From: "Kolya"
To:
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 4:21 PM Subject: A brief word on "Morality"

It took me a while to find another post to go over. Many of Kolya's posts, especially earlier ones, were replies to Alice. Sadly, her contributions demonstrate she didn't know what Kolya was talking about; in other words he was talking over her head (or past her, if you prefer). I mean no offense to Alice in particular; I don't think anyone understood Kolya's posts at the time (his on-list supporters most definitely included.) Anyhow, none of those posts seemed appropriate. Then I got distracted reading David Deutsch posts. They all have the enjoyable quality of being true (though, yes, they don't always try to say as much as possible; they are conservative).

BTW the way his posts are conservative but still not listened to and even written off as wild new crazy-talk is a bit crazy-making (same thing happens with many of my posts, though I vary my style more.)

But anyway, this post is both amusing and confusing. It's packed full of references meant to belittle none other than me, Alice, and a few others. So let's get clear on just what it actually says.

Oh, and before I forget, what Kolya means here is that we believe the purpose of morality is that people found immoral can be justifiably coerced. That's sorta what law is for, though. Kolya knows this. So if we go a bit further, he's saying we believe morality doesn't exist, and people talking about it are really just trying to make laws about our personal lives.

I can field that one. Kolya was accused of advocating coercion because he declared various things immoral and failed to say what should be done about it. People filled in the gaps with whatever seemed obvious. For some people that wasn't "nothing" or "we're not talking about that right now, we'll deal with it later". Does their choice of coercion denote a character flaw? Kolya thinks so. Ho hum.

The question about what rational person wouldn't lose interest is sarcasm, which is notable because it's rare coming from Kolya.

Kolya is describing morality as being, in the perspective of ARRers, a trap to force people to self-sacrifice to stay in relationships or immorally leave.

By appreciation he means disdain. By return the favour he means he's resentful that we didn't understand him and agree with him. However, the bit about his world making sense again seems to be a bit of truth thrown in with the sarcasm. While there's an argument with an uncertain outcome going on, or at least one where he can't figure out why his opponent's say what they do, there's a bit of a hole in Kolya's worldview. But now by classifying our mental illness, Kolya can be at ease again, happily ignoring the ARRers who don't matter or count because of their mental illness.

Positivists thought that all statements not describing or predicting observations were meaningless. In simpler but less accurate terms, it's only real if you can touch (measure) it. Quite the insult, especially in context of a bunch of TCSers talking, since TCS is supposed to be from Popperian epistemology, and thus everyone present ought to know better.

The first credo just reinforces the positivism, which was previously just a label. The other makes them highly immoral. Kolya is thinking of libertarians as much as ARRers here (though I suppose all ARRers are libertarians, but not vice versa).

Don't push me is just a new version of the libertarian non-aggression principle which reads "Thou shalt not initiate force or threat of force." Kolya left out the bit about not threatening to push people, but it's not hard to argue that's implied. As you can see, Kolya is rather not a fan of libertarianism. Here he seems to say the point of libertarianism is to do away with morality and replace it with a mechanical rule.

I guess "judge" means morally, like judging someone's character or whether what they did was good or bad. It does not mean deciding whether someone pushed or not, which obviously has to be an acceptable thing for the court to do.

The origins of the name Listing aren't so lost. ARR is an email list. The culture shock thing is Kolya's way of saying our differences are large, possibly incommensurable. (I'm pretty sure I've only heard Kolya use that word, and people replying to Kolya). Commensurable means having something in common. Incommensurable means not having anything in common. But the point of the word is actually to say we'll never come to agree (which actually is an implied if we truly have precisely *nothing* in common). (I don't believe this; I'm implying Kolya might.) My guess Kolya might is emphasised by the way he imagined a bridge. These are different lands with a whole uncrossable river between them. The only possible way to cross in on the rarely-used bridge.

Of course we do have things in common, like being on Earth, and living in the same reality.

Kolya doesn't bother to argue that merging is better than separating (there's no obvious reason either should be generally better). He just throws it into good company (good character is better than valueless character? well duh!). It's hard to explain what Kolya means by wisdom, but just assume it's clearly a better thing than logic (though it's also a different kind of thing, and there is no tradeoff between having one or the other). Trust vs. maintaining one's guard is a bit of a cheap shot like merging vs. separating. We shouldn't trust blindly; we must have a careful balance.

