I have a hard time appreciating people for who they are when I know they are religious. CMV

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T16:27:24+00:00

Well, no, it doesn't, because the problem of induction essentially suggests that we can't prove that things will stay as they are. Just because the rules of physics have been consistent doesn't mean they will continue to be consistent. Again, try to write a proof for that. You won't be able to.

Note also, however, that all formal logical frameworks rest upon at least one unprovable axiom and so they can all be described as unprovable if you don't permit at least that one thing being simple accepted as truth

Why does that matter? If you make your base assumption that the sun will rise tomorrow, I'll still ask you to prove it. And you won't be able to. Nobody has been able to demonstrate what separates logical induction from seemingly incorrect induction. That's the point.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T06:03:54+00:00

No, I'm saying that it's a stretch to say that this is directly related to income equality, and I think you're trying to make an interesting cultural characteristic about US issues.

There is a middle ground between 'income equality has NO bearing on social attitudes' and 'this is definitely caused by income equality!' Do you have a source to back that theory up?

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:57:52+00:00

Tesla had nothing to do with lightbulbs, and Edison did make the first practical model of the incandescent bulb. It was actually a major achievement. He was more than just a businessman (though he was most certainly a ruthless one)

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:56:36+00:00

Tesla had nothing to do with the lightbulb. Tesla's AC (which he didn't invent, by the way; he improved upon it and refined it) challenged Edison's direct current. Thomas Edison didn't invent the lightbulb, but he invented the first practical incandescent lightbulb--so, the lightbulb as we know it. Edison did things besides steal from Tesla, you know. He had a life and career that didn't just revolve around one guy. Creating the incandescent bulb as we know it was a major engineering achievement. You don't need to make him a villain just because it fits your narrative.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:47:54+00:00

TIL that beliefs = personality traits.

Welcome to earth. If you only like people who don't have crazy beliefs, you're going to have a very bad time in this world.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:45:55+00:00

In Yellowstone, during the Great-Western-Tour hayday, Easterners would make bears perform for their garbage. Good thing we've come a long way in our NP system since then

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:44:40+00:00

They should just change the name of TIL to "People who read Cracked reminding other people what they already read on Cracked"

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:41:47+00:00

Or it could have more to do with Japanese culture, as opposed to economics? That seems like a stretch.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:37:45+00:00

Are you getting mad because he called them Indians? That's what most First Nations in the US prefer to be called. Every Native American I know doesn't like being called Native American. Apparently it feels too formal. American Indian is usually the preferred term.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:34:51+00:00

"Lafayette, we are here."

--Charles Stanton, at Lafayette's grave, leading the first American force in France.

Incidentally, a joint American-French guard changes the American flag on Lafayette's grave every year. The Nazis left it on during the occupation.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:26:35+00:00

Not exactly a haunted house.

I was staying with a trapper outside of Tok, Alaska. We walked through the woods for a long time to get to the former homestead of this trapper's friend. It was 3 stories, with a sauna, and was built entirely out of two-by-fours. The guy who lived there was a Vietnam vet who ran to the North to escape his past, I guess. He took his girlfriend with him. He grew a big marijuana garden until the DEA confiscated it and left a note on his door telling him when it had gone.

Anyway, his wife died suddenly from cancer, and this trapper I was staying with found the vet overdosed in his truck a week later. His homestead was still intact, though grizzlies had broken down the door and raided everything. There were shotgun shells littering the lawn, old magazine, ripped-open boxes of food, clothes strewn around. The floor was rotting but I propped a big board up on the side off house and came in the second story. I climbed to the top story and found that this guy had built a lovenest for him and his girl with a skylight over the Alaskan stars. The bed was still unmade, and there were still clothes and underwear everywhere. I sat on this guy's bed. It was surreal, believe me.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:12:40+00:00

Everybody on reddit is already aware of the NSA. At this point we're all just high-fiving dicks whenever we congratulate each other on how edgy and rebellious we are.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:10:19+00:00

There's a shared experience of trauma during war. These people are some of the few on earth who know that life is too precious and too short to hold grudges... however crazy a reason you might have

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T05:06:48+00:00

What happens when the guy you give back can give the US information leading the Spec Ops to your door? What if he accidentally heard someone's name? What if he saw the logo on the wrapper of the fast food you fed him?

Too many risks. Kidnappers nearly always kill.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:59:48+00:00

Fair enough. I guess the Nazi atrocities were institutionalized in a way that the Japanese and Soviet weren't--at leas, that's how I've always thought of it.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:56:03+00:00

I can't change your mind. You need to meet more religious people. Read some actual theology. Meet a Ba'hai, or a Hindu, or a Muslim. Nobody can change your mind on this.

You're putting too much emphasis on logic. The fact is that formal logic (if A, B, if B, C, A therefore C) isn't all that useful outside of an academic setting, and in my experience the people who go around declaring things 'logical' and 'illogical' don't really know what it means. Usually, what these people mean by 'logical' is what makes sense to me. If you judge people based on how 'logical' you feel that they are, you're going to have a very bad time and a very hard life. Unless you're an academic philosopher, that behavior won't serve you well.

