And who is picking these "dimensions"?

That's beside the point. The word "best" implies that a set of dimensions are assumed. When people say X is the best, what do they generally mean? Something like, "in my estimation, most people would agree that X is more desirable than its alternatives."

Of course I do, but I recognize that this is entirely subjective.

Everything is objective. What you're calling "subjective" is just the internal experience of neurons firing. Neural firings can be measured. They are objective.

Bad music is music which tends to result in an undesirable pattern of neural firings by whichever metric we are using.

No, I'd say that Farting into a microphone doesn't constitute music.

Well what if I vary the pitch over time? What if I get a guitar and flail wildly on it for a few minutes? What if learn three chords and do nothing but alternate between them? At what point does it change from "not music" to "music"?

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition". ~Carl Sagan.

What does that have to do with anything? All I'm saying is it's possible to declare X better than Y based on some implied metric. I don't think this is very controversial.

This is all a forgone conclusion. No two minds are the same. Different minds respond differently to the same stimuli. This would only go to demonstrate what we already know, Music is about personal taste.

Personal taste is only one aspect of appreciation. There's also the effectiveness with which the work accomplishes its goals, originality, sense of timing, etc, etc.

There are some ways where most minds differ, but there are also ways where most minds are the same. Most prefer something fresh over a rehash of the same old thing, to give one example.

What do we mean when we say something is "better"? Well, we could simply pick some dimension, like the amount of joy a song brings to the listener. If we could measure people's brains then we could figure out which song conveys the most joy on average and declare that song to be the best. Of course not all art is meant to convey joy, so we could use some other dimension like overall neural activity, or some combination of many factors. But the key point is that different works of art have different effects on people and these effects could be aggregated and analyzed.

I mean, do you think there's no such thing as bad music? If I fart into a microphone and think it's the greatest music ever written, would you say, "Well, that's a matter of personal taste" or would you say, "I think you must be misunderstanding music." I hope you would go with the latter. And if you accept that, then you must accept that there's more at work than personal taste.

Why would we rely on something which is admittedly "far from the truth"?

Because it's the best we can do. We want to give the best answer we can to the question posed in this debate, but the answer is too hard to find. So we just employ whatever techniques we can to get us as close to the truth as possible.

The human mind is a big bunch of neurons. A machine. Its processes, in their entirety, could theoretically be quantified and analyzed. Accept this and you can see that for any given person, a particular work of art is an input which produces a predictable output. Taking this further, one could compute the sum of every effect each work has upon every person and draw conclusions about which work produces the most desireable outcome overall, all things considered.

Yes, this notion remains science fiction for now, but such measurments could theoretically be taken. Lacking sophisticated neural scanning capabilities, we can instead rely on critics. Wise, empathic individuals who can bring to bear keen insight and a broad range of experiences in the evaluation of a given work. The consensus of several such critics, while perhaps far from the truth, is the best approximation of the truth we can hope to give as of yet.

This is what we generally mean we say X is better than Y.

I submit that as pop music today is an amalgamation of various influences

Surely the same can be said of every artistic work ever produced.

one genre cannot be declared better than any other

I don't think that's true. You may not be able to see the lighthouse through the deluge, but that doesn't mean the lighthouse isn't there. Every concievable aspect of a work could theoretically be considered and a range of satisfactory answers could then be produced.

Then perhaps you should have known better.

I knew you were gonna say that, too. My anticipated response:

It's a figure of speech, dipshit. Meaning: I felt it was quite probable that some pedantic wanker (you being the prime candidate) would latch on to that statement like a starving hyena, desperate for the slightest opportunity to suggest foolishness on my part. However, producing my argument in the first place took more time than any rational person should expend -- sanding down every potential handhold for said wanker would not be a worthwhile use of my time. Surely he will recognize my plight and not start shit over some minor point in an argument which I explicitly withdrew.

Alas, I have underestimated the extent of your wankerishness.

That's the pointless, baseless nostalgia we have come to expect from Americans.

That's the kind of unthinking condescension you would expect out of a country with a massive inferiority complex.

The music of the time was tailored to suit the tastes of the time, as it is now.

Tailored, yes. If you'll examine my argument more closely you will observe that it regarded degree. Carl Orff was more than a mouthpiece for a multi-million dollar algorithm which maximized appeal to focus groups. And while O Fortuna may lack subtlety, it does a better job of creating an epic feel than any other piece I am aware of.

I knew you were gonna say that.

I thought about adding a note that even if many classical pieces were written with a profit motive in mind, the environment in which they were produced did not enforce mediocrity with nearly the same ferocity as the modern music industry.

But then I decided such a note wasn't necessary. Silly me.

Here was my initial argument:

"If you accept that some art is better than other art then I don't see how you could deny the superiority of classical music. And I do think it's fair to say that art can be good or bad. My mom possesses a small piece of paper containing a mass of scribbles which bears the title, Giraffe. I produced this work when I was three. I think it's safe to say that that particular work of art is inferior to, say, the Mona Lisa.

Pop music, in general, is created mainly for commercial purposes -- this is the primary source of its flaws. It tends to be boring, derivative slop aimed at the lowest common denominator. There's little artistry involved. Classical music does not have a very high bar to clear, and it does so with ease."

-----

But then I thought -- I am comparing the best of classical music (the stuff people think of when they think "classial music") to average modern music. To be fair I would need to compare the best classical to the best pop.

Hmm...

According to this site the best three pop songs of all time are:

"Imagine" by John Lennon

"Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen

and "(I can't get no) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones.

According to this, the three best classical songs are:

"Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (Ode To Joy)" by Ludwig van Beethoven

"Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy

and "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin

Hmm, ok, so this is getting complicated. For one thing, those "pop" songs are not what I think of when I think "pop" -- I would call those rock songs. But I guess it would be hard to draw a line between the two genres. So let's just let "pop" mean a more modern style and "classical" mean an older style.

And now I think I have to give the edge to pop music. None of those classical songs had nearly the effect that "Born to Run" had on me in my younger days. "Imagine" would also beat the classical works by the same metric. But then, my perception is skewed by a maelstrom of social and cultural forces.

I do think a proper answer could be arrived at here, but it would take a wise and experienced critic to do so. Acknowledging my limited ability of discernment, I would guess that modern music is better. I think if classical music were really so great, then that's what I would listen to. But I don't, and that seems to hint that it ain't all that.

Your analogy is obviously bogus. Immigrants aren't going to move into anybody's house. Increased immigration would probably have little to no impact on your life. It's hilariously idiotic that you need me to explain that to you.

Get your facts straight. He doesn't favor extending the tax cuts for the rich. He favors extending them for the bottom 98%. He still doesn't like the full cuts, but he's going along with them because unlike republicans he cares more about the good of the country than forwarding his political interests.

But apparently that's not good enough for you asshats. You still hate him even when he's agreeing with you. Fucking ridiculous.

It's called trust you douche. He's a good guy.

Read the blog post if you want the full argument.

Bleh... I don't know. I'm going to trust the president's judgment on this one. He knows what he's doing.

Nate Silver argues the Dems didn't have a good bargaining position. link

I'm gonna go with Picard just cuz William Shatner is one of the douchiest douches to ever douche. I remember watching him give an interview on Conan O'brien -- and in the middle of everything he turns to the camera and says, "Priceline.com, priceline.com, priceline.com!" Seriously, who does that?

Economists generally agree the immigration is good. (link)

People just like to hate on outsiders.

No. It would be suicide for North Korea to stage an all out attack. They just want to push the south as far as they can without a war breaking out. They're like an annoying child throwing spitballs.

Vegan is not vegetarian. Your argument is mostly a strawman.

Barriers to entry is not illegal. In fact, it's just about the most legal thing.

That depends on the strength of the barrier. There's no black and white here. As the barriers get larger, competition shrinks. Intelligent judges must draw a line and say, "At this point it's too hard for competitors to compete."

