4 ms·

Have I? "does not necessarily" -> "can have an opinion [...] depends on one's values" This was in response to your original statement: "it makes no sense to s

by crdb 11y ago

Have I? "does not necessarily" -> "can have an opinion [...] depends on one's values" This was in response to your original statement: "it makes no sense to say that 2015 music is necessarily better than 18th century music". I am stating that the superiority of one type of music, period or composer over the other is subjective, that is, that the value judgement changes depending on the person. Therefore, it does make sense to say that one is better than another, even if this value judgement varies between persons - you need to frame the argument. This was a sideline prompted by the idea that technological progress is objective (including in music); that is, one cannot argue rationally against the idea that knowing nuclear engineering is an improvement over not knowing nuclear engineering, regardless of its usage, that ignorance is never desirable. Science is the discovery of facts about nature through reason, even if the process itself is filled with uncertainty and "progress" between dogma (the earth is flat, then round, the centre of the world, then not...). Science can approach objectivity, which the arts cannot (even that judgment is subjective). We appear to disagree here as you do not separate the knowledge from its intended use ("Is the progress bring made in the name of humanity or in the name of technology?") and therefore create cases of "desirable ignorance". I consider that this brings unwarranted subjectivity to the argument as "humanity" needs to be defined (Imperial Japan would disagree that their defeat and restructuring in 1945 was done in the name of humanity, which much of South East Asia at the time considered a good thing; in the Japanese narrative, a global or much larger Empire of Japan would be a net positive by bringing Japanese civilisation to the barbarians). As far as I am concerned, the misuse of technology is a squarely political and/or philosophical problem separate from science and the blame goes to the users, not the scientists. Further, intention does not guarantee outcome: nuclear weapons have basically averted any new global conflict after WWII via MAD, but they were not designed with this purpose in mind. Apologies if I misunderstand your position.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
A few points... 1. "This was in response to your original statement..." coldtea != ZenoArrow. No problem though, I'm sure it's just an honest mistake. 2. "Therefore, it does make sense to say that one is better than another" Let's split what is meant by 'better'. In terms of science and technology, you can have something which is measurably better. With personal preferences, the argument is that something is better if someone likes it better. I'd argue that this latter use of better holds little weight. Words have meaning when they act to convey a message, saying something is better when it's just something you prefer carries a weak message as it doesn't align with the 'measurably better' meaning that's commonly understood. Let's not mix the terminology of the subjective and the objective, the results are often a drag. 3. I disagree with your points about nuclear weapons. For one, yes I believe you can argue that ignorance is sometimes preferable. For example, I am ignorant of what it would truly feel like to kill someone, but am glad that such knowledge has eluded me. What little I know is enough to stop actively seeking to find out. Rejecting ignorance completely means knowledge is always seen as a good, regardless of how or why it is obtained. I would argue that intention and purpose are very important. The intention to discover new ways to kill people is part of what certain science and engineering fields aid, regardless of whether these groups are deluded enough to believe that knowledge is always assured of its purity, and therefore feel no guilt. 4. Nuclear weapons have not stopped war, the actors involved in these wars either lack the resources to operate on a multinational scale or choose to fight war without declaring it. Consider how many puppet governments the US and its allies have worked on implementing over the last 60 years, are these not acts of war?
- crdb 11y ago
  Apologies indeed - the great thing about HN is that users take second seat to the content! But sometimes it backfires. On 2. - let's make it simpler then. The OP's (coldtea) premise is that it is not possible to say that one is better than the other ("it makes no sense to say"). The premise is incorrect because in my case, I can make the value judgment that one is better than the other, and further, it is probably safe to assume that most people also have their own ranking. In aggregate, people do make value judgments and do, therefore, make sense of "better". I agree that it can get a little lengthy discussing subjective value, and not armed with years of philosophy studies, I'm not very good at it either. On 4. - whilst several world powers such as the US, the USSR, France and Portugal have indeed fought proxy and covert wars to further the interests of a subset of their citizen, there has been no conflict of the scale and geography of World War II since World War II. Vietnam was localized in Vietnam, although it impacted US culture, precisely because Washington was afraid of starting a nuclear war. The only instances of WWII-level losses of lives were due to genocide, often from civil war. As an extreme example of the power of MAD fear, the Yom Kippur War was ended by US intervention (or at least the threat thereof) saving the Israelis at the last minute after Golda Meir made the bet that arming the nuclear weapons would be detected by the CIA and result in exactly such intervention. On 3., scientific knowledge available to the community is a very different thing to personal discovery of such knowledge. You do not need to know electronics, physics or applied mathematics to use a computer, and you do not need to know how to kill someone because there are people who specialize in this and keep the peace. But there is a difference in the type of knowledge that is the discovery and popularization of random forests, and knowing the feeling of taking someone's life. Getting better at killing CAN have positive effects. The refined Blitzkrieg with modern equipment waged by the US in the first Gulf War, the product of decades of research on killing and invading, resulted in a very short war with almost no casualties on the offensive side (292 - all figures from Wikipedia), and relatively few on the defending side (20-35,000) and civilians (5,000) compared to what a more even war would have cost (for example, the Iran-Iraq war cost around 100,000 lives for each of these groups). I see this as a net positive. Generally, financing an extreme imbalance of power results in global lasting relative peace, cf Pax Romana, Pax Britannia, Pax Americana.
  - 11y ago

