MAGIC SOOUULLLSSSS Libertarian

[RadiantPhoenix]

The Law of Contradiction is another name for the Law of Non-Contradiction, which is a logical axiom that something cannot be both true and false. That you must have A or ~A and cannot have both. It is a key plank of really terrible sophist arguments the world over.

Summary: A(x) ∧ ¬A(y) is not a contradiction

[Sashi]

Why don't you guys just ask your cult leader about it.

People have a fundamental human right to ask other people for casual sex. [emphasis in original.]

OMG SOULS LOL

Not "souls" because Frank believes in a state that protects and grants those rights. In the United States people have freedom of expression, which actually does extend all the way to asking someone "Hey are you down to fuck?" so within the context of that conversation yes, United States citizens actually do have the fundamental human right to ask other people for casual sex.

Now, in many opressive theocracies propositioning people for casual sex actually isn't a human right. Because in those countries it's actually illegal for men to talk to unmarried women. As is homosexuality.

But in a lot of those countries it's also legal for a man to have sex with his wife, wether or not she consents.

So I think the USA/Canada/Germany/France/Britan/etc are "better" countries than Iran because in those countries Men do have the right to proposition women for casual sex, while they don't have the right to rape their wives, which I think is a far better state of affairs than the opposite.

And for every non-Libertarian/Anarchist it really is that simple. Fundamentally I believe I have human rights because there are men with guns willing to murderate people who violate them. You're the one arguing we still have property rights without the state, instead of "things I'm more willing to kill to protect than anyone else is willing to kill me to take".

[infected slut princess]

Well the Stalin-fappers have spiraled into pure fail. They came out with guns blazing when they were propping themselves up with their ignorant SOULS/natural rights strawman, but since they now see it doesn’t apply, they are like lost puppies. I mean, DSMatticus pretty much went off the deep end in his last post.

Of course, quantum mechanics being what it is, I'm pretty sure we live in a universe where the Law of Non-Contradiction actually isn't true.

Wow, thanks Mr Physics. But really, this shit is what I’v\e been talking about. So the Law of Non-Contradiction isn’t true. So… it is false. Which means… it cannot also be true. So you deny the law of non-contradiction with… the law of non-contradiction. Good job there chief, you really hit that one out of the park. I see you've put a lot of careful thought into this.

It’s like DSMAtticus with his wank over his simplistic empiricist thesis, a theory which cannot even pass its own test.

You guys can’t even pass the most basic test of coherence. So seriously, how the fuck can anyone have an intelligible discussion with you about anything. You are fucking retarded. "LAW OF CONTRADICTION IS FALSE!" LOL.

[Ancient History]

Fractals, ISP. Just because something isn't white doesn't make it black. We do not live in a universe of binary states. The Law of Non-Contrdiction works fine for, say, Boolean mathematics. Human thought, not so much.

[Kaelik]

So the Law of Non-Contradiction isn’t true. So… it is false. Which means… it cannot also be true. So you deny the law of non-contradiction with… the law of non-contradiction. Good job there chief, you really hit that one out of the park. I see you've put a lot of careful thought into this.

Or you know, it could be true some of the time, and false some of the time. Like induction. Which we still use when it is appropriate.

I'm not sure I agree with Frank, but it is still really easy to see how something could apply in some contexts and not others.

You guys can’t even pass the most basic test of coherence.

You can't even pass the very basic test of explaining your own fucking views. I mean, I guess we made it hard for you, so let's try simplifying from a difficult essay test to an easier fill in the blank:

1) I, ISP, believe that people should do the thing that provides the most overall utility to all the people because_____________________________.

2) I, ISP, also believe that no one should ever just take my property away ever and it is always unjustified, even when it increases net utility to do so, and this doesn't conflict with my earlier statement because______________________________.

Extra Credit: I, ISP, define utility as_____________________________.

[Username17]

ISP will not make a coherent positive argument for his beliefs, because no such argument can be made. But crucially, he won't even make an incoherent positive argument for his beliefs because he knows that he has been cut off at the knees.

