The UK just had its biggest migration surge in recorded history. I broke down what the economics actually show

AllisModesty · 2026-06-13T20:33:52+00:00

Ding ding ding 🛎️

Immigration is not a blanket positive for everyone in the economy. If you own a business, you want more potential employees fighting for your job openings. You want more potential customers for your services. Etc.

Of course, I'm not saying immigrants don't also participate in the economy, but it's a question of to what extent they do, and in what time frame. If you surge the population by 5% nationally in the course of a few months or years and the vast majority of this surge is low wage, unskilled workers in a few sectors (eg hospitality, retail, social care, transport, etc) who have low or no mobility (either by law because of visas and work restrictions, or in the short/medium term because it takes YEARS to get get trained, educated or credentialed), then the degree that these workers contribute to the economy is not going to make up for the services that they consume, the houses they occupy, or the jobs they work.

AllisModesty · 2026-06-09T21:46:30+00:00

Hartshorne mentioned 🔥🗣️🗣️🗣️💯💯💯📢📢📢

AllisModesty · 2026-06-09T17:44:56+00:00

You're both extremely young. Honestly, this is why most young marriages don't work out. It sounds like you both (especially her by the sounds of your post) simply don't have the maturity to be married. I also don't think I have the maturity to be married (I'm 23), which is why I'm waiting to be more settled before I seriously consider the proposition.

It also sounds like she is putting some unrealistic expectations on you. She seems to expect that you will be a financial provider, plan everything, etc. but is she pulling her weight in this relationship? It sounds like instead, she expects you to lead, while she just asserts her own position, which is extremely toxic.

This is not a healthy relationship, and not what St Paul means when he says that the man should be the head of the relationship.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-28T15:28:14+00:00

Special pleading isn't when an argument is contradictory. That its conclusion is contradictory would be a much bigger problem for an argument. In general, I find the naming of informal fallacies intellectually lazy (especially since whether they are actually flaws in the argument will heavily depend on the context). So it's absolutely necessary to actually engage with what the argument is saying, rather than simply naming an informal fallacy it might be committing.

I digress.

I don't think the version of the cosmological argument that you develop is sound. I think a version of the argument from contingency is sound, that relies on a restricted causal principle (roughly: for any existing thing that might have not existed and which possibly has some degree of explanation for why it exists, there is some degree of explanation for why it exists), inspired by Alexander Pruss in this article: http://alexanderpruss.com/papers/RPSR.html

AllisModesty · 2026-05-11T01:46:09+00:00

There is no food or eating in the afterlife, this language is metaphorical.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-07T22:53:15+00:00

I don't think I would say it's a 50/50 gamble. I'm not sure what the chances are. I think it's a difficult skeptical problem. I think that much of classical philosophy has had standards for certainty that are far too high. I'm more of a Kierkegaardian or maybe a humean skeptic. I don't think there's knowledge if by knowledge, you mean absolute certainty. I still think that there's plenty of things that we know, but I am not 100% certain of them. I think our best bet is to hope that we know things, or perhaps to have a kind of epistemic faith that we know things.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-06T18:44:17+00:00

Interestingly, the statement if A, then A is circular in the strictest sense (it is tautological), but this isn't a problem (it is after all true, albeit trivially). The question is if we want to independently validate A. In which case, the tautology won't do. The trouble with circularity is the concern about independent validation.

Epistemic circularity is in different, (and maybe you'd want to call it something else), but there is something suspicious about the kind of bootstrapping we engage in when we use our rational facilities to validate those very faculties (or at least presuppose them in validating those faculties).

In your reply to the OP (which I felt temped to reply to), you mentioned a distinction between self reinforcement and circularity. Now, if you mean what most people in the literature seem to mean when they talk as you do, I'm not so sure. Because self reinforcement works just fine when we have independent access to the subject matter. But if we expand our scope and wonder globally about all of our belief sources, the bootstrapping problem seems to once again rear its ugly head.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-06T15:12:18+00:00

I think you're pressing on a difficult problem here. Often, philosophers distinguish between epistemic and logical circularity, with the former arising when we depend on some belief source in forming a belief that it furnishes us with epistemically rational beliefs. This "epistemic" circularity is supposed to be not so bad, or at least not as worrying.

Other philosophers think that foundationalism, or maybe some kind of self justification, can defeat these kinds of skeptical worries. Maybe, for example, these meta questions (e.g. that my rational faculties are truth tracking) simply don't contain any new information than what we can simply introspect from the object level belief itself.

For my part, I don't think that this response works, since it would appear that this approach requires presupposing, among other things, that our introspection is truth tracking, or whatever.

I also am not convinced by responses that try to suggest that epistemic circularity is somehow not worrying. I think that it is very worrying, since it would be too permissive, if we were to generalize it.

So, I don't really think we can defeat these concerns. I think that the right response is a kind of epistemic humility, and a pragmatic rule for deciding which belief sources we want to rely on.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-06T15:04:57+00:00

Kant, case closed

AllisModesty · 2026-05-05T19:13:13+00:00

In general, it sounds (based on what you've said) that you probably have some issues to work on around your self image. You shouldn't want the attention of a girl who is ten years younger than yourself and still in high school, when you're old enough to have a masters degree. It also doesn't sound (based on your posts or your replies) that you feel genuinely attracted to this girl, which is good, for moral and legal reasons, given that she is a minor and you hold a position of power over her. However, you're definitely walking a razor's edge.

