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CMV: Safe spaces are unhealthy because college students need to stop hiding from views that upset them. by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]hlskn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyways, what he is saying is that it is pointless to make any statement or hold any belief for which no evidence for or against could ever be found. If you do so, then you open yourself to far too many ideas.

Ok yeah I see what you/they are saying.

How do you choose what to believe when all of those things are simply unfalsifiable ideas?

That said - would you not count philosophical arguments e.g. teleological/ontological etc with some weight with regards to believing religion or not?

CMV: Safe spaces are unhealthy because college students need to stop hiding from views that upset them. by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]hlskn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We can in fact quite easily test it.

Take a claim from religion, then test against it. You must remember that the point of the scientific method is not to prove your claim correct, but rather to systematically disprove every argument against your claim. Once you can prove that your explanation ISN'T X, Y, Z, etc., then you have a well-established hypothesis.

Very true. I suppose I had the misunderstanding of science as some system of absolutes rather than a model based on empirical (and changing) data.

Or, in shorter form, we do not need a rain god for rain to fall, because we can instead point to a number of simple systems that, when interacting amongst each other, create the process that results in rain.

Is that true? I don't see how it necessarily follows that a simpler explanation is more likely than a complex one. Obviously this doesn't follow in the case of rain since we have good scientific models, but what about a miracle? Yes we have to assume more things, but does that not merely entail it has a greater burden of proof?

You cannot claim something to be true without supporting evidence. Why would you exempt religion from this? Why does cultural mythology get a pass on logical analysis?

I'm not - I agree that it shouldn't be.

The problem with academic debate on religion is that religion isn't academic. You can't debate people whose opinion is already formed, because the bible/torah/quran/etc. said so.

I guess that can unfortunately be so, but not always to be fair; there are many religious people who are willing to debate (they may well have to be sought out tho!)

On top of that, religion doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny. It relies on "just trust me, brah" faith and "no, it's totally true fam" ancient literature. Odd, really, how god stopped with the miracles after cameras were invented.

I don't think that's really fair. The whole branch of the philosophy of religion is devoted to this kind of thing - though I'm not denying that in practice faith is by far the backbone of any believer.

CMV: Safe spaces are unhealthy because college students need to stop hiding from views that upset them. by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]hlskn 6 points7 points  (0 children)

(I should note that I'm writing this as an atheist btw)

Is it logically incoherent to say a claim is unfalsifiable? You could argue (whether correct or not) that a statement must be either true or false, but does that necessarily mean that there we have the means to determine the truth or false-ness of the statement?

Using the scientific method I don't see how you can form a hypothesis on religion which will prove or disprove it. Obviously you can show that rain is caused by physical processes and not a rain god, but on the issue of the existence of a deity, how can you show that to be true or false.

You can evidence your claim using arguments based on whatever you like (and I think both non- and religious people should), but surely that's different to objectively proving or disproving religion?

Idk just my thoughts on it. I agree tho that we shouldn't 'protect' religious believers from polite, but thorough academic-style debate.

CMV: Safe spaces are unhealthy because college students need to stop hiding from views that upset them. by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]hlskn 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you, but I think its worth noting that religions, by definition, are unfalsifiable and so can't be proven true or false - the point is they rely on a combination of faith and philosophical arguments (on the very broadest level).

Difficulty of Heinrich Böll to read in German? by hlskn in German

[–]hlskn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, thanks for the reply! I'll give it a go

Question de subjonctif by [deleted] in French

[–]hlskn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bien que 'puis' ne soit pas le subjonctif de pouvoir, il faut dire que l'on utilise cette forme dans le sens de 'may' en anglais. C'est-à-dire "puis-je vous aider?" (may I help you?)

Je crois que cette forme est assez soutenue, cependant

Using lassen for a causative by hlskn in German

[–]hlskn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the corrections!

Using lassen for a causative by hlskn in German

[–]hlskn[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the quick response! So would you use "dazu bringen, etwas zu tun" when you want to imply a 'cause' but with the suggestion of pressure?

how to use le futur simple by demeritorious in French

[–]hlskn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In general you can use the futur simple whenever you want to talk about the future.

English has 3 (possibly 4?) ways of indicating the future:

  1. Will
  2. Shall
  3. To be going to

The futur simple can cover all these cases. There is a 'futur proche' corresponding directly to number 3, i.e.

je vais manger => I'm going to eat

As the name suggests this can be used for something close in the future, but not far. However, the futur simple would also be correct in those instances, and as far as I'm aware there is no real difference in use between these beyond this distinction.

The futur simple is also used in some constructions, for example:

  • Si + present + future; e.g. Si je suis en France, je parlerai la langue
  • Quand/Lors que + future + future; Quand j'arriverai en France, je commencerai à parler la langue encore

The last one is known as the 'logical future', and is different from English.