The argument he wants to make is actually extremely immature. It requires people to grant his overapplication of the Law of Noncontradiction. And it requires this because his entire argument is in essence a slippery slope where each step is backed up by a fallacy of the excluded middle.

The way it "works" is that he claims things can only be true or false, then he makes a general, weak, positive claim and demands that people accept it as "true." And then he slippery slopes it to increasingly stronger claims and demands that each step has to be "true." It's a form of Socratic dialog used to bully highschool students. I have no idea why he thought it would fly on actual adults who have done some fucking book learning.

Of course in reality, statements can be neither true nor false (as is the case with meaningless statements), or of unknown truth value, or partially true or false, or both true and false from different vantage points. Once you reject juvenile categorization, the sorites argument can't even get off the ground.

ISP's prepackaged argument is so geared at teenagers that he has no choice but to whine and sulk if people tell him up front that his arguments are going to be judged by grownups.

-Username17

[name_here]

I'd argue that the Law of Noncontradiction is true even with quantum mechanics, but also not all that terribly interesting. All it tells you is that if A is false, ~A is true, but that's only really helpful if you've managed to tie the truth value of something else to the truth value of A or ~A. Also, it only applies to statements that are either true or false; if your statement doesn't have a fixed truth value you need to add qualifiers until it does.

For instance, if we have A be "The State is the source of all evils", ~A would be "There is at least one evil not sourced from the State". Real fucking helpful. When people use the excluded middle fallacy, they're pretending ~A implies B because A implies ~B, and it does not work that way.

[Doom]

Question:

What if "increases net utility" never actually happens?

[Username17]

Question:

What if "increases net utility" never actually happens?

If you have a personal definition of utility such that all changes are zero sum or necessarily negative, then I submit that your definition of utility is shitty and you should change it. While I'm aware that the number of deaths is one per person and total deaths always rises and never falls, defining your goals around that fact such that you can't ever make things "better" is stupid and self defeating.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

I mean, DSMatticus pretty much went off the deep end in his last post.

Do you understand that you have zero credibility here and basically look like a crazy person? You are adamantly refusing to defend yourself and even someone who'd read only one of your many crazy posts would be able to tell you are completely full of shit and straw and flailing desperately. You unironically played the "statist? moar liek stalinist, amirite?" card - you have skipped across the line from idiot to unaware self-parody.

Now, I'm not saying that because I want you to shut up. I am saying that because I am genuinely baffled. You seem to think that you have enough leg to stand on that you can be dismissive of your opponents without actually defending yourself or your positions. And it's weird that you think that. Everyone arguing with you already knows you are stupid and full of shit, and you will persuade exactly zero of us by refusing to respond meaningfully. And, again, I have trouble believing any neutral observer is going to take you seriously after the hilarious outburst of "stop being pro-murder stalinists, guys! god!" I have genuinely no idea what you hope to accomplish by refusing to respond to your critics and telling them you refuse to respond to them.

If your primary defense is "na na na na boo boo I have nothing to say to you," you should follow that up by not saying things. And if that is not what you want to do, you should defend yourself and the validity of your hilarious strawmen. Please. It'll be funny.

EDIT: ISP is actually the one who brought up utilitarianism originally. I have no idea what his personal measure of utilitarianism is, but he clearly has one. Now, ISP would probably argue that getting rid of the state is the path to optimum utility, because most of his actual rhetoric is state-bashing and not arguments about how the state is an illegitimate authority (though, I'm sure he'd say that too). ISP believes in fairy tales and happily ever afters and probably thinks the state is the source of most evil. That's weird in theory because the state is just an organization composed of individuals and if the state is dickish that is because dickish people exist. That's weird in practice because lawlessness is not particularly associated with happy times. I know ISP would argue that without the state dickish people wouldn't be able to grab power and use it to be dickish because reasons, but that seems contradicted by the fact that people do exactly that sort of power-grabbing all the time.