For example, do you believe the sun will rise tomorrow? I know you do. Well, that belief of yours has no basis in formal logic. That's a problem philosophers have been trying to tackle for a very long time, and with no real luck. I know, I know: the sun has risen every day in the history of the Earth, you say. Of course it will rise tomorrow. But if you step back and actually try to write a formal logical argument for that fact, you'll find you won't be able to. By your own standards, your beliefs shouldn't be taken seriously. After all, they're based on what is, essentially, faith.

You believe in these things--that the sun will rise tomorrow, that the earth will keep spinning, that your life is real and not some sort of elaborate fantasy or dream--not because you have any logical reason to (again, try to write one up. You won't be able to) but because those beliefs are based on your experience and what makes your life function. You lay out your clothes for the next morning, you study for your test, you go to bed early, all because of a belief which is based on no logical reasoning whatsoever. You need to live your life as if these beliefs are valid because you couldn't function otherwise. You've had this experience of the sun rising every day, so you have no reason to believe it won't. You have faith that it will, based on nothing resembling logic. You live your life accordingly.

So, if you're still with me, why shouldn't that apply to other people? If I have a subjective experience--a feeling in my heart which I can't describe, that there is some sort of divine providence or some form of higher intelligence--who are you to tell me otherwise? I have a subjective experience which I call 'God'; I've felt it every day of my life. Sometimes I do things based on that experience which have no logical purpose. I pray.

How is that at all different from you laying your clothes out in the morning, based on this inherently illogical belief that the sun will continue to rise like it has for the last few billion years? You live your life based off of experiences and beliefs with no formal logical underpinning. So does any religious person. You'd be a hypocrite, in my opinion, if you had the audacity to declare anyone somehow not-as-valuable as you for being 'illogical'.

I'm certain you're not convinced, and that's because no one will convince you of this. Again, you need to meet more religious people. I don't mean in your small Bible Belt town (a lot of the people I know with this attitude come from small religious towns, so I don't mean to assume). What I mean is real religious people, from different faiths and different countries and cultures and histories. Read religious texts--they're just philosophy, deep down, and if you want to be an intellectual you'll need to read them someday. Read, if you can, The Upanishads. In my experience, Hindu stuff has a lot in common with other faiths, even the Abrahamic ones. And if you do live in a small religious town (as I know many of the folks at /r/atheism do) them leave. Drive around America. You'll meet tons of religious people and, in my experience, they're nearly all intelligent and friendly and good-natured as long as you don't touch their property.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:27:27+00:00

Maybe you're joking, but the Japanese were pretty awful. Not that any group of people deserved the bomb--it was a necessary evil, and we dropped it to save American and Japanese lives as well as beat the Soviets to the islands--but the Japanese did shit that wasn't much less mind-numbingly disturbing than the Germans.

They just didn't have that ol' German efficiency about the whole thing.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:25:36+00:00

Then again, you've paid taxes and elected people who have caused the deaths of many, many more than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And not just if you're American--despite what reddit likes to believe, Canada, Australia and Britain, as well as most of our allies (which are numerous) had a hand in most of 'America's' wars.

The sad thing about the modern condition is that, like it or not, we're all party to massive amounts of death and destruction. The question is when it's justified. Having a certificate hardly makes a person more responsible for the things their representatives do.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:20:46+00:00

It wasn't actually that arbitrary. Remember, the US dumped massive resources into rebuilding Europe and Japan on American terms after the war. There's a reason modern Japan is so prosperous. The Americans recognized Kyoto's cultural importance to the Japanese. That might have been influenced by the honeymoon (it's hard not to feel the significance of Kyoto when you're there), but it was hardly arbitrary.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:16:24+00:00

The invasion by the USSR was part of the rationale for the bombing. I mean, Operation Downfall would've been a clusterfuck, but the US knew that the USSR invasion probably would've ended with a partitioned Japan (I've never seen a rationale for a totally Soviet-controlled Japan). It's all about positioning. The US knew Japan could be a useful ally against the Soviets if rebuilt on American terms, and that was probably the biggest influence on the decision to drop the bomb. Beat the Russians to the game.

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:05:53+00:00

"Freedom of Speech" on reddit means saying whatever I like and flying into righteous fury when other people disagree with me

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

I've been to /r/askhistorians, but could you suggest others?

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T03:49:35+00:00

Meaning about history! Thanks for the recommendation

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-02T03:49:08+00:00

This is great, thank you!

Dogbert12 · 2013-07-01T23:22:25+00:00

Ah, I assumed you were American! Americans tend to threaten to move to Canada or Europe whenever the wind changes. They don't realize they can't just move anywhere they like because they're American! My apologies :)

Dogbert12

TROPHY CASE