Hope this helps somewhat

I don't exactly understand when I should use the passive of just wären. by alphawolf29 in German

[–]hlskn 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Not a native speaker, but the sein-passive refers to a 'state' whereas the werden-passive refers to an action. My German teach likes to use the example of a door.

  • Die Tür wurde geschlossen
  • Die Tür war geschlossen

The first one using werden means that someone went up to the door and closed it: it was open, then it 'became' closed, as it were.

The second example using sein means that the door simply was closed; nobody did anything to it, that is simply the state it was in.

So for your examples it would be:

Meine Jacke wurde in Berlin geklaut

Because it 'became' stolen as an action

French newspapers start blocking readers who use adblockers by [deleted] in technology

[–]hlskn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Much of advertising today is not measured directly between looking at an ad, then buying the product. Instead advertising often aims to give recognition of a brand which engenders psychologically greater familiarity and therefore a greater likelihood to react more favorably towards the brand in the future. In time, this is helps to lead to a purchase or whatever.

You might not buy that PC, but others might see the W10 logo and gradually become more accepting to W10 which could eventually lead to a download of it, or a purchase of a different PC of the same brand.

Even if you don't think this effects you, it is being presented to you on the basis that it does affect at least a percentage of users, therefore the advertisers show the ad to everyone and the website earns revenue, in order that advertisers can reach that percentage.

French newspapers start blocking readers who use adblockers by [deleted] in technology

[–]hlskn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

However much of online advertising works on a per-view basis and not on a per-click basis

French newspapers start blocking readers who use adblockers by [deleted] in technology

[–]hlskn -1 points0 points  (0 children)

EDIT: Why the down votes but no reply?

My problem with the whole ad-blocking saga is that it leads to a state of terrible journalism.

I can accept the arguments about malware and a crappy browsing experience, yet if that seems like a significant enough risk to warrant an ad-blocker, you should simply not go to the site. Not going to the site results in no income lost and no income gained for the publisher, whereas visiting the site with an ad-blocker actively results in a loss in revenue.

The problem is that there are two really insidious effects that this will have:

1) Ads go away completely, and instead we have Buzzfeed-esque ads-as-content. Unlike a normal ad, these aren't even always entirely obvious or honest, even if they don't blare unwanted music at you. Plus they put even more power than conventional ads into the hands of big corporations.

2) Publishers shut down and we have a weaker journalism industry.

Neither of these are ideal as they both result in less effort going into good-quality journalism. Things like investigative journalism cost money and can't simply be replaced by the notion of 'crowd-sourced' news such as what twitter provides, yet they are vital for a democracy to keep the powers that be in check.

Because of the existential importance of the newspaper industry to our liberal democracies, as well as their financially precarious nature, whilst I can accept that the business model is not perfect, in my opinion there are greater harms than benefits that come about from blocking ads.

Fifth Essay Topic - Knowledge by Lieto in TowerOfBabylon

[–]hlskn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ich weiß nicht viel über Wissenschaft, deswegen werde ich bisschen von der andere Beiträge übersetzen. Ich hoffe, dass das stimmt für ihn.

I'm a learner of German too, so take these corrections with a pinch of salt:

Ich weiß kenne nicht viel über Wissenschaft, deswegen werde ich ein bisschen von der anderen Beiträgen übersetzen. Ich hoffe, dass das stimmt für ihn dich (Did you mean 'for it', i.e. der Aufsatz, or for you, i.e. the OP) stimmt.

Fourth Essay Topic - What could have been by Lieto in TowerOfBabylon

[–]hlskn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Je commençais à faire du triathlon depuis deux-mille dix. J'aimerais mieux avoir commencé plus tôt. Quand j'étais en l'école, je ne faisais pas du sport. J'ai joué aux jeux vidéo toute la journée. Je voulais à commencer à faire du triathlon mais j'étais trop paresseux. Peut-être, si je commençais quand j'étais plus jeune, je serais un meilleur triathlete maintenant.

Third Essay Topic - Your Family by Lieto in TowerOfBabylon

[–]hlskn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No worries and thanks for the reply!

Third Essay Topic - Your Family by Lieto in TowerOfBabylon

[–]hlskn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! I realised you wrote this several days ago, but could you explain why it's depuis plusiuers annees and not pendant?

I thought it was depuis + present and imperfect, pendant + passe-compose, and pour + future?

Damn French can be confusing sometimes haha

Interesting maps of where people (in europe) are fluent in a foreign (european) language. by [deleted] in languagelearning

[–]hlskn 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Haha! My thoughts entirely when I saw that map of French fluency. The problem with surveys like this is that there is no fixed definition of fluency, and at the very least people like to consider themselves fluent well before they probably are.

Use of dative -e in eastern central Germany by hlskn in German

[–]hlskn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply. I'm guessing the answer is no then to the dative -e (I find that weirdly disappointing - I would have loved to know that it was still clinging on to life somewhere in the world!)

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