinguish between x (accumulation of resources with a view solely to one's own happiness) and y (accumulation of resources with a view to a's resources). Theoretically, one can ask the parties why they are accumulating resources, and, theoretically upon reflection, the parties can give an answer. If one of the parties sees that they are not doing it for x, then, if they are aimed at their own happiness (which I am taking as a given), then they can abandon the accumulation of resources insofar as it is not for x.

PKT_VOL said:
I agree. One can never truly trust (in the absolute) another person.

Internal reflection does not take away the uncertainty of the future for the individual making the decision, the possible options, or the possible outcome/consequences for said options. The general possibilities and equations stay the same; no different than my poker hands tonight.
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It actually does in prisoners' dilemmas. That is the entire point. Single iteration prisoners' dilemmas state that one knows the other is self-interested, thus one knows what the other would choose, thus forcing each to choose what is not the best. That's the whole point of PDs. If you say it's uncertain, then PDs are no longer a problem, at all. Multiple iteration PDs again assume certainty of self-interested parties, known outcomes, etc. Yet, they give the opposite answer from single-iteration PDs.

Away from theory, yes the future is always uncertain. That's not a theoretical problem, though. It's a problem of how do we apply these theories in light of the practical situation in which we cannot hold constants. The answer is found not in substantive dictates regarding each and every act, but in structural constraints.

PKT_VOL said:
I'll have to pull those charts when I find my external hard drive. We are obviously talking past one another.
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WWII deaths represented, at most, 3.1% of the world's population at the time (between 1.7-3.1%).

Even if you combine WWI and WWII, you barely surpass the war-violence that occurred solely in China in an analogous thirty year period in the fourteenth century (and, this thirty year period in China excludes Khan and the Mongol conquests), a century that was also rife with European warfare (the Avignon Papacy, the Hundred Year's War, revolts in Florence and England, etc.).
 
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