Barriers to entry is a description of laws enacted to cripple competition under the guise of supporting "fair play" on the market.

Barriers to entry can come from more than just laws. It seems dishonest of you to ignore other sources.

Using rationality as a basis to weigh subjective things does not make them objective, it is merely a tool for helping people make decisions.

Objectivity is not important. Universality is important. We can all agree that the satisfaction of our preferences is good.

All we can ever hope to do is convince the other party that our solution is more desirable than theirs.

I agree. Morally superior = more desireable. Of course, you have to take more than your own desires into account.

This has been my position for many years.

Creepy.

From my reading, it turns out that most slaughterhouses would seem to stun the animal before killing it. Therefore the problem is more about combating factory farming, which anyone would agree is unhealthy and bad for the animal.

Meh. I have doubts that a capitalist culture could ever treat animals properly. Maybe some kind of uber-regulatory scheme could make everything work fine, but I seriously doubt it. It seems better to avoid the uncertainty, keep it simple, and just avoid meat.

So you never need to sit, stand, walk, watch a display, listen to loud noise, breathe, get vaccinations and physicals, etc.?

I've never been badly beaten. I've never suffered from a horribly painful disease. I've never starved. These facts are a testament to mankind's progress in minimizing suffering. Extrapolate to the logical extreme and you end up with virtually no suffering at all.

I don't either, but if you are going to argue from morality then it must be noted that apparently vegetarian morality is just a stone in a larger landscape.

Well, ok, but that stone is what this debate is about.

States can enact barriers to entry thus crippling competition.

Yeah, but government power is wielded democratically, making the state much less likely to put up barriers to competition.

Firms cannot do this on their own, otherwise they would, instead of appealing to the state.

Pretty sure they can, and the reason they don't is because it's illegal.

If a monopoly enacts monopoly rates, it sends a signal to other possible firm owners that there is money to be made in the area of the market, thus new firms pop up and undersell the monopoly.

Not if the barriers to entry are insurmountable.

Same problem, different population size. ... Subjective things cannot be superiour to each other.

{Insert explanation of preference utilitarianism here.}

Are you really going to argue there's no such thing as right and wrong?

In any case, it is acknowledged that stunning an animal prior to slaughtering it is humane as it ends the animal's ability to feel pain.

Yes, yes. If we give animals good quality of life and kill them via lethal injection, then that wouldn't be a problem. It's naive to think it ever actually works that way. Power is inevitably abused. Animals can't unionize.

Pain is simply a tool used to prevent harmful actions.

This is true. I'm saying harmful actions are unnecessary.

And I really don't give a damn about PETA or Hitler in this context.

Ah. The debate title is rather unclear.

................

I don't understand the point of your links. They list several high-protein foods, many of which are vegetarian. My argument is not that meat is bad for you, but that a vegetarian diet can easily meet your nutritional needs. The reasons a vegetarian diet is superior go beyond health.

Yes, there can be some minor competition because perfect monopolies are pretty much only theoretical. But that doesn't change the fact that we end with a drastically inferior outcome then if we simply break up a monopoly to create a more competitive environment.

... that's what I'm saying. Standard oil resulted in a massive drop in price. =/

???? 1865-1870 was before Standard Oil existed.

Morality is subjective.

Ethics then.

The notion that there can be a superiour morality is the same as the notion that there can be a superiour colour, flavour, artwork, etc.

If you don't think there can be a superior flavor then I'll trade you that ice cream for this pile of dog shit.

The pain involved in the animal's death is effectively ruled out by certain practices like Kashrut and Halal.

I seriously doubt those practices result in zero pain. Regardless, the vast majority of meat that people consume is not obtained through such methods.

Morality based on rationality would argue that pain is an intrinsic, and necessary, part of life.

No it wouldn't. Pain is unnecessary. Even if it is necessary, I'm sure you will agree that it ought to be minimized. Do you not avoid it when you can?

It is morally wrong to use trivial matters such as diet as an excuse to justify smug or morally superiour behaviour.

'I am as immaculate as baby Jesus. I eat meat. This guy is telling me that eating meat is wrong. But if that were true it would imply that I'm not the glimmering avatar I imagine myself to be. That obviously cannot be the case, therefore this guy must be wrong. Perhaps even intentionally wrong. Insidious even! Why I ought to give this dirtball a piece of my mind.'

You tell 'em, buddy.

..................................................

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Dairy, eggs, and many, many other alternatives can all be obtained, consumed and digested as easily as meat.

(Insert obvious caveats here.)

Ok, so for first worlders, like everyone in this debate is.

Monopoly =/= sole firm of it's kind in the market.

Actually that's exactly what a monopoly is.

That would be a monopsony.

A monopoly is one seller, many buyers. A monopsony is one buyer, many sellers.

kerosene prices dropped from 58 to 26 cents from 1865 to 1870

How is this relevant? Standard Oil wasn't incorporated until 1870.

We evolved to eat and digest it for a reason.

The reason was that any kind of food was scarce. Now all the nutrients found in meat can easily be obtained from alternative sources, so that reason is no longer valid.

Yes, a vegetarian diet is the best choice -- assuming "best" accounts for moral superiority.

It is wrong to inflict pain on a sentient being.

2. They enact monopoly rates, driving away customers and propping up smaller firms which will under sell them. So, still no problem.

Your example posits an incumbent natural monopoly. How are smaller firms supposed to come into being in such a scenario?

And even if you can somehow conjure up this competitor, what's to keep the incumbent from temporarily selling at below market rates, just until the competitor goes out of business, as Standard Oil notoriously did?

Pretty sure if it were that easy, we would already be doing what you suggest.

What animated guide? Did you mean to include a link?

From what I've heard, the "currency wars" are not really that big of a deal.

It can be fun sometimes. It allows for an alternative means of expression.

but u have to know the right time and place lol

I think this is mostly a good argument, but I have some problems with it.

First, I'm not clear on what exactly you want to achieve. Do you want to turn Iran et al into western-like countries? I agree that this would be a good thing, but pursuing this goal strikes me as a huge overreach. Cultural imperialism is distasteful. And in any case, I don't think "laughing at them" is going to be at all effective in achieving this goal.

I think we should be focused on the much narrower problem of Islamic terrorism. Here it's not the entire religion we're targeting, but rather Al Queda and similar organizations. I think the US is already doing a decent job of pursuing this goal. Disrupting terrorism while supporting acceptable governments is the best course of action.

Getting Israel to stop being so belligerent would also help ease tensions.

Right, the twins could be considered good guys, but they were the exception. The majority of the kids eventually went along with Jack. Not all people are evil, just most.

And I never said desire as a whole was evil.

Not all desires are evil, but some clearly are. Eating Starburst is not evil, but killing people is. If you desire murder, then that is clearly an evil desire. If you act on that desire you are ignoring reason and committing an evil act.

It seems like you are making excuses for these children. Murder is wrong; it doesn't take a genius to realize that. The kids knew they were wrong, yet they did it anyway.

Desire over reason is evil if what you desire is evil.

Presenting yourself with flair. An attempt to signal coolness.

I guess it depends on the person -- and the dream.

In my experience the raisin in the sun thing is the most common. People just give up and settle for less.

If you have an extremely willful person, exploding is definitely a possibility. These people will get what they want or die trying. On one hand this is admirable. Fighting to change the world is hard and risky and thus takes courage and strength. Sometimes walls need to be busted down. On the other hand, fighting often carries a price. Innocents can be harmed and society's stability can be threatened.

So I guess people who have their dreams deferred have to make a pretty hard choice. Give up or fight. I'd say the other possibilities mentioned in the poem are intermediate states -- reflecting the turmoil one feels in making this choice.

Yes, by most metrics. Quality of life, the economy, government -- all of these things have improved drastically throughout human history.

following desire over reason is not evil.

No? Then what is evil? If someone does something bad, does that not mean they're following desire over reason?

Regardless of whether the evil men do is born of fear or impatience or whatever, the fact remains that they do it.

