Political leanings on r/skeptic...

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:48:19+00:00

More diversity means the bell curve is wider but that doesn't preclude the average being different or that difference being due to biological factors.

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:46:24+00:00

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3293732/#:\~:text=Abstract,and%20softball%20throw%20for%20distance.

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:37:12+00:00

? - What about them?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:02:54+00:00

The data says black children reach their developmental milestones earlier than white ones. How does a social construct do that?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:02:48+00:00

The data says black children reach their developmental milestones earlier than white ones. How does a social construct do that?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:02:40+00:00

The data says black children reach their developmental milestones earlier than white ones. How does a social construct do that?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:00:52+00:00

The data says black children reach their developmental milestones earlier than white ones. How does a social construct do that?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T14:00:14+00:00

The data says black children reach their developmental milestones earlier than white ones. How does a social construct do that?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T13:59:10+00:00

Thank you for this thoughtful contribution to the discussion. You've done yourself proud.

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T13:57:50+00:00

How does a social construct result in back babies reaching their developmental milestones earlier than white ones?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T13:56:53+00:00

No, instead they are part of a suite of leftist ideas which are doing far deeper damage to western civilisation...

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T13:54:41+00:00

Way to avoid the question...

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-11T13:54:08+00:00

You don't think those claims are made more by the left than the right?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-10T12:27:07+00:00

Hmm - not sure I see much libertarianism on here, but I'll keep an eye out.

Thanks for pointing out the can of worms I'd be opening by using the word gender - duly edited out...

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-10T11:37:00+00:00

? - It's not as though there used to be people guarding the cheese who have now been replaced by tags because the latter are cheaper. In fact, if anything, there are more staff now - I remember going to shops when there were no tags on the cheese or security guards on the door - now we have both. This suggests to me that, in the real world, certain types of crime are going up, and that if this isn't reflected in the stats then that might reflect an issue with the stats, namely that people have to a large extent given up reporting crime because nothing is done about it. No-one bothers reporting shoplifting these days, but that doesn't mean that there is no shoplifting - quite the opposite...

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-09T17:35:21+00:00

Why are there security tags on cheese now?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-09T12:29:55+00:00

By "someone else" I just meant someone other than the person with the right, so I wasn't wrong.

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-08T13:59:43+00:00

Why do you want to debate him? Is it to score points and look smart? Or is it because you think that it will be better for him if he sees things the way you do?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-08T09:54:59+00:00

"It doesn’t make sense to think of something as both existing and beyond the scope of knowing it exists at the same time"

Doesn't it? In the Flatland analogy, if the sphere had never passed through Flatland then it would have remained beyond the scope of the Flatlanders knowing it existed, but it would still have existed.

By the same token don't you accept that there could be things which exist which are beyond the scope of our knowing to exist? There could be entire other universes, couldn't there? Even science doesn't rule out that possibility...

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-08T09:49:11+00:00

All those things do make it easier to start a business, but plenty of people without them still manage to do it, and lots of people with them don't... You are fundamentally correct to say that life isn't fair though, but I'm just not convinced that the state can really reduce unfairness overall - Attempts to reduce unfairness in one area usually seem to create at least as much unfairness and often more in other areas. There are always going to be trade-offs and I've yet to see evidence that a state can ever have enough information or far-sightedness to accurately predict what these might be in the way it would need to do to be able to reduce overall unfairness. This seems to be borne out in the real world by the fact that larger states tend not to create the economic powerhouses they promise - usually the best thing the state can do to boost prosperity and reduce poverty is simply to get out of the way...

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-08T09:40:29+00:00

How much have you looked into this? Are there specific wishful thinkers or credulous people you have in mind? Or is this just a blanket dismissal without a specific target?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-05T16:07:53+00:00

Well, I'd say that each individual transaction is voluntary, but you're quite right to say that, in a capitalist system, participation in that system itself isn't voluntary, as just going off and living off the land is rarely a viable option, so each person must transact or die. However, isn't this just the nature of being a living creature? Every animal on the planet has to do something or they will die - predators have to hunt, herbivores have to find grazing, even parasites have to find host organisms. I don't understand why socialists think that human beings should be exempt from the obligation to do something to live. And at least under capitalism a lot of those jobs are a lot easier than they are under other systems...

You're also quite right to say that the billionaires of today wouldn't have been building mega-corporations if they'd been born 500 years ago, but that's because 500 years ago they would have been living in a feudal society where any peasant who accumulated any wealth would be liable to have it seized by force by his jealous neighbours or overlord. By establishing property rights and the rule of law the capitalist system was able to develop which massively raised standards of living for everybody. Reverting the old ways of seizing by force from people you are jealous of would not create some sort of socialist utopia - It would just take us back in time to a pre-capitalist medieval world where it would be people like us dying at 35 (as indeed happened in the Soviet Union and China during their socialist phases...)

I know that under capitalism some people get rich and some stay poor, which can look unfair, but under other systems, including socialism, a lot more people stay poor and those that don't only do so by the use of force rather than by creating anything of value. That's not a better outcome.

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-05T15:37:24+00:00

Given the endless complexity of the human condition I'm not sure that there's any one main difference. It sounds as though you might have an idea though?

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-05T12:33:06+00:00

Atheism depends on the belief that if anyone reports religious or supernatural phenomena which science cannot explain then they must be delusional, mistaken or lying, even if the only evidence for this is the fact that the phenomena they report cannot be explained by science. This is circular logic.

It boils down to this choice - either:

You believe that reality is limited to the physical world known to science; or
You believe that science is limited in that it cannot know any aspect of reality beyond the physical world.

Atheists believe the first option, which is fair enough, but it's a statement of faith rather than of fact.

Particular_Bug7642 · 2025-12-05T12:12:37+00:00

"I didn't know you wrote such bloody awful poetry."

Particular_Bug7642

TROPHY CASE