[Doom]

Question:

What if "increases net utility" never actually happens?

If you have a personal definition of utility such that all changes are zero sum or necessarily negative, then I submit that your definition of utility is shitty and you should change it. While I'm aware that the number of deaths is one per person and total deaths always rises and never falls, defining your goals around that fact such that you can't ever make things "better" is stupid and self defeating.

-Username17

Can you tell me where I gave such a definition?

[DSMatticus]

Question:

What if "increases net utility" never actually happens?

If you have a personal definition of utility such that all changes are zero sum or necessarily negative, then I submit that your definition of utility is shitty and you should change it. While I'm aware that the number of deaths is one per person and total deaths always rises and never falls, defining your goals around that fact such that you can't ever make things "better" is stupid and self defeating.

-Username17

Can you tell me where I gave such a definition?

Um. What? How did you fuck up your reading check that badly? 'If' is an important word, and you should know what it means. In this case, it is setting up the precondition for the rest of the text to apply. 'You' is also an important word, and you should understand that it can refer both to a specific person and a variable person. In this case, it is very clearly a variable person (the one who fulfills said precondition). That sentence makes zero statements about you, as in Doom.

You asked a question about what happens if net utility never increases. You got the answer that any person who has a metric by which net utility never increases has a shitty and pointless metric.

If you are trying to hint that some specific change or specific methodology can never produce net utility increases for certain meaningful utilitarian metrics, you'll have to be more specific. You might even have to make an argument to that effect.

[Doom]

So, not an answer to my question, then, just an acknowledgement that this point of view fails if taken to an infinite timeline, and that if it's never worked in the past, that doesn't preclude that it might in the future at some point.

Fair enough. What is the timeline?

[Kaelik]

So, not an answer to my question, then, just an acknowledgement that this point of view fails if taken to an infinite timeline, and that if it's never worked in the past, that doesn't preclude that it might in the future at some point.

Fair enough. What is the timeline?

No, not an acknowledgement of that. Because that is in no way related to your question. That thing you just said is literally completely unrelated to any question about utility not increasing.

I mean, the original definition that was proposed was years of human life. You'll notice that is a number that can only ever go up, and not down. While it is a shitty measure, it still very obviously has no timeline problem, because utility can, by that definition, never go down ever, only be a lesser increase.

[DSMatticus]

Doom: "What if net utility never actually increases?"
Frank: "Then you have a shitty measure of utility."
Doom: "What'd you say about my momma?!"
DSM: "He means 'you' in the general sense."
Doom: "Ah-hah! So you admit that net utility might never actually increase on an infinite timeline!"

No, seriously, that's the conversation. He leads strong with an "I can't into words," and then follows it up by throwing down his Yu-Gi-Oh trapcard in the middle of a game of backgammon. It's stupidity and non-sequiturs all the way down. He has no fucking idea what he's doing.

Doom wants to make an argument that net utility might never increase because every good thing you make happen might be countered by some equally bad thing later and you can't know that, but he doesn't want to actually make that argument because that would be fucking hard. So instead, he's trying to ask leading questions that suggest such a thing might be true and then gently ease his way into the topic he wants with something that looks like a gotcha. The problem, of course, is that the question he asked is very far away from the destination he wants to reach, and he tried to make it all the way to his end goal with a single non-sequitur. The end result is that he gave away the game, doesn't have his gotcha, and looks really fucking stupid pretending he does.

But the core of it, stupidity and dishonesty aside, is that Doom wants you to question whether or not you can make the world a better place for any definition of better you'd care to name: remember, utilitarianism can technically replicate any value system just by defining utility correctly, and Doom hasn't actually narrowed the field of consideration at all. Doom could refine his argument by actually making his argument (what sorts of utility measures are we discussing? what leads you to believe net utility can never increase under that measure? is this discussion limited to any particular domain of actions, i.e. the state?), but I doubt he will because 1) that would involve stapling down specifics that could then be meaningfully discussed, and 2) he will be busy accusing me of misrepresenting him with this post. I don't really care. I'm pretty sure his arguments speak for themself as to how shitty he's being right now - that was really fucking blatant and transparent and there's not a lot to hide behind.