If man is not evil, then why does the public pay so much more attention to the one advocating desires than the one advocating reason? Why do the younger kids blindly follow Jack instead of blindly following Ralph? You mentioned the media, but the media is only giving people what they want. The media wouldn't succeed in promoting violence unless that's what the public wanted to see.

There was a time when I would've disagreed with the message of this book. But slowly I'm beginning to accept it. I find that as my opinion of humanity gets lower and lower the world starts making more and more sense.

This book shows just how important government is in keeping our darker impulses from tearing apart everything we care about.

Can't sell the milk if you're giving away the cow for free.

...or something like that.

Sigh... downvote.

...wait a second...

Hahaha. Well done, sir.

I'd say Libertarian. With a heavy dose of social darwinism.

But really, who cares? Labels are for groceries.

Haha, I agree. I remember one of my English teachers going on and on about whether Hamlet getting kidnapped by pirates was a desperate attempt to tie up an unraveling storyline. I mean really, who gives a shit?

It remains a fact, however, that it was the most popular theory among scientists before it was verified.

Ok, but aliens on Earth is not very popular among scientists.

All science should be cautious and sceptical.

Sure, but one ought to be especially vigilant when it comes to certain areas. One should be aware of their surroundings at all times, but doubly so when crossing a busy street.

You misunderstand. First of all, the possibility of distinguishing a vessel from a piece of interplanetary debris is slim...

Huh? Why are you talking about aliens in space? This debate is about aliens on Earth.

Consider that I have not stated the claims to be true. I have simply avoided making assumptions, as you would do if you truly wished to observe scientific protocol.

So you've staked out the bold position that you can't prove a negative. Such courage!

Do you think that aliens on Earth is likely? And if not then why are we arguing?

As aforesaid, the numbers would be rather low, but as I am certain you know, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding several incidents.

I know of no such controversy. My research in this area has consisted of reading the introduction to the UFO article on Wikipedia and concluding that there is no reasonable evidence here. Just of a bunch of sci-fi nerds who "Want to Believe".

Why would they have to abandon it? Faking results would be more efficient.

Ok, it still seems unlikely that they would manage to suppress the innate desire so often found among scientists to explain the world.

Likelihood is not an adequate basis upon which to draw a conclusion.

In the real-world just about all conclusions are probabilistic and based on likelihoods.

I see your Drake Equation and raise you a Fermi Paradox.

As I have said, aliens on Earth is possible, but there is insufficient evidence for accepting such a belief as true.

Show me this evidence of which you speak. Please cite credible sources.

It is logical to assume that you only researched them to validate your extant opinions, which would render the above point moot.

I had heard about the phenomenon before, though I couldn't remember the exact term for it. More generally, I knew that the human mind is not especially rational, so it should often not be trusted. I knew that aliens are notorius for bringing out the irrational aspects of the human mind. In short your assumption is largely wrong.

Even if it were true that I was only trying to "validate my extant opinions", the fact remains that anchoring is a real thing, and it is pretty clearly at work in this debate.

It remains the case, however, that you have entirely dismissed the theory, rather than remaining merely sceptical, as I do.

When one says, "Fairies don't exist", they really mean, "It is irrational to assume that fairies exist without sufficient evidence. The odds are overwhelmingly skewed toward their non-existence." The latter is a bit of a mouthful, so we go with the former.

I hold the same position toward the existence of aliens on Earth.

I have not read of this.

I said to Enlightened, "What incident are you referring to? Please cite a credible source.", and got no response.

lol

.......................................

Until the Doppler effect was fully understood, there was little or no evidence verifying the Big Bang theory. It was correct regardless.

Right, evidence allowed us to pluck the Big Bang theory from the vast sea of possible explanations and move it to the realm of legitimate theory. Until we had evidence there was no reason to accept it over possible alternatives.

Further, I don't think the Big Bang was an idea seductive enough to demand a cautiously skeptical approach.

Perhaps we have? How would we know?

Because the vast numbers of researchers who are interested in this sort of thing would be shouting their discoveries from the rooftops. Techniques would be discovered and then independently rediscovered.

Again, when you consider the very idea to be ludicrous, how much of a cover-up would be required to convince you that aliens were fictional?

I don't consider the idea ludicrous; what I consider ludicrous is the acceptance of a belief as true without adequate evidence.

Governments have the most wealth at their disposal. If any body could bribe somebody, it would be one of them.

So everyone who ever produces compelling evidence of aliens on Earth is near instantly silenced by various governments either through bribery, assassination, or some other mechanism? Even faster than scientists' ability to get word out over the internet? And no one has investigated these guys suddenly abandoning their life's work? Not likely. What seems vastly more likely is that the reason we have no conclusive evidence is that there's nothing there.

You have mistaken contempt for bitterness.

I suspect it is actually you who has mistaken bitterness for contempt. But whatever.

It posits that you too are necessarily suffering from several of these biases, diminishing the value of anything you say here.

Well if you know about them you can take counter-measures which make you a lot less likely to become ensnared.

For example, once you know about the phenomenon of anchoring you could restrain your impulse to extrapolate a global conspiracy from a few dubious eye-witness accounts.

It is fairly easy to hide something when every contrary testimony is regarded as delusional.

You could use the same reasoning to argue for the existence of any popular imagining.

And I'm still waiting for somebody to provide me with a link to this contrary testimony I'm hearing so much about.

The IDE and RAD are platforms built upon these languages. They can never be as helpful as the language itself unless they write the language for you.

Who says C++ the language enhances productivity more than Visual Studio the tool? Just because a shirt can't exist without cotton does not mean raw cotton is more useful than a shirt.

We're talking about developing advanced algorithms, so the difference between .1 seconds and .0000001 seconds per iterative task in that algorithm is the difference between a solution taking one second and the same solution taking over a year to calculate.

Only if you need to run the task many times. Often .1 seconds is sufficient. My point was that many potentially useful programs don't require heavy hardware.

Not a very simple task. Computers lack our heuristics.

Whether it's simple or not, it's clearly doable, today. Software exists which can do it.

You didn't, but it is an example of a software solution that has eluded programmers for decades and which an AI could solve easily.

Eluded for decades? There's software that can do this too.

Which then puts him at the "lost behind group researchers and technological revolutions" end of the equation.

Again, group or no group the story is largely the same. Productivity improvements in a virtuous cycle until one small set of individuals hold a vastly disproportionate amount of power.

And if this guy has built tools which enable him to absorb and act on information more easily, would technological revolutions not merely serve to further differentiate his abilities?

Actually in your horse analogy it should be:

The rider is the common element in the horse and airplane, and all iterations between them. Therefore the rider is the common thread and the horse was the bottleneck, then the car, then the plane, and then the jet. The vehicle is always the bottleneck because it cannot operate without the rider's direction.

Yes, that's exactly the point I was making. Without removing the constraint of the rider we can still achieve improvements of several orders of magnitude.

Let's say software is currently at the point of early cars. We could expect to see improvements of several orders of magnitude in human productivity before we hit a limit requiring AI.

It is capable of it with debugging software, and you can bet that logs would exist.

I think you are pretty obviously wrong that there would be significant difficulty in conducting nefarious computations via the various cloud computing platforms. But I don't think you will budge on this point, so I'm going to call this an impassse.

The only big assumption is number one, since ultimately government has the weapons.

In a digital world the meaning of the word "weapon" is not so clear.

The easier the problem, the more likely that it has been solved or is on the verge of being solved by your competitors.

It is likely that the vast majority are going after the overwhelming array of low-hanging fruit rather than pursuing the grinding work necessary to vastly increase one's personal power.

And, again, programming tools are a multiplier so we should expect to see diverging power levels. The strongest of these competitors would become stronger over time until one or a few eventually dwarfed the capabilities of all others.

Modeling of a mouse's cortex required a supercomputer. A human brain has more neurons and synapses than our most advanced supercomputers, by a large margin.