I wonder what Kolya thinks I do all day. *sigh*

This isn't to say he isn't mostly right (though exaggerated) in his judgment of many libertarians. Even if he is, though, that wouldn't mean libertarian theory is bad or useless. It'd just mean it's a bad idea to try to base your life around it with nothing else. Bits, like what it has to say about economics, are very useful.

PS Kolya, if you read this, I feel no malice towards you, I simply tried to write what I thought this stuff meant. Even if I think you're flawed in 500 ways, that doesn't imply I will dismiss your other ideas.

"Once a philosopher, twice a pervert."

So I ran into that saying, and tried to figure out how that works. I think it goes something like this:

day 1:
curi: so, d00d, what do you think about incest?
Bob: I think it's kinda gross, don't you?
curi: oh, yeah, yeah, totally gross, ewww
Bob: it's especially gross cause like my sister is ugly
curi: oh, yeah yeah, and also there's something about lethal recessive genes, too.
Bob: yeah, incest makes you dumb or something
curi: yeah
Bob: wow that was a pretty philosophical discussion
curi: yeah totally, good thing we analysed that and really learned about abstract ideas

day 2:
curi: so, i was thinking about incest some more
Bob: you pervert!

anyway, cool saying, nice gem of truth in it

Israel steps up targeted killings

Lovely title, eh? The main theme in this part of current events is that Israel is killing more people now. *cough*

Suspected? Huh? Are these weapons workshops suspected of being owned and used by Hamas? If so, then should the suspicion be wrong, it doesn't matter, Israel was still blowing up weapons workshops. Or, were the buildings blown up only suspected of being weapons workshops? The author seems to be trying to cast doubt. But if it turned out to be a dorito factory this would have been noticed after the bombing, right? And then there is no chance at all they would have failed to state very clearly that Israel blew up the wrong thing. So I have to conclude it *was* a weapons workshop, possibly run by Hamas, and that the author sucks.

So why wasn't the headline: Suicide Murderers Stall Peace Process ?

Oh, I know why: because the Associated Press (this is an AP article) hates Israel, and wants to blame everything on Israel.

So what happened here? Bad terrorist people killed Jews, and Israel is going to kill the bad people in self-defense. Huzzah!

But what's AP say happened? AP says Israel is going to kill *militants*. Israel is killing them *in retaliation*. Israel is out for revenge not self-defense. Israel hasn't been attacked in an important way for 3 years. Israel has nothing to bitch about. Attacks on Palestinian soil by the IDF happen all the time (Palestinians have soil now? heh). Both sides have been trying to kill each other for over three years, proving they are both war-like or someone would have stopped by now. The Palestinians, being poor, have an excuse for being war-like. Also Israel is now planning to assissinate Palestinians leaders.

What does this prove? It proves that more security just won't work alone, and the only possible way to be safe is to kill terrorists.

What does AP think this proves? That security fences don't work, so any fence Israel builds is really to steal land.

One wonders where the poor Palestinians get high-grade plastic explosives. Ho hum.

step 1: get a blender, some bananas (fresh), some orange juice (not from concentrate recommended), some frozen raspberries, and some frozen blueberries. optionally some frozen strawberries. also optionally you can add sugar. try making it with no sugar but then putting some in a small cup and mixing in sugar to see the difference.

step 2: put everything that isn't the blender inside the blender. turn blender on. (about 1.25 cups OJ, 4 medium sizeds bananas, 1/2 bag raspberies, 1/4 bag blueberries (the blueberry bags seem to be much more stuffed. but also u want less blueberry than raspberry) seems to work for me. if u have stawberries u can use less raspberries)

step 3: find cups and serve (if u do it right you'll need at least 2 big cups to fit all of it)

PS some ppl add yogurt but they're weird. don't mess your smoothie up.

recipe 2:

put some refried beans in a small bowl and microwave. then add a bunch of hot sauce and stir. (extra hot recommended so u don't use a whole bottle in 3 gos)

get some tortillas and put some cheese on them. i prefer white cheese for this.

cook it. if u use a microwave, then small tortillas are recommended cause the center will heat unevenly. put the thinner pieces of cheese there. cooking on the stove is harder but u might like it better.

fold tortilla in half and squish cheese from middle outward so it's more even. tear tortilla into pieces. dip in the beans.

optionally, put chicken or steak on the tortilla with the cheese. yum

note: make sure to heat beans first then quesadilla. they stay hot a lot longer.