by crdb 11y ago

ZenoArrow 11y ago

A few points... 1. "This was in response to your original statement..." coldtea != ZenoArrow. No problem though, I'm sure it's just an honest mistake. 2. "Therefore, it does make sense to say that one is better than another" Let's split what is meant by 'better'. In terms of science and technology, you can have something which is measurably better. With personal preferences, the argument is that something is better if someone likes it better. I'd argue that this latter use of better holds little weight. Words have meaning when they act to convey a message, saying something is better when it's just something you prefer carries a weak message as it doesn't align with the 'measurably better' meaning that's commonly understood. Let's not mix the terminology of the subjective and the objective, the results are often a drag. 3. I disagree with your points about nuclear weapons. For one, yes I believe you can argue that ignorance is sometimes preferable. For example, I am ignorant of what it would truly feel like to kill someone, but am glad that such knowledge has eluded me. What little I know is enough to stop actively seeking to find out. Rejecting ignorance completely means knowledge is always seen as a good, regardless of how or why it is obtained. I would argue that intention and purpose are very important. The intention to discover new ways to kill people is part of what certain science and engineering fields aid, regardless of whether these groups are deluded enough to believe that knowledge is always assured of its purity, and therefore feel no guilt. 4. Nuclear weapons have not stopped war, the actors involved in these wars either lack the resources to operate on a multinational scale or choose to fight war without declaring it. Consider how many puppet governments the US and its allies have worked on implementing over the last 60 years, are these not acts of war?

crdb 11y ago
Apologies indeed - the great thing about HN is that users take second seat to the content! But sometimes it backfires. On 2. - let's make it simpler then. The OP's (coldtea) premise is that it is not possible to say that one is better than the other ("it makes no sense to say"). The premise is incorrect because in my case, I can make the value judgment that one is better than the other, and further, it is probably safe to assume that most people also have their own ranking. In aggregate, people do make value judgments and do, therefore, make sense of "better". I agree that it can get a little lengthy discussing subjective value, and not armed with years of philosophy studies, I'm not very good at it either. On 4. - whilst several world powers such as the US, the USSR, France and Portugal have indeed fought proxy and covert wars to further the interests of a subset of their citizen, there has been no conflict of the scale and geography of World War II since World War II. Vietnam was localized in Vietnam, although it impacted US culture, precisely because Washington was afraid of starting a nuclear war. The only instances of WWII-level losses of lives were due to genocide, often from civil war. As an extreme example of the power of MAD fear, the Yom Kippur War was ended by US intervention (or at least the threat thereof) saving the Israelis at the last minute after Golda Meir made the bet that arming the nuclear weapons would be detected by the CIA and result in exactly such intervention. On 3., scientific knowledge available to the community is a very different thing to personal discovery of such knowledge. You do not need to know electronics, physics or applied mathematics to use a computer, and you do not need to know how to kill someone because there are people who specialize in this and keep the peace. But there is a difference in the type of knowledge that is the discovery and popularization of random forests, and knowing the feeling of taking someone's life. Getting better at killing CAN have positive effects. The refined Blitzkrieg with modern equipment waged by the US in the first Gulf War, the product of decades of research on killing and invading, resulted in a very short war with almost no casualties on the offensive side (292 - all figures from Wikipedia), and relatively few on the defending side (20-35,000) and civilians (5,000) compared to what a more even war would have cost (for example, the Iran-Iraq war cost around 100,000 lives for each of these groups). I see this as a net positive. Generally, financing an extreme imbalance of power results in global lasting relative peace, cf Pax Romana, Pax Britannia, Pax Americana.
- 11y ago