AI wouldn't necessarily require modelling the human brain.

Hacking a neural network to use fewer nodes only causes each node to bear more weight, and at worst impedes the emergent property of AI.

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant by "hack". I meant "creative solution to a difficult problem." There was a time when searching all of one's hard drive could take hours, but with the hack of indexing everything beforehand it can be done in milliseconds. Who is to say some other such creative insight won't allow for easy development of AI?

Take a clone of yourself that is ten times as capable as you. That guy can do things that you fundamentally cannot. What you see as impassible roadblocks he might circumvent easily. The fact that you with your limited knowledge think that something can't be done does not necessarily make it so.

To extend a metaphor, while Emperor-sama is inventing a jackhammer, the government researchers have finished their task and are moving to version point two.

I think you put far too much stock in the capabilities of government researchers. By the time this guy finishes his jackhammer the government researchers will only be halfway through the funding requisition process for a project of dubious worth.

I don't have any personal experience with the listed drugs (except marijuana), but I've heard good things.

The great advocate of science has yet again made a statement without providing anything to back it up. Amazing.

Your bitterness is creating heat waves in front of my monitor which are obscuring my view. Kindly take it down a notch.

And I don't think calling people delusional is a statement of sufficient controversy as to require a citation. But if you really want one, I'll repost this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

What if they wanted to keep it secret? What if it was a matter of "National Security"?

I believe I addressed this point in an argument below. But I don't think government in general is very competent. Believing them to be capable of concealing an event as phenomenal as Aliens on Earth strikes me as a pretty big reach.

I think you mean astronomers and the like.

Obviously.

They are presently the primary tool.

Think of IDEs and all of their constituent mini-tools. Think of text editors, mindmappers, lint like programs, project management software. These are all ways of making development faster which don't involve high level languages. I don't see how can say HLLs are "the primary tool".

You aren't going to design advanced software that can design iterative generations, when it's slow as sludge because of poor code.

Being slow as sludge tends to have more to do with high level architecture than anything else. Obviously if a program run too slowly to be useful it's not worth much, but the thing is most programs don't need to be all that efficient. It doesn't matter if an operation takes .1 seconds or .0000001 seconds if my mind can only operate in 1 second intervals. Surely you see my point here?

Most of the problems you mention require or are critically benefited from a true AI. Mapping the mind, following the eye, recognising speech, and so on.

I think you misunderstood what I meant by mind mapping software.

Eye tracking doesn't require AI, it's just a matter of hooking up a webcam, detecting pixels, dealing with noise and then turning that into OS level actions.

I don't know where I suggested "recognizing speech", but turning speech into text can be accomplished without AI.

An intelligent HLL is one that can choose the best instruction code for tasks which are programmed using a language and syntax which doesn't impede the human thought process.

Well that could include a wide range of software of varying levels of sophistication. Some versions of this idea are definitely within reach today.

I am saying that your proposition is a rational choice where the best decision is the one with the least risk versus highest productivity.

The optimal decision for a self-interested individual wouldn't necessarily be the one which results in highest productivity, but the one which results in the greatest relative power increase. He doesn't just want to be productive, he wants productivity gains which can then be used to forward his own ends. Government researchers would only get a tiny slice of the fruits of their labor. A single individual would get the whole pie. I think this would be worth a considerable amount of risk.

Up and until you can automate the problem-solving process used to program code in the first place, you're looking at the same problem repeated with ever more complicated software tools.

Yes, but the problem-solving process gets faster and easier as time goes by due to the increasing effectiveness of the tools. Easy tasks become trivial. Hard tasks become easy. Seemingly impossible tasks become feasible.

The bottleneck isn't the human mind, for it can always learn and develop solutions, but the computer's inability to solve its own problems. We must always do its thinking.

That's like saying the bottleneck to travel isn't the horse because a horse can always eventually get you from point A to point B. The central point is that airplanes get us there faster and easier.

Yes lack of strong AI is a greater bottleneck than the human mind, but augmenting the human decision making progress is a much easier problem to solve. Let's say we can develop tools that make programmers 100x more effective. Maybe then AI would be feasible.

If you're talking about ruling the world that requires state of the art software to solve scientific problems faster than a team of government researchers.

There are large regions along the cutting edge of software development which are not hardware bound. Solve these and you end up with an unknown set of capabilities which you could then potentially use to come up with any number of creative solutions to the various problems you've mentioned.

You cannot encrypt the code which the processor runs.

So now Amazon is monitoring every single instruction that passes through its CPUs?

You would still be impeded by the hardware because it cannot think for itself. Until it can, you're just building steps up to realising AI.

Ok, so those steps lead to AI. Eventually this guy reaches the point where he develops a strong AI for himself. AI would be just another step in this process.

AI, researcher software, protein folding, quantum decryption, these are all advanced problems necessary for beating a government, and they all require superior hardware.

You're making some big assumptions here.

1) Solving those problems is necessary to beat the government.

2) Those problems necessarily require superior hardware.

3) One person could not acquire the necessary hardware.

#1 Solving easier problems could potentially be sufficient.

#2a. AI doesn't necessarily require superior hardware. Nobody knows what the final answer here is going to look like. Same with researcher software.

#2b. Creative hacks are discovered every day which obviate the need for superior hardware. Why should a moderately enhanced human not be able to achieve such hacks?

#3. As I have said cloud-computing is one means of accessing this. Getting rich and purchasing it is another. Building it himself is another.

Also, there are probably many, many ways of circumventing all of these problems which I haven't thought of.

This guy would be able to solve these problems faster than the government researchers because while the government guys are chipping away at these problems with their hammer and chisel, Mr. God-Emperor is off inventing a jackhammer.

So, for some strange reason, large groups of people spontaneously share a hallucination simultaneously?

It's possible. What incident are you referring to? Please cite a credible source.

Eye-witness testimony is used everyday to send criminals to jail for life, but for some reason it is worthless as evidence of anything paranormal.

Heh, interesting point. But the difference is "I saw Joe kill Bob" is not such an extraordinary claim compared to "I was probed by aliens." And as they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Scientists are never going to stake their profession on supporting anything that can't be put under a microscope.

There are many fields of science which are purely theoretical.

Anyways, why would one assume that humans COULD capture an alien craft?

You wouldn't necessarily need to capture one. Photos and videos could be used to build a case. Eye witness accounts could be considered, taking human fallibility into account. I'm sure one could come up with any number of scientifically sound means of detecting alien spacecraft.

A discovery like that would obviously be kept top secret.

I'm not sure that's true. Seems like something as phenomenal as an alien spacecraft would be very hard to keep under wraps.

I think the most logical assumption is that at least one of the millions of reports is true.

Eye-witnesses just aren't reliable sources of evidence. I mean, just take a look at this list of known cognitive biases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

If a scientist could provide compelling evidence of such a thing he would become rich and famous. The incentives are there. The aliens aren't.

Millions of people have reported UFO sightings and alien abductions. Are they all just lying or mentally deranged?

Pretty much.

Look, there are a whole lot of scientists out there who are keenly interested in understanding the world around us (and beyond). If there were any credible evidence of extraterrestrials they would be going apeshit.

And before somebody posts some commentary from a loony with a PhD, that's just not good enough. You can find isolated crazies who will agree with anything. You would need to demonstrate significant agreement among a significant percentage of scientists.

High level language is limited.

Yes, but they are only one of a wide variety of tools one can use to speed up development.

Compilers may be advanced so that they are smarter at optimising code

I'm not talking about building compilers. Programs generally run fast enough as is. I'm talking about building tools to augment human mental processes.

The big issues for making software development easier is intelligence in the HLL, and the consequent smart algorithms chosen.

Not sure what you're saying here. Intelligence in the language? What does that mean? Are you talking about AI turning English into machine code? Yes, I agree that will be next to impossible any time soon, both for individuals and huge groups. My argument is that there are better ways of speeding up development time that don't require solving hard AI.

