Banthum

20 ms·

61.
by Banthum 9y ago
It's the national equivalent of "Don't invest in your employer, because if it goes bust you lose your investments AND your job."
62.
by Banthum 9y ago
The historical record does seem to indicate, at least to my reading, that illiterate people are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to engaging in high-level rational thought. Writing things down doesn't just store and transmit
63.
by Banthum 9y ago
The way you chained that together was almost musical.
64.
by Banthum 9y ago
I just had an image of a bunch of insect-like robots crawling over and through a giant metal block, chipping away at internal spaces with precision cutting tools to produce the desired shape, carrying away waste material, like an robotic an
65.
by Banthum 9y ago
It's doesn't have to mean one nation's people are worth more than another's. But it does mean that a person may care about their nation's people more than another's. This is the same principle as caring about y
66.
by Banthum 9y ago
Lots of people have done it, so no, it is actually completely certain.
67.
by Banthum 9y ago
One thing that worries me about computers working with all that contextual information is that they then need to know all that information. And since computing is so centralized these days, this means that whatever company made the software
68.
by Banthum 9y ago
Humanity is amazing. Billions of years of nothing but mindless senseless suffering and death in the natural world, and finally we emerge, a creature that can think beyond the next meal, next kill, next rape. Even if we do it imperfectly, th
69.
by Banthum 9y ago
You seem very strongly invested in this point, which is strange considering how easily refuted it is: Property existed long before third-party regulation. Rather than ownership being enforced by a third party with monopoly on violence, it w
70.
by Banthum 9y ago
In war we regularly maim and kill teenagers, using bullets and explosives. This is entirely intentional and done to save our troops and our people and to win the conflict. If it's necessary to win a fight that matters , and it works,
71.
by Banthum 9y ago
Even if 'erring on the side of caution' means killing millions of people by diverting resources that could've been used to cure diseases, solve local pollution problems, stop crime and democide, improve work safety, etc etc?
72.
by Banthum 9y ago
This figure gets trotted out all the time and it's tiresome because it is so unconvincing to anyone who is even a bit sceptical. That's a bit like asking what percentage of Christian priests believe God exists. There's kind o
73.
by Banthum 9y ago
Yes it is. They didn't get the job done, so other firms stepped in and did it better. Contrast this with communism, be where we'd all just be forced by law to use whatever AOL gave us, forever.
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by Banthum 9y ago
There are societies now with such a view of 'democracy and having from of choice'. The more conservative Muslim countries come to mind. Many of our ancestors would also see us this way. It's fully possible or descendants will
75.
by Banthum 9y ago
It's just a matter of definition. You could label any violent movement against any white colonial power as racist terrorism if you wanted. Of course you'll say that it doesn't count for whatever reason. But try to flip perspe
76.
by Banthum 9y ago
Regarding these suborbital flights, is there any way for an adversary to know that the flight isn't actually an ICBM?
77.
by Banthum 9y ago
That's why we have such massive forced redistribution of those resources (e.g. progressive income taxes), yes. There is a limit in either case. Nobody would say one person should be allowed to control all global wealth, or that one per
78.
by Banthum 9y ago
"how else is their ideal society attainable without the forced removal of non-white people?" Um, how about just reducing immigration a lot and giving it time? It's not that complicated. I think you're just obscuring the
79.
by Banthum 9y ago
Black culture does not exist. Is this statement morally equivalent? Why or why not?
80.
by Banthum 9y ago
Read your quote. It just means that just because there is a gender gap, we cannot simply assumed there must be sexism. It is not a statement about a specific case, but a general point on rationality. And it is undeniably true in the general
81.
by Banthum 9y ago
Just because they fell in the rankings doesn't mean they actually lost anything. E.g. Another way for a country to lose the #1 economy spot is for it to simply stay the same while other nations (e.g. Europe in this case) make huge adva
82.
by Banthum 9y ago
What's the reasoning behind choosing the power of 2 for this? It could be tuned to a power of 1.9 or 2.1 or 3 or 1.5. Aside from being a round number, how do we know 2 is best? What would be the pro/con of a higher exponent? What
83.
by Banthum 9y ago
Let's imagine we work together. I say your politics, whatever they are, make me feel hurt, scared, and angry. Obviously you can't argue with this; my feelings are my feelings and are thus inarguable. Therefore, by your basic rule,
84.
by Banthum 9y ago
True. It's also notable that the gradient between fully functional people and the mentally ill people you describe is entirely smooth. The clear medical distinction between "mentally ill" and "not mentally ill" is a
85.
by Banthum 9y ago
There are some people who, if they are free (as in not institutionalized), will waste, misuse, or destroy any amount or kind of help given to them. Mostly such people have mental illnesses. (No, I'm not saying it's their fault or
86.
by Banthum 9y ago
If it's right-wingers, it'll be terrorism and "think of the children". If it's left-wingers, it'll be hate speech and "think of the women/minorities". Same outcome, of course.
87.
by Banthum 9y ago
I do believe it's notable that in other sciences (including subsciences of biology, psychology, and others), these differences do play out - in the opposite direction. There's a useful graph somewhere of various degrees earned by
88.
by Banthum 9y ago
Fair point, but there is a difference: power. More powerful companies (like Google) need to constrained in ways that less powerful companies (like Joe's Cake Shop) don't.
89.
by Banthum 9y ago
It is unfair if we're talking about terrorism, because prison murders are not terrorism. If we're going to talk about murders in a more general sense, you have to start looking at populations and then note that whites in the US ar
90.
by Banthum 9y ago
>If the KKK didn't exist, Antifa wouldn't exist. Why would you say that? Antifa (and the organizations it descends from) have existed and acted, sometimes violently, in many situations unrelated to the KKK or white supremacists

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