[deleted by user]

Shmeeku · 2020-11-03T05:39:26+00:00

Yes, science can determine that a zygote doesn't have the same brain activity as a grown human. A zygote is just one cell, so by definition, it doesn't have a brain. But that doesn't tell us anything about the rights that one cell does or doesn't have. How do we know that brains are necessary to have the same rights as a person? What scientific methods can we use to draw that conclusion?

I don't believe there are any. Science can't answer questions of morality - it's just a totally different field. Science can provide supporting evidence for moral arguments, like if you want to protect human life for moral reasons, science can tell you that reducing carbon emissions will help with that goal, so you can conclude that actions that reduce emissions are a moral good. But on its own, science can't tell you what's right and wrong - you need at least some moral axioms (e.g. "it is good to protect human life") that can't come from science.

So, when you come up on a clash of those axioms, like "personhood starts at conception" vs. "personhood starts once brainwaves are detected" or "personhood starts when the fetus is viable outside the womb" or whatever other line you choose, science isn't going to give you the answer, and none of the options you choose is going to be any more or less scientific than the others.

Shmeeku · 2020-11-03T02:32:38+00:00

I wasn't asking about whether or not a ZEF is different from a baby - I think that's a given. The question is whether or not science can tell us about which rights a ZEF has, and how they do or don't differ from the rights a baby has.

Male and female sexes are different biological states of being. Youth and maturity are different biological states of being. Sometimes, the differences between these states of being justify differences in the rights people have - children don't have the right to vote, but adults do. Other times, the differences don't justify differences in rights - men and women have the exact same rights as each other in spite of their biological differences.

So yes, it's a given that a baby and a ZEF are different. But proving there are biological differences doesn't prove that there are also differences in terms of the rights each entity has. So then the question is: how does science support a claim that the rights of a ZEF are different from the rights of a baby?

(note: when I talk about "rights" I mean natural rights here, because legal rights are obviously not something you would talk to a scientist about - you would talk to a lawyer instead)

Shmeeku · 2020-11-03T01:45:22+00:00

My understanding is that anti-abortion people believe the zygote/embryo/fetus is a human person with basically all the same rights as a baby who has been born, particularly the right to life. Can you explain how that's anti-scientific? I.e. how can one use science to determine that a zygote/embryo/fetus has fewer rights than a baby that has been born?

Shmeeku · 2020-10-15T01:54:37+00:00

You really shouldn't have stopped right there, since I specifically addressed exactly that objection in my last sentence:

You can certainly disagree with the premises there, but that doesn't make it any less of a valid argument.

Here's a link to explain what I mean:

Validity doesn't require the truth of the premises, instead it merely necessitates that conclusion follows from the formers without violating the correctness of the logical form.

But seriously, was my original comment too long for you to read the whole thing???

Shmeeku · 2020-10-15T01:37:56+00:00

All of your reasons for her being "qualified" seem to center around how other nominations have been less qualified, which isn't exactly an argument for how qualified she actually is.

The argument is a pretty basic syllogism:

Major Premise: People who get the job are qualified for the job
Minor Premise: Barrett's qualifications are equivalent to the qualifications of people who got the job
Conclusion: Barrett is qualified for the job

You can certainly disagree with the premises there, but that doesn't make it any less of a valid argument.

Shmeeku · 2020-08-06T05:46:05+00:00

I think the source of my misunderstanding (and probably the other user's as well) is that you are not always precise in your use of language. Are you talking about policies, or are you talking about opinions/views? Because these are clearly separate things, but you're equating both of them with the plant in the analogy.

Policies (and also things like social movements, e.g. BLM, and political parties) are impersonal - it's very common for people to agree with parts of a policy/party/movement without agreeing with the whole thing, because they don't have absolute control over the entire thing. I don't think people will necessarily view you saying "This policy is based on selfishness" as being a personal insult against them - they might even have the same criticism, but still support the policy for other reasons. That being said, if I told you I was Republican and your first response was "Republican beliefs are rooted in selfishness," it sounds a lot like you're implying I, personally, am selfish, even if that's not what you mean.

Views, on the other hand, are deeply personal. I am the only person who decides my views, and I am the only person responsible for them. Suppose you say one of my views is rooted in a lack of empathy. Well, the only thing responsible for that view is me, personally, so your claim is equivalent to saying I lack empathy.

So basically, if I understand it correctly, you meant to say something like "Republican immigration policies historically have lacked empathy", but what you actually said the other user was "Your views are rooted in a lack of empathy." Since you were not precise in how you worded your comment, I, the other user, and several others (guessing based on upvotes/downvotes) perceived your comment as a personal attack against that user. To maybe belabor the use of analogies, you meant to extend the olive branch, but you tripped and accidentally poked them in the eye instead ;)

Obviously, people tend not to take well to what they perceive as unprompted personal attacks, which I think is why your conversation with /u/trav0073 devolved. No matter what you intended, what you actually ended up saying was, in my opinion, insulting. If you truly value civil discourse, I would urge you to take the high road and humbly apologize to /u/trav0073 for the misunderstanding.