It is a hardware issue, not a software issue. If it were as simple as a software issue, we would program an OS in Python or C#. An operating system is complicated because you need to access specific hardware functions which are poorly documented, and case by case.

I would say it's neither hardware or software that's the bottleneck in developing an OS. As you say, the problem comes from handling lots of obscure details. The issue is the human mind's slowness in diagnosing lots of niggling issues. I'm saying software can be written to facilitate the process of handling obscure details.

Group risks exposure versus individual is lost behind modern technology.

I don't understand this sentence. Are you agreeing with me? Either an individual or a small group could follow the path I outlined initially. Either would have different strengths and weaknesses.

You are not talking about simple programs like genetic algorithms and games.

I am talking about simple programs. Those would be a starting point. Would you not agree that simple programs could improve one's productivity significantly? Could one not use that increased productivity to develop slightly more complex programs which yield slightly greater increases to productivity?

You are proposing state of the art software, which is clearly limited by current hardware...

That is just wrong. There is a huge amount of useful software waiting to be written which does not push the limits of existing hardware. The reason those programs don't yet exist is not because hardware isn't good enough, but because humans haven't found time to build them.

Of course it's monitored. When you enter someone else's domain you are monitored by them using auditing software, which is designed to sort through all that data and make it comprehensible.

I think you're underestimating the difficulty of finding the needle in this particular haystack and overestimating Amazon's willingess to do so. Of course they collect aggregate data about usage -- but pinpointing individual user activities? I seriously doubt it. And as I said, agendas can be hidden.

Which in the real world is bottlenecked by the silicon you are running it upon. Explosive gains are impeded by slow hardware.

No, the human mind is a much greater bottleneck than hardware capabilities. Here are some things that could make me more productive: a better mindmapping program, a better find and replace program, more intuitive ways of collecting and organizing data, eye tracking software that doesn't suck, better content search of my own stuff, a less shitty version of this website. I could go on all day. Which of these things are limited by processor speed? None of them.

I wasn't trying to say those communities were diverse. Those example were meant to point out the communication problems that arise between people from different cultures.

Go to any college campus to see the voluntarily segregated communities I described.

I grew up about 10 miles north of Mexico. 98% of the population was Mexican-American. I had good friends, but I tended not to connect with most people just cuz of cultural differences. You'd be surprised how many idioms and little references don't translate at all. Take a rich white person and stick them in a black ghetto and they're probably only going to understand like 60% of what's going on.

I would say that diversity is good for individuals. It can give you new perspectives. You can better understand humanity by seeing similarities and differences between cultures.

But people are by nature averse to outsiders. They like to hang around people similar to themselves. Diversity just tends to lead to smaller, voluntarily segregated communities. Go to any diverse area and you'll see Asians mostly hanging out with Asians, blacks with blacks, etc.

That said, it's unfair to discriminate against people based on nothing more than their race. Community harmony is no excuse for bigotry.

You simply cannot expect a single person to program a modern operating system in an acceptable time frame.

Not with the current means of developing software. My argument is that if one developed tools to make software development easier and used those tools to develop better tools and so forth, the productivity gained from such a cycle would eventually enable them to do something as difficult as writing an OS on their own.

If you follow opensource software, you note that individuals are effective at starting projects but quickly lose ground after a year or two when the project grows in complexity...

1) The money issue plays a big role here. People get distracted by needing to earn a living. One could solve this either by A) Being rich, having passive income, etc. or B) living extremely cheaply (if you can avoid paying rent, you can live on practically nothing.)

2) That's why I suggested developing tools to make software development easier. These tools would likely be largely oriented toward making this exploding complexity more manageable.

Operating systems are too complicated and downright arcane to be programmed by individuals in the modern world... Computer games...

Again, you seem to be arguing from the current state of software development. I'm arguing that one could change the way software is developed and thus fundamentally redefine notions about what one person is capable of.

You keep missing the simple point here though, and that is if it is a group there will be a much greater chance of exposure.

It is unlikely but possible that one individual would be willing to ruthlessly sacrifice short-term benefits (making money, living a normal life) in exchange for greater long-term benefits (power gains achieved by improvements in productivity) over a long period. It is even more unlikely that this person would be able to find others to work alongside him. Further, as you say, this individual could reason that working with others would increase his chance of exposure. Thus he could decide to work on his own until he had enough power to oppose any group.

If you want to solve problems that are so well-beyond everyone else that you could force them into submission, then you will need to build your own semiconductors...

I don't believe that's necessarily true. The limits of software to improve one's capabilities are unknown. The possibility space of what one can achieve even on relatively low powered computers is huge and largely unexplored.

Also one would not necessarily need to make a jump overnight. One could work in secret until he had enough strength to carve out a sort of beachhead, and then work from there.

There is a reason that we don't have armies of genetically enhanced supermen fighting us, that is because protein folding is complicated and requires more than supercomputers at this point.

I would argue another reason is that computer's have only been around for ~50 years and people haven't quite grasped the extent of their power. If I can write software that finds, parses, connects, visualizes, and displays information then I can learn faster than others. I can learn about the limits of human intelligence and how to push them or circumvent them altogether. I can learn all about protein folding and state-of-the-art algorithms which define the speed at which such computations can be done. Perhaps I can find a way to improve them. Perhaps I can focus on ways of obtaining power which don't require supercomputers until I reach a point where they become accessible to me. Use your imagination.

Remember one could work in secret until he had amassed a degree of power others couldn't match? Cloud computing would expose this.

No it wouldn't. Do you think Amazon monitors each of the millions of transactions that passes through its servers? Agendas can be hidden.

Have you ever tried to write really efficient software?

I don't think efficiency is that important. The bottleneck in software development is not the speed at which a program runs or the amount of memory a program uses. The bottleneck is the mind of the programmer. This is why people are moving toward more powerful, dynamic languages like Python even if they are slower than C. This is why people use C instead of assembly. When I talk about developing software tools to develop software tools, I'm talking about developing tools which augment the limited capabilities of the human mind. It is here that we find the potential for explosive gains.

When it comes to programming, it is generally accepted that large groups make for slower development (see Mythical Man Month). As you add each person, their marginal contribution to the overall productivity of the group decreases. The sweet spot seems to be around three to seven people. My point here is that the difference between the effectiveness of an individual and the effectiveness of a group is not nearly as large as it may seem. One sufficiently skilled, sufficiently obsessed individual could beat a group. See Richard Stallman vs. Symbolics, for example. Furthermore, as I have mentioned, one could work in secret until he had amassed a degree of power others couldn't match.

And even if you replace the individual with a small group, the story is basically the same. An oligarchy instead of a dictatorship.

The other important factor is the cost of the technology itself. Computers and machines require special supplies and tools to manufacture.

A large amount of computing power can be obtained relatively cheaply. I'm typing this on a $300 netbook with 1 GB of RAM. Way more than enough to do all but the most complex computations. And one can use services such as Amazon's cloud computing to do heavy duty work amazingly cheaply. The bottleneck to human capabilities is not hardware, it's software -- by a huge margin.

I'm pretty sure you're joking... But still, if one has the power to acquire and manipulate knowledge sufficiently well, then one can learn to protect himself from bombs and such. My house was recently afflicted by ants. Massive amounts of ants. Yet their numbers did not amount to much after the strategic placement of a few of these.

Then you are defective. Paternal instinct should be stronger than that. The idea that a man would rather his own child die than ten others sickens me; you sicken me.

Suppose one of the ten children that was allowed to live as a result of my sacrifice was yours. Would I still sicken you?

Following base instinct leads to sub-optimal outcomes.

Besides, monetary value is not the measure of intrinsic value.

Actually, in an efficient market it's pretty close. This is because the amount you're willing to pay depends on what you're willing to give up. If water became scarce, you would be willing to pay more for it. If there is anything for which you would exchange the life of one of your children, then that would form the basis of a market price. (And if you think there is not, I must conclude that you suffer from a tragic lack of imagination.)