Haaretz Article

Skim the rest of the article too. Anyway, boy carries bag of explosives through checkpoint. It has wires sticking out of it. He's caught and stopped. Then he's set free!

Why was he set free? Because Israel treats bad people (and especially children) too well. Rather than being the oppressive conquerors the media claims, Israel is too friendly for its own good.

The boy was criminally negligent thrice over. First, he carried a bag through a checkpoint for a stranger without checking what was in it or telling anyone. Second, it had wires sticking out. Sheesh! And third, he got paid lots of money to do it. Why would he get paid all that money? He should have been suspicious about it. (If he took the money then told authorities I'm sure he would have gotten to keep it.)

The boy is a bad person who nearly got some perfectly good people murdered. But what does Israel see? A poor, uneducated boy to pity and not blame for his criminal negligence.

Not only would the world almost definitely be better off without that boy (he is morally bad enough to be dangerous), but some of his friends might be scared out of doing the same thing if Israel punished him (or encouraged if there is no punishment. same idea) (public execution sounds nice to me, but I suppose it'd be a short jail sentence, because Israel is such a cruel country). *sigh*

Oh, and to people who think Israel intentionally targets children. (Jews hate children or something? Makes no sense in the first place.) Fuck you!

"if u break a rule openly, this does not prove you have nothing to hide and weren't trying to sneak one past us. rather, it proves that A) you broke a rule and must be punished and B) to break a rule openly proves you do not have the proper respect for authority, and thus must be punished extra"

lets say u wanna turn lights off to save power. is it worth the bother?

let's estimate it takes 15 seconds, and you save the light being on for 1 hour on average

100 watt bulb, 10 cents per kilowatt hour. that means 15 seconds is worth 1 cent.

multiply a bit. a min is 4 cents. an hour is 240 cents.

so, who wants $2.40, and who wants an extra hour of sleep?

or an extra hour of work, which will generate more than $2.40

and this neglects the human costs of people having to devote thought to remembering to turn the lights off, and such. which actually dwarf both the time and money amounts in question.

i suppose i should concede that for someone who obsessively turns lights off, trying not to will probably be costly. however, getting into such a state is bad.

oh here's a source on prices. looks like it's less than 10 cents.

Announcer: Hello, and welcome to the Presidential Debates. There's been a slight change this year. Elliot is going to speak because he's so cool. Bush and maybe Kerry can speak if there is extra time.

*bows*

Before I begin with my positions, I want to address two issues. The first is Statism. The other candidates here are Statists, and that's something you have to watch out for. What that means is they attribute mystical, magical powers to States. For example they think States can solve problems that ordinary people can't. But this doesn't make much sense, because who makes up a government? Just people like you and me.

The second is some people might say my ideas are too simplistic to work. But that's a misunderstanding. They only seem simple because our whole society is smart! We understand a lot of things. When candidates want to avoid ideas that seem simple and true in favour of complex ones, that just means they want to use their own pet theory that, when explained, is confusing not persuasive. But good ideas are something everyone can understand!

Now, I've been asked to go over a number of key issues: taxes, schools, welfare and social programs, the military, immigration, gun control, and abortion, so that's what I'll do.

Now, I'm just going to go over the general ideas for each one. We don't need to talk about the exact numbers involved. We have experts to figure those out. What's important in a leader is having a good plan, not figuring out every detail, which should be a team effort.

As for taxes, I'm going to lower them. Why? Because I think you are competent to spend your own money well. I don't want to redistribute it with central planning because I'm not a Statist -- I don't think that the State is better at planning than ordinary people. And not only that, each of you only has a little money (compared to the wealth of the whole country), and will pay a lot of attention to your own money. But if the government tries to distribute wealth, it will have a small number of employees trying to deal with the money from many, many people. So, we would have more bureaucrats (with salaries) doing a worse job than you would do. We don't need that.

As for schools, I support vouchers, and I will cut funding to public schools to pay for it. Why? Because the public school system doesn't work! They keep telling us if we just give them more money, then it will work. But we've tried that. And it failed. So I say, let the market take care of it. If parents have money to spend on a good school, then capitalists will create those good schools. Teaching the next generation is not the place of government.

As for welfare and social programs, I'm against those. I know charity is important, but I just don't think central planning is the way to do it. I know you are all good people, and you'll give any extra money you can to people who need it. I trust you to decide how much money you can spare, not the tax collector.