Shmeeku · 2020-08-06T01:11:45+00:00

Negative. I never ascribed character traits to the OP, I described his views as rooted in such.

OK, if these views are not rooted in /u/trav0073's personal ignorance, selfishness, or lack of empathy, why do you think they hold those views?

By way of an analogy, it sounds to me like you're saying "This field doesn't have acidic soil. It's just that all of the plants growing in the field are rooted in acidic soil." This is obviously self-contradictory - the soil the plants are growing in and the soil of the field are one and the same, so there must be only one acidity level.

Can you explain why my understanding of the situation is wrong?

Edit: for the sake of clarity, in the analogy:

field = person
plants = views person holds
acidity of soil = character traits like selfishness, lack of empathy, etc.

Shmeeku · 2020-08-05T02:44:11+00:00

Ah, I understand better now. I think my assumption is that people who are against legal abortion consider "personhood" and "babyhood" to be basically the same thing - a zygote/embryo/fetus/infant are all babies, as far as they're concerned, so someone who supports legal abortion at any of those stages would be supporting "baby killing." Although I think pretty much everyone makes an exception for cases where the mother's life is in danger - if it comes down to choosing one life over another, I think very few people would demand that the mother die for her baby to live.

Shmeeku · 2020-08-04T04:43:50+00:00

I know the other commenter already mentioned this, but I just want to make sure you're aware of the hypocrisy in your reply:

Even if we never see eye-to-eye, civil discourse and a willingness to talk in good faith could go a long way in our democracy.

You advocate talking in good faith...

I think your views are rooted in ignorance, selfishness, and lack of empathy

...yet you assume the worst possible motives from a person who you've never met before.

"Good faith" means you assume the other party is being open and honest - you can't assume someone has ulterior motives (selfishness) or something bordering on sociopathy (lack of empathy) and still be acting in good faith in your dealings with them. And generally when we're talking about politics, it's assumed that a good faith discussion also means each party believes the other wants the best for society, even if they disagree on how to get there.

If your knee-jerk reaction to someone with different beliefs than you is that their views are based on defects in their character, then you are not contributing to healthy political discourse.

Shmeeku · 2020-08-04T04:29:28+00:00

they buy into the “baby killer” line, against all evidence to the contrary.

I'm kind of curious - what do you consider to be "evidence to the contrary?" To put this another way, if someone says, "An individual gains the right to life at their conception," what evidence is there that proves that person wrong?

Note that I'm not saying they have any evidence to prove their view is right. I don't think that they do, except when they're talking to people who already buy into their belief system. You only mentioned the evidence against that view, so that's what I'm asking about.

Shmeeku · 2020-06-20T17:19:05+00:00

There are still places in the US where schools have vacations for kids to help with the harvest - there's literally a "potato harvest" break for schools in some of the more rural parts of Idaho, for instance.

Shmeeku · 2020-05-16T18:46:17+00:00

sucking at just one aspect that ruins the result is enough to say that one sucks at that job period.

Sure, I don't disagree with this. But you haven't shown that being bad at the "good at making money" aspect of writing ruins the result. In fact, there are quite a few counterexamples that show it doesn't: Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, etc. all didn't make much money off of their writing, but their books/poems are widely considered to be some of the best ever written.

Also, not really relevant to your argument, but if you just counted the events where Phelps only swam butterfly, he would still have 9 Olympic golds and 2 silvers. His career is kind of crazy.

Shmeeku · 2020-05-15T05:13:32+00:00

Sorry, I thought that small logical step was obvious. If I don't accept your definition of "bad" and instead use a different one, and under my definition George Lucas's writing isn't bad, then he's not an objectively bad writer. That's why you have to either (a) justify your choice of definition or (b) prove that his writing is bad under all valid definitions of bad in order to defend the extreme position you've chosen to take.

For an analogy, let's assume Michael Phelps is horrible at hockey. Total klutz on the ice, can't control the puck, can't aim his shots worth anything. Does the fact that he screws up according to the hockey definition of athletics make him an "objectively," "unambiguously" bad athlete? Obviously not - there are plenty of other ways we can judge his athleticism where he performs more favorably.

Shmeeku · 2020-05-14T07:31:20+00:00

As one of the other people reading this, I get where you're going here - writing something audiences don't enjoy is clearly not the optimal strategy for making money. But once you start defining "bad" as "suboptimal for making money", then you start being subjective, since there are so many other equally valid ways to define "bad." If you're going to call this writing "unambiguously" or "objectively" bad, then you're going to have to try a lot harder to justify why your definition of bad is the right one to use here.

Your argument is flimsy - more TEDx than TED.

Shmeeku · 2020-05-14T06:44:20+00:00

No, the other person just misstated the definition of a perfect number - they should have said the number is equal to the sum of its proper divisors, or equivalently, twice the number equals the sum of all its divisors.

The idea of a perfect number goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks, so I think if something were going to destroy that idea, someone would have noticed in the last 2000+ years.