Diamonds are worthless in a drought.

No shit, Sherlock. That was my point. Price reflects marginal value. If water became scarce, its price would increase along with its marginal utility.

mankind's purpose is to perpetuate itself by means of reproduction

This is what I understand to be your argument:

1) All organisms reproduce, and would go extinct if they didn't.

2) Therefore their primary motive is to reproduce.

As I have said, this rule can't be universally applied because a greater motive can arise in intelligent beings. Individuals can reason that superior outcomes will result from forgoing reproduction. The exact circumstances behind this reasoning are not important, the key point is that it's possible.

You inferred that fulfilment of personal desires was more important. A comprehensive analysis shows that it is not.

Personal desires include the perpetuation of the species. Your point of view is a subset of mine.

Do you wish to talk about the individual or the species?

One cannot talk about the ocean without talking about so many drops of water. The two are inseparable.

if one man is unimportant, how can that unimportance be multiplied to be significant?

How is the answer to that not blindingly obvious? One man is important, just less important than many. 1 < 2. 1 is trivial compared to 1 million.

Your ignorance is not my fault.

The problem was not my ignorance but your failure to explain yourself clearly. I believe this failure stems from a larger, underlying failure of empathy.

Just when dealing with idiots.

Ah, but I'm no idiot. I'm merely someone who has committed the cardinal sin of offending your ego by suggesting you might be wrong about something.

It's called evidence.

No, it's called it's called running away. It's called avoiding the issue. Real-world details are not important in a thought experiment.

Not a long-term scenario, no.

Well I wasn't talking long-term. Let me clarify: "I'm sure you can imagine a scenario where one man forgoing reproduction could lead to a greater outcome for mankind as a whole."

You seem incapable of expressing things on a grand scale.

You seem incapable of offering anything beyond smug condescension.

but no healthy-minded human being could value anything above their children

This is wrong. To offer one counter-example, I could value ten children that were not my own over one that was.

When viewed from the perspective of mankind as a whole, children are the most important things we produce.

Humans can't live without water. Why then are diamonds more expensive? Because water is plentiful and diamonds are not. As long as you have an abundant source of water, any additional water carries little additional value. Same thing with children. (From the perspective of mankind as a whole.)

It is my interpretation. As it was I who used the word, my interpretation applies.

Fudging definitions to fit an argument is lame.

But not to >98% of life, which is the point.

Is it? My point was that 98% is not universal. I was pointing out that humans present a critical caveat to this question.

You must eat. You must sleep...

For now, anyway.

However, if the species were to be so foolish as to omit either, Mankind would vanish from the face of the Earth.

Obviously. Which is why I never suggested the species as a whole cease reproduction. I simply said it could make sense for individuals to do so in certain circumstances.

Your emphasis on individualism led me to believe that you cared for persons. It would seem that your focus is on people.

My focus is on maximizing utility. How we do that is a separate question.

You fail to understand that dismissing one man's sentiments as trivial is antithetical to both humanism and democracy.

One man's sentiments are trivial when weighed against the sentiments of many men. I don't see how you can deny this.

Mathematically, the value of (0)(1x10^9)=0, whereas the value you presumably want to achieve is (1)(6.8755x10^9)=6875500000.

This statement is just so ridiculous I don't even know where to begin. I mean, where does that zero come from? There's no zero in my equation. It seems your egocentrism has so thoroughly consumed you that you cannot muster the modicum of empathy needed to understand that any reader lacking telepathic abilities would be unable to make heads or tails of this pile of crap. (And yes I see you put the world population in there.)

Apologies if you cannot penetrate this, but I feel that self-proclaimed intellectuals should comprehend the relevance of the numbers.

Jesus Christ. Does the British school system require children to take lessons on how to be complete and utter twats? Or have you mastered the ability on your own?

China has a myopic policy in this regard (one child). Now, their population is greying and they suffer an undesirable ratio of (viable females:viable males).

You're poking holes in a specific instance rather than addressing the general issue. I'm sure you can imagine a scenario where reproduction would lead to a net harm.

One could work in secret. The vast majority of people probably haven't seriously considered the possibility of such a chain of events. And will not, until it's too late.

There is a non-zero possibility that somebody somewhere in the world has been sitting in a basement for the last ten years, making significant progress on this dark project.

Also, most people lack the skills necessary to carry out such a task. Computers act like an ability multiplier. That is, the utility of a piece of software tends to be a multiple of the ability of the programmer. Thus we would expect to see a widening divergence in individual capabilities as time progresses. The possibility of one becoming unstoppable is forever increasing.

I think the scenario I outlined in the debate description is all too plausible.

That phrase describes a zero-sum game.

But real life is not a zero-sum game. Humans are all interconnected. We can create wealth, trade it fairly, and all end up better off. Once you understand this you can see that one man's loss is another man's loss and one man's gain is another man's gain.

It is the most likely scenario.

I disagree. As I have said: People can value things above reproduction.

All arbitrary measurements of worth.

How is valuing their work any more arbitrary than valuing their offspring?

Do you honestly believe that these men valued their works over their children?

It's certainly possible they did. But why does that matter? When viewed from the perspective of mankind as a whole the value of their works is certainly greater than the value of their children.

Then they are not actually addicted. The true addicts are those who die during withdrawal.

We both know that's not the standard interpretation of the word. You sure do like splitting hairs.

Unless they are intrinsic to all living things, they are irrelevant.

Why? My own motives are quite relevant to me.

One must be considered an organism before an individual.

Says who? As an intelligent being I can master my lower functions.

No consolation when you realise that your life of dissipation has precluded the replication of the genes responsible for your much-vaunted intelligence.

"Consolation." Again you reveal a very self-centered perspective. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Why should I worry about such a trivial thing as one man's consolation?

Now, not always. Your usefulness is effectively 0 when your retire; your employer or government would rather you produce a new taxpayer or worker first.

I was referring to a hypothetical situation where reproduction would produce undesireable results. Say I lived in a grossly overpopulated region for instance. My point was that humans can rationally decide not to reproduce.

Sure they do. They voted for Obama in '08. They pretty much decide elections in the US.

This question is basically an iq test. You either understand the importance of evidence or you don't.

Scientific Method

They'll regret it.

You don't know that.

Not really. When you are dust, your children are your greatest remaining work.

Einstein. Shakespeare. Mozart.

True addiction is a dependence upon something, the absence of which will very likely destroy you.

1) Living is a choice. People can (and do) say no.

2) Coming back on topic, lack of sex (or reproduction) does not destroy you.

Simple geography...The fact remains that they will most likely have children.

None of that explains sub-replacement fertility. There are clearly people choosing not to have children.

Every living being has reproductive instincts, which equates to having a universal motive.

Ok, fine. But there can also be greater motives. There is no motive which is universally held as greatest at the individual level.

No volume of intelligence can override the chemical reactions which create reproductive instinct; whether desired or not it is there.

The reproductive instinct can be overridden, just like any instinct can be overridden.

1) I can use my intelligence to conclude that satisfaction of human preferences (utility) is paramount.

2) I could further reason that reproducing would result in a net loss in overall utility.

3) Therefore I could conclude that I ought to repress my reproductive instinct.

The Simpsons has more soul.

.......................................

I do not believe it possible for childless people not to regret their infertility

I've known a few people who expressed a desire to avoid ever having children. And they all seemed content with that decision. There are other things worth living for.

You do not believe in addiction?

As I said, I believe it harder to say no in some circumstances than others. Addiction is an extreme example of this. But there is always a choice. One needs to take the needle and stick it in their arm. And that is something one could choose not to do.

Our desire to reproduce hasn't diminished.

Then why do birth rates decline as income increases? Many countries have sub-replacement fertility.

The primary motive of life is something which is necessarily intrinsic to all living things.

Well then there is no single universal motive.