As for the military, I'm going to increase funding. Why? Because I want to be safe. There is evil in the world. There are bad people who want to kill us. And I won't hide my head in the sand and pretend they aren't out there. Rather, I'm going to face facts, stand tall, and fight them off. And I'm not scared of them either; we can beat them. We just have to put some effort into it.

As for immigration, I say if someone wants to live here, great! People are not locusts. They won't ravage our country and destroy our resources. Most immigrants will just get jobs and help create more wealth for everyone. Now, I understand that if there were a lot of welfare programs, then immigrants would be expensive. But under my leadership, those will be replaced with personal charity. So you don't have to worry about your tax dollars going to immigrants; they will earn their keep.

As for gun control, I like guns. They are a great tool. It used to be a strong man could intimidate a small man. But guns are the great equaliser. When everyone is armed, no one wants to start a fight. I want everyone to be able to defend themselves, so that's why I'm against gun control.

Abortion is a contentious issue. A lot of well-meaning people disagree. On the one hand, some of you think it's murder. On the other hand, some people say it's free choice. Now, I don't see how freedom could excuse murder. So I think the left is wrong about this. But what about an abortion before the fetus has a working brain? How could that be murder? I respect everyone's right to believe in souls, but I don't want to make laws about them.

So in conclusion, if you like personal freedom and a responsible government, not central planning or a nanny state, then vote for me. If you like ideas too confusing for a politician to explain to you, vote for a socialist.

Thank you, God bless you, and good night.

*bows*

link

it's a samizdata piece by Perry. genital piercings got banned in Georgia.

now, if i heard that, i'd think it was an annoying hangup as there's nothing morally wrong with genital piercings.

but that's not how Perry reacts. he is mad that something he sees as a freedom *can* be banned. he thinks that you own your genetalia, therefore all laws about them are invalid. this view is significantly *worse* than the original mistake. the original mistake of thinking genital piercings are bad is just one mistaken judgment. Perry's view is a recipie to get an unlimited number of issues wrong.

in comments, someone whines that the authors of the law consider themselves fiscal conservatives. either he thinks fiscal conservatives must oppose all new laws that would cost money (absurd), or he thinks they must oppose all frivilous laws. but the authors of the law don't consider it frivilous (duh). they probably *are* fiscal conservatives.

also in comments apparently the law was aimed at genital mutilation and nailed piercing too b/c the authors didn't know consentual piercing even existed. so this is even less bad than it originally seemed.

but how does Perry take the news?

so Perry thinks everything consentual should be legal. period. wife burning? spanking? ok in a perfect society (with better notions of what consent is and better mechanisms to prevent systematic coercion) they should be legal. in a bad enough society you couldn't set up institutions that care about consent anyways. but they should not be legal, unconditionally, in all imaginable societies. and more to the point, in the real world, there are lots of examples of illegal consentual things that should be illegal.

for example the story of british ppl going to india and banning wife burning. the natives say "but it's our custom" and the brits say "we have a custom too. when someone burns his wife we hang him". (this story could be a myth, dunno, but it doesn't matter). banning wife burning was important and good in that situation.

banning spanking in the US is arguably a good idea. even if it's not, it probably will be in the nearish future. (doing it would change the situation for many abused children in positive ways) saying there can be no debate b/c of Libertarian Principles would be rather lame. pretending the laws against assault and battery can protect children today would umm ... well it doesn't.

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besides this, what is and isn't consent is non-obvious. can i download music? well in one analysis, this is consentual b/c the only ppl in the equation are me and the person i'm getting it from, and we both consent. in another, the creator of the music has to consent too, and doesn't, so it's not. (who has to consent must always be decided b/c it can't be the whole universe, it has to be the *relevant* people. who's relevant?). thus Perry's analysis (consentual stuff should always be legal) wouldn't even tell us what should be legal. pretending his statement supports one meaning of consent over another (his in particular) would be invalid.

oh also perry's title was "you do not own your own genetalia". of course you do. it's that property rights are not absolute (if they were, for example, there couldn't even be a discussion about downloading music, the case would be closed already. "you can put music you own up for download because you own it" would be the end. it's absurd to try to solve complex moral issues this way.). but Perry apparently can't even imagine the idea of non-absolute property rights, so concludes an absurdity instead.