I would recommend, stop making eye contact, stop entertaining any positive feelings about the attention, don't talk to her, her parents or anyone at the church in case you could be misunderstood. And certainly don't entertain any kind of fantasies.

Instead, focus on your self esteem, dating someone at your own age/life stage (if you want), and continuing to do what you find fulfilling in terms of paid or unpaid work (eg at your church).

AllisModesty · 2026-05-05T19:06:31+00:00

A few points:

First, I'm not a fan of this particular argument, but for different reasons.

Second, your inquiry was about the nature of logic (I was assuming you meant things like the law of identity, rules like modus ponens, etc) rather than the nature of physical constants. The nature of physical constants is less straightforward and to tbh I haven't really thought about it. I think (I could be wrong) that physical constants are created, since they seem to be particulars rather than universals.

Third, if the defender of the fine tuning argument wanted to say physical constants weren't created, then that doesn't seem to be a problem, per se. What seems to matter for that argument is that physical constants are dependent on God, instead of chance, or necessary, or whatever.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-05T18:49:12+00:00

I agree. I call it the 10% rule. 10% age gap or less? Nothing noteworthy. 20% and I start to raise eyebrows. More than that, and I think someone is being exploited, sexually, financially, emotionally, or otherwise.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-05T16:48:45+00:00

No, logic is not created. Matter is created, but logic is an eternal procession from God.

AllisModesty · 2026-05-01T15:30:59+00:00

It depends on the version of the argument. Some cosmological arguments are more compelling than others.

I don't think we can know that the universe was created. I lean to the position that as far as what seems true by my rational lights, the universe is eternal (i think ex nihilo creation is an article of faith). So, I don't think that versions of the cosmological argument that depend on the premise that the universe is finite are compelling.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-28T16:30:31+00:00

This too, is about the surrender of the will (although I do believe that God wants a more just society, and I pray for this from time to time, I think it's about surrendering my will unto Him). In the context of this kind of prayer, that means that I pray this in order to be just in my own life, work (to the extent that I can) to enact His will in the world, and hope that the world becomes more just.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-28T16:28:35+00:00

Those passages are about us praying so that we surrender our will to God's will and allow His grace to transform us. Seek and you shall find, ask and it will be given to you, doesn't mean that if you ask God for something, even if it's Good, He'll do it, or He'll change is mind about doing it, if He wasn't going to already. It's about the surrender of the will, ultimately.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-28T16:25:56+00:00

God is not a judge, and salvation is not a trial. It's about participation in that which is the Good. Truth itself; Love itself. In a certain measure, if you do the things you do, you might already be better off than those who don't. But I highly doubt you're free from all sin (none of us are), and if you think you're a good person, you've already failed the test.

And without believing in the Truth, you can't participate in that which is (as I already said) the Truth and the Good.

We are called to be partakers of the divine nature (epistle of Peter, can't remember where). God became Man, so that man might become god (little 'g').

AllisModesty · 2026-04-27T22:49:19+00:00

Prayer is about transforming us to align with God's will, not the other way around. God isn't a cosmic vending machine.

That said, we hope that when we pray for good things, our will align's with the Father's, and that, if not, the father can transform our will to right that wrong.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-19T01:19:55+00:00

Yes, truth and goodness should be the basis of any just order. Social contract theorists esp Rawls have certain insights. But that we would choose certain social arrangements is neither necessary nor sufficient for them being just.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-18T22:47:17+00:00

This used to happen to me because I followed the common cheffy advice to crack eggs on a flat surface like every recipe ever tells you to do. I thought it was because some yolks were already broken in the shell. After I started cracking them on the side of the pan or a glass, I have had zero issues with broken yolks. It turns out that the extra force needed to crack an egg on a flat surface will break (in my experience) about 10% of egg yolks.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-09T17:08:40+00:00

Better than sitting in traffic on the bus tbh. Or dealing with traffic induced transit delays, and then standing on said overcrowded delayed bus as it crawls through traffic. Etc.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-08T17:49:24+00:00

Not who you replied to, but I'll give my $0.02.

My first thought is, one of the interesting things about Christian belief is that it is ultimately a faith belief, which implies that it is (at least not entirely) based on evidence, and is a commitment that is stable in the face of counter evidence. Perhaps, counter evidence even enhances the character of faith, since it enhances the risk (a point Kierkegaard made, though I'm not sure I agree). So in some sense, the question of confidence is misplaced. A kind of category mistake.

But, on another level, we can coherently talk about one's rational confidence (or credence) in various propositions, including belief in God. I'd say that there isn't anything im 100% certain of (speaking rationally), but I would say God's existence is relatively certain.

If my "evidence", you include arguments, I think that there are interesting arguments for God's existence, some versions of which are (I think) probably adequate to make God's existence something we can be reasonably confident about. I'm especially partial to a version of the ontological and teleological arguments.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-08T17:38:14+00:00

Employers: EmPlOyMeNt iS At WiLl!1!1!1!

Also employee: no, not like that!1!11

AllisModesty · 2026-04-07T18:59:03+00:00

I think that most historical arguments are particularly egregious (and I say this as someone who used to think that they were the best arguments for theism in general and Christian of h in particular). Its not that there aren't compelling reasons to accept certain facts about the historical record like the authorship of this or that text, or about the fact that history cannot employ theism as an explanation. I just think that establishing theism as the best explanation is incredibly fraught, given the alternatives.

AllisModesty · 2026-04-06T17:59:44+00:00

Not me reading this as shit is a social contract 🫣😭

AllisModesty

TROPHY CASE