You are focusing on humans for some reason.

Because intelligence is the wrench in the gears.

You act as though every person is so introspective as to question their purpose as though that was it, but most go through their lives not caring; or caring very briefly.

It doesn't take a Buddhist monk to wonder, "Why am I here?" But even if some people don't think about it, others do, and that is enough to deny a universal motive.

Dude, you're totally cockblocking my attempt to appeal to moderate conservatives. I'm gonna downvote you, not because you're wrong, but because I don't think this argument should be on top.

Because people tend to perceive fertile women as one of the most valuable things on Earth. Revealing oneself to be outside of that range results in a painful loss of status.

the most powerful urge that every human being feels is the urge to mate

Overgeneralization. This is certainly not true for people outside the sexually productive age range. There is also such a thing as asexuality.

From personal experience, I can tell you that I'm nowhere near as horny now as I was when I was 17.

this urge overpowers our better judgement

It can certainly bias us; but I maintain that no human is ever so tempted by anything that they can't say, "No" -- even if it takes more effort in some circumstances than in others.

It is a rather strange thing to say that we alone have evolved a purpose exclusively because of that same evolution. In effect, you are suggesting that we evolved to determine the nature and purpose of our evolution.

It is strange, and kind of funny, but it's true. To clarify, I'm saying intelligence originally evolved as just another means of perpetuating one's genes -- and quite an effective one at that -- but it carried with it the "unintended" side effect of allowing us to question our own motives, actions, purpose, etc.

It would be kind of like a parent sending their child to a university so that they may be better equipped to serve God, only to have the subsequent enlightenment turn the child into an atheist.

The purpose of life cannot vary from person to person, as it is not born of our personalities.

Well, I don't really like the term "purpose" here, because the word implies some action was taken in order to forward some desire held by an intelligent being. So by this definition, there is of course no purpose to life. It is better to say "primary motive" or something like that. And motives are clearly dependent on personalities.

I suppose that was the original purpose. Evolution has created extremely effective reproduction machines.

But I think that the arrival of intelligence has thrown a wrench into the gears, so to speak.

Self awareness and reason allow us to examine the human condition and consider what, if anything, we should be striving for.

And that examination, I would say, leads one to conclude that a better purpose can be found in satisfying the preferences of intelligent beings.

To put it in an overly simple way: The purpose of life is to maximize happiness.

Look up the statutory rape laws for your state:

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2003/olrdata/jud/rpt/2003-r-0376.htm

Here in Texas you would be ok because of the three-year rule (if you're less than three years older than your partner its ok).

Top 1% of earners in America pay 40% of the federal tax bill,top 10% pay 80%.

Which reflects the portion of the wealth they control.

http://tinyurl.com/ybmqufy

Have you ever had a family member murdered or raped?

Murdered, no. Raped, yes.

If the will of the people can ever [b]e overruled then it is not a true democracy. If that power belongs to few, we have a dictatorship.

/facepalm. No, that's clearly wrong. If we have a situation where the will of the people can be overruled in certain situations but not in others we clearly do not have a dictatorship. We have a situation where power is shared. The US government may not be a pure democracy, but it's still fair to call it a democracy.

You can't revamp a capitalist economy by breaking its most fundamental law.

Blind idealism. I'll go with the consensus of qualified economists, thank you very much.

a Caesar is a benevolent dictator

And by what means do we verify that a dictator is benevolent? How do we depose him if he is not?

Obviously you cannot apply what I have already defined as an inferior mean to the select few I would consider worthy candidates.

So you really think you are capable of putting aside your innate desire to increase your power relative to others. While at the same time arguing for a position that would give you a great amount of power relative to others. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and not call you a liar, but it seems quite clear that you are suffering from massive cognitive dissonance.

For such a person, the possibility of such a situation arising is negligible.

Bullshit. This is argument by hand-waving. If your power were to be threatened by another of comparable merit, your interests would rapidly diverge from those of the people. And that's just one example.

Honour consists of placing principles ahead of logical action.

Enough semantic bullshit. I'm letting this one go.

Not in a foxhole.

Glib to the point of meaningless.

My loyalty is divided between my family, my people and my queen; to the nation and country that raised me.

What a lovely statement of fact. How is that relevant?

No. [I don't want to be dictator of the world.]

Then what? What position are you arguing for?

Because I will be stronger tomorrow.

Haha, there's the clever sounding bullshit excuse I was expecting. Whatever, this tangent is also not worth pursuing.

Misinformation would be more accurate.

I do not believe there is a conspiracy to misinform the public.

Tory/Labour

Tory/Labour is hardly "wildly oscillating". More like a bit to the left vs. a bit to the right. If anything you've provided evidence for the stability of political thought.

Which are most often ignored or implemented half-heartedly.

That's too strong of a claim to be making without evidence. I would guess the majority of the US financial regulatory and healthcare bills came from think-tanks.

Because their power is not tied to the state's well-being.

An autocrat's relative power is not necessarily tied to the state's well being.

Rather the length of their reign is

I think this is a legitimate criticism. Longer term limits might help here. Short-sighted legislation is a danger that should be mitigated as much as possible, but eliminating it completely would be difficult. However, this not a sufficient reason to jump from here to autocracy.

resulting in an endless cycle of boom/crash/boom/crash

boom/crash? The business cycle would exist in any capitalist system, regardless of the form of government.

Even more so. Trusting politicians is the first step on the road to ruin.

Polticians are not at the apex of the hierarchy. The wise are.

He's a liar and a fraud.

Evidence? I happen to think he's a wonderful human being.

Of course not

So there you go, the Iraq War was not "always going to happen".

he's an idiot of staggering proportions

Then how did he invent the internet?

Presumably because I am a dictator. Duh.

Heh, it seems you've forgotten the topic of discussion here. This branch is about whether you as a private citizen ought to be able to disregard the law and murder a rapist. You are not the dictator in this scenario.

Comprehend that the dictatorship is [not] permanent.

Well why the fuck didn't you say that? That changes the nature of the debate considerably. Oh, I know why. It's because you've adjusted your position on the fly after realizing your initial platform was absurd and are now attempting some slight-of-hand to cover the fact that you may not be the infallible genius you imagine yourself to be.

In America, color is a valid spelling

Well it is more efficient. You should adopt it. Cut down on CO2 emissions. Then you wouldn't have Al Gore flogging you toward frenzied schemes for world domination.

Your rebukes are shallow and lacking in imagination. A pun would have sufficed.

Puns are for douchebags.

I think that people in that state are the only ones who can assess the extent of the damage done.

I am sure this is not the case. Nearly always one perceives pain inflicted on themselves to be greater than an equal amount of pain visited upon another.

What about temporary insanity? Do you think that doesn't exist?

You failed to convince me that this balance is ever achieved.

Of course a perfect balance is never going to be achieved. You keep thinking in black and white terms: we either have an autocrat or mob-rule. The recent financial bailouts provide one instance of the people's will being overruled for the greater good.

You seem to misunderstand who Caesar was and what one is.

This is the part where you're supposed to inform me of the facts you think I'm missing.

Presumably because he is intelligent enough to realise that a contented, affluent people can only increase his own power.

Absolute power, maybe. Humans tend to care more about relative power.

As I have said, it is in his own interest to serve their best interests.

And what if it's not? What if a situation comes along where their interests diverge?

This is why you struggle with the concept of honour.

I know very well what honor means. The problem here is that you have arbitrarily selected an overly narrow definition of the word.

You cannot comprehend why a man would die for an idea.

1) I can understand dying for an idea. I don't know where you got the idea that I didn't. But the thing is: Death is lighter than a feather; duty heavier than a mountain.

2) You seem to have an overly narrow definition of self-interest. You're genes are present in your countrymen. Perhaps this provides us with the real explanation for your loyalty?

Because I am a compassionate capitalist...

Hmmm, I don't buy it. You want to be dictator of the world, right? Would it not be better to appoint yourself ASAP? Why wait till tomorrow when you can do it today? You could certainly get there faster by breaking a few laws.