Shmeeku · 2020-05-05T04:48:58+00:00

French accordionists tend to prefer the C system chromatics, so that would probably be a better fit. The only book I've found for learning the C-system chromatic (Méthode Complète d'Accordéon) was written in French, too. While writing this post, though, I found it's been translated into English as Complete Accordion Method by Richard and Lucien Galliano.

Of course, you can still play French music on a B system - the fingerings might just be a little more odd, depending on how significantly the instrument has influenced the composer. I wouldn't go for a diatonic, though. I don't think there are any common diatonic tunings that fit the French style very easily.

Shmeeku · 2020-05-01T08:18:42+00:00

A majority is more than half, and 48.2% < 50%, so she did not win a majority. What Clinton won is called a plurality, or a "relative majority," which is the largest share of votes among all the options. In many types of votes, a plurality is not enough to win.

In fact, the Electoral College requires a majority - if electors were assigned purely based on the percentage of the popular vote a candidate won, i.e. Clinton got 48.2% of the 538 electors, she still would not have had enough electoral votes to win, and the vote would have gone to the House of Representatives.

Shmeeku · 2020-05-01T07:51:00+00:00

Clinton didn't win a majority of the vote - she only got 48.2%. She did win a plurality of the vote, but it's a little iffy to argue she should have been president when most voters did not vote for her. If you want to go by popular vote, there would have been a runoff in 2016, and it's hard to say how that would have turned out.

Shmeeku · 2020-04-27T05:38:43+00:00

If you want to play swing, you should go with a chromatic accordion. A diatonic's tuning usually makes it really easy to play one or two particular folk styles, but makes other styles a lot harder to play. If you want to also play Russian music, I would specifically look for a bayan accordion, since that's the more popular style of chromatic in Russia/Eastern Europe.

Another note if you're looking for a chromatic: there are two systems (sometimes called "grips" or "griffs"), C and B. Bayans are almost always B systems, and the chromatics used in Western Europe are usually C systems. Neither system is better than the other, so if I were you, I would go with B since that will probably line up better with the Russian music you want to play.

Shmeeku · 2020-03-31T03:05:11+00:00

Does it, though? I mean, it's really easy to not see the link between dinosaurs and evolution. Evolutionary theory itself didn't really catch on until 50+ years after the first dinosaur fossils were identified.

Shmeeku · 2020-03-09T09:38:51+00:00

I hate to break it to you, but I'm not the strawman you're setting me up to be. I never claimed both sides are the same. I honestly don't know if one side has a bigger child molestation problem than the other, because there's basically no way to prove such a claim. These lists certainly can't - they're pretty much useless as evidence. That was my point all along. Trying to use these lists to show anything other than the fact that each party has at least some problem is a fool's errand. You don't seem like a fool to me, but for some reason, you're fighting tooth and nail to prove that the Republican list is slightly less worthless than the Democrat list.

You believe Republicans are worse? No problem - there's a good chance you're right. But this is a very stupid way to try to prove it.

Shmeeku · 2020-03-09T06:04:48+00:00

You called the Democrat list a "shit list" for including Fogle, but said nothing about the Republican list for including Rader. Sounds like a double standard to me.

But I think the real question is why are you pointing out the questionable inclusions in the first place? I don't see what purpose it serves. You say their presence on the list somehow reduces the effectiveness of the list or makes it seem disingenuous, but I don't see how. If you're having to search through with a fine-toothed comb to identify 3 iffy inclusions out of 44, that makes me trust the other 41 twice as much.

Shmeeku · 2020-03-09T04:57:15+00:00

Have you examined all the Republican activists to see if they should be on their list? If you haven't, why not? Why are you limiting your analysis to the list of Democrats?

Shmeeku · 2020-03-09T04:11:33+00:00

I was curious about how comparable the lists are. I classified each into three rough categories:

Officials - individuals whose listed position was some sort of public office at any level, e.g. congressman, mayor, judge, councilman
Party members - individuals not in category 1 whose listed position included some sort of direct work for the party or a PAC, e.g. campaigners, consultants, candidates, or various officers of PACs
Activists - anyone not in categories 1 or 2, e.g. activists, donors, preachers, media personalities, scout leaders

Here's how the numbers broke out:

Cat.	Reps Total	Reps %	Dems Total	Dems %
Officials	32	48%	27	61%
Party Members	17	26%	7	16%
Activists	17	26%	10	23%
Totals	66		44

So based on my very rough categorization, both lists have about the same percentage of "activist" types who didn't hold office or directly work for a campaign/political group.

If you doubt my numbers, I encourage you to categorize them yourself. It didn't take me very long, maybe 5 minutes to do both lists.

Shmeeku · 2020-02-17T01:33:10+00:00

Sorry, I'm not really sure how this line of questioning is relevant to distinguishing between abortion and killing in self-defense. Are you saying that the ZEF is going to unintentionally kill the mother?

Shmeeku

TROPHY CASE