Of course not, else majority favour would not swing so often.

One would expect public opinion to evolve over time as new information becomes available. Show me evidence of wildly oscillating views.

See, they don't understand half of these policies, as political parties masquerade their agendas as legitimate plans of action.

Their agendas are legitimate plans of action. Serious scholars in think-tanks study the potential legislative landscape and make recommendations. Politicians reconcile these recommendations with the political realties. Comprimises are made. It may not be pretty, but stuff gets done reasonably well.

When they do something right, it is to secure their own dominance, whereafter they may for some years do as they please.

How can you apply this criticism to the heads of political parties while simultaneously refusing to accept it for yourself?

More literally, they have been told by those they favour that such is the case, therefore such must be done.

This is true, but I do not see it as a bad thing. Political parties generally operate in a roughly meritocratic hierarchy. You end up with a network of trust. One could say that I take my marching orders from Obama to an extent -- not because I am a duped fanatic, but because I know he shares my values, that he is a man of upstanding character and intelligence, that he is someone I can trust. I give disproportionate weight to his positions in evaluating my political worldview. Similarly, when I discuss politics with friends, they build their political views off of my words, because they trust me. This is how democracy works.

It happened and was always going to happen, so yes.

Bush beat Gore by less than 600 votes. Gore would not have invaded Iraq.

Obviously I would have the laws changed.

Why can you change the laws but not someone else?

If I had ultimate power, what would be the point in being corrupt? What is their to gain?

Ok, not literally unlimited power. In reality power is always threatened by those who would seek it for themselves. You would likely employ unethical tactics in order to retain your power, rationalizing that you were doing it for the greater good.

P.S. Dialog is a valid spelling. And you fucked up your correction of hypocritical, so suck it.

Sir, please explain to me how letting people keep THEIR OWN MONEY is giving them anything??????

Wow, six question marks; you must really want an answer.

Yes, he's spinning a bit, but the fact remains that we have two wars and a number of social programs that need to be paid for and the burden for this payment should be distributed through a progressive tax system. Allowing the rich to avoid paying their fair share is tantamount to giving them handouts.

Regardless, that is largely a semantic issue. The core question here is, "Should the rich be paying higher taxes?" And the answer to that is a resounding yes.

What about TARP and the stimulus?

Things would have been worse without them. We could have had a second Great Depression. Most economists agree that the stimulus should've been larger. China's huge stimulus is the reason their economy is doing better than ours right now.

He lives.

Which?

The one your question was a response to, of course: "Do you think it's fair to say that people in an emotionally distressed state have an inhibited ability to make rational decisions?"

The idiot masses are the ones who rule.

There is a balance to be struck between majority rule and executive power. Haven't we been over this?

That is an outright lie.

I don't believe it is. Perhaps you're struggling with the word "generally"?

Otherwise he would not be Caesar.

Your answers are glib to the point of meaninglessness. Why open your mouth if you're not going to advance the dialog?

Anyway, obviously what I was asking was, "What makes you think an autocrat would serve the people's best interests?" Do you think there exists a being so angelic as to forgo the self-interest endemic to all living things? Do you think you are such a being? Not a chance. Man is a self-perpetuation machine first, and a rational being only to the extent that serves the former. Rationalization and self-deception are vices even the wisest cannot escape. We need systems which account and compensate for our common weaknesses.

Thus far I have never had cause to break the law, but if I had a reason, I would do so without pause.

You have never refrained from an activity because if was illegal? Now I think you are simply lying to yourself. Arrogance can make honest introspection difficult.

Look: why don't you rob a convenience store? Tell them you are appropriating their money in order to fund the New British Empire, of which you are the sole authority. It's for their own good of course. I think you will not do this. I think you can come up with some clever sounding bullshit excuse for not doing it, but the real reason you don't do it is that you would be arrested.

I was speaking politically, of course.

People don't know what they want politically? Well that's wrong too. People want, and will vote for, policies which they think will benefit them, policies which forward their idealogical views, etc. People aren't going to vote for someone who promises a fork in the eye for everyone, I don't care how dazzling their smile. I'm afraid you're going to have to elaborate if you really think this isn't true.

This is because those elected are often as impressionable and stupid as those who elected them.

I don't think you're really saying anything here, other than declaring people other than yourself stupid. How does stupidity in elected officials lead to contentious politics? Do you think the debate about, say, whether to invade Iraq was worthless? That it was just a mob of idiots without any reasonable arguments?

That is like saying that varying the magnitude of punishments undermines the authority of laws that do not carry high penalties.

What? How are the two anything alike? You breaking laws while expecting others to obey them is hypocrital. Having a punishment fit the crime is not. I really don't see any connection here.

Honour does not consist of doing the logical thing.

There is a logical component to it.

Then presumably I can use whatever means are available to do so.

Yes, in theory. But what I'm saying is, in reality you would fail to rule justly if you had unlimited power because you are human and humans are flawed. Unchecked power is inevitably abused.

Muslim population 'rising 10 times faster than rest of society'...They're breeding like roaches and take their marching orders from a book which instructs them to murder anybody who tries to escape.

European birthrates are among the lowest in the world. It would not take much for a people to appear to be "breeding like roaches" by comparison. (That kind of dehumanization is very dangerous, btw). Also, the Muslim birthrate is dropping faster than any other: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/ images/spengler-pop-muslim.gif

As I have said elsewhere, religions are not direct reflections of their respective holy books. They are heavily interpreted to fit the circumstances of society and culture. If that weren't true Christians would be doing a lot of seriously fucked up shit on a daily basis. Surely no more than a small minority of Muslim fundamentalists would seriously consider murdering someone who left the religion.

I don't think they're going to adhere to your imaginary 20% cap

That cap doesn't come from me, but from scholars who study this sort of thing professionally.

have managed to get their criminal acts sanctioned in the UK with an ever expanding number of Sharia courts

I'm not 100% clear on the issue, but my understanding is that Sharia courts do not hold real authority beyond the Muslim community. Their judgements can be overruled by the real court system. Therefore, no criminal acts have been officially sanctioned.

Yet none of this concerns you.

It concerns me; I'm just leery of the lynch mob attitude you seem to be advocating.

I think Goolsbee totally nails it in the video below. The huge tax cuts for the rich are too expensive and would not be very effective at boosting the economy. If this guy had Romer's job from the start I bet Obama's approval numbers would be considerably higher right now.

Yes, fear is a good answer.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

- FDR

You ignored a couple of key points:

1) The 20% figure is a high bar which probably won't be hit.

2) 20% is still a pretty small number.

Accepted. :)

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Medicare. Social Security. ....................................................

Not with the current state of technology. The biggest problem right now is energy scarcity. But some day, yes.

Society is not against don't ask don't tell

"By a 57 percent to 36 percent margin, Americans say openly gay service members should be allowed to serve in the United States military"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6194325-503544.html

"A full 78 percent of respondents said that "people who are openly gay or homosexual" should be able to serve in the armed forces."

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/99689-poll-78-percent-favor-repealing-dont-ask-dont-tell

You could ask these radicals what would make them happy,the answer they give you today will piss them off in a year or two.

I know, right? First the blacks, then the women, then the gays. It's like they want fucking everybody to be treated fairly.

"Esther Pan predicts that, by 2050, one in five Europeans are likely to be Muslim...Other analysts are skeptical about the given forecast and the accuracy of the claimed Muslim population growth, since sharp decrease in Muslim fertility rates and the limiting of immigrants coming in to Europe, which will lead to Muslim population increasing slowly in the coming years to eventually stagnation and decline."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Europe#Projections

20% is still a pretty small minority. And I would think Muslim immigrants would adopt first world values as their standard of living improves.

Ever heard of xenophobia?

Even if you think the Muslim world is interested in "dragging us back to the stone age", they don't have anywhere near the power to do so.