[Doom]

Wow, one simple question provokes such vitriol and pants-wetting rage. You guys really made your point well for this school of thought.

Bravo!

[Kaelik]

Wow, one simple question provokes such vitriol and pants-wetting rage.

No one is mad you asked a question. I am mad that you asked a stupid vague question and then pretended that the answer given somehow justified your inane criticism that had nothing to do with that question. That was annoying.

[Doom]

Wow, the reading miscomprehension here is *epic*.

I withdraw my question.

[...You Lost Me]

Interesting how you refuse to clarify your argument whatsoever and instead cry and blame others for not understanding you. DSM seems to be on the ball with these post predictions.

[fbmf]

It is Doom's MO. He shuts down when asked for clarification.

Game On,
fbmf

[Doom]

Uh, I didn't *have* an argument. I had a question. That's what "?" signifies in human communication, I even preceded it with "question" just to make it clear that it was a question. I know better than to use lots of words in a post here, it's all but impossible for the troll partrol not to find a way to get confused.

[MGuy]

Doom... what reality do you live in? You have acknowledged that you've provided no definition for it and going by what Frank has already used as a definition makes it so your question can't apply. So either you have to provide a definition or your question is inapplicable.

[Kaelik]

Uh, I didn't *have* an argument. I had a question. That's what "?" signifies in human communication, I even preceded it with "question" just to make it clear that it was a question. I know better than to use lots of words in a post here, it's all but impossible for the troll partrol not to find a way to get confused.

If all you had is a question, seems pretty odd that you immediately jumped to a completely unrelated thing that no one else said at any point.

[erik]

Doom, you didn't have "a question" you had several questions, and with each additional question they compounded douchiness. If you just had the one question and then clarified what you meant rather than shoving words into the mouths of others, you might have escaped without soggy britches.

First question was a bit vague. "What if?"
Second question was a non sequitur "Can I demonstrate where I forgot what 'if' means?"
Third question was a pointless question after an assertion. "What happens when you indulge me by accepting my silly premise as relevant?"

And yes you had an argument, you just couched some of it in questions. You made an argument by stating that someone answering a vague question with a hypothetical was somehow an acknowledgement of your premise.

Speaking of pants-wetting vitriol...

And, fuck you, you piece of shit moderator.

*golf clap*

[edit: amended my direct quote to be in blocks for posterity since doom edited it out of his post. My other Quotations were paraphrasing unlike the one at the end.

[DSMatticus]

Uh, I didn't *have* an argument.

So, not an answer to my question, then, just an acknowledgement that this point of view fails if taken to an infinite timeline...

That is not a question. It is a statement about the answer to the question. Your question was answered, and then you made a statement about the answer. The statement you made about that answer was factually untrue and a complete non-sequitur. People called you on this.

Then you started whining about how people were giving you shit just for asking a simple question. Ironically, this is another statement you've made that is also factually untrue. You did make a statement, and it has been explained to you repeatedly that the thing people are giving you shit for is that very statement and not the question itself. To which you have responded by continuing to whine about how people are giving you shit just for asking a simple question, except more condescendingly.

But hey, at least it's a little bit hilarious that you are complaining about how the "troll patrol" will find a way to get confused unless you keep it brief, and then in the span of three such brief posts manage to completely lose track of the things you have already said. Well, no, let's be honest. This is just deliberate bullshitting as a defense mechanism. I know you're a deceitful asshole. I still remember the time you quoted me in your sig by cutting a sentence in half so it looked completely different.

"And, fuck you, you piece of shit moderator."

*golf clap*

Bwuh? If that was part of Doom's post, you should know he edited it out and now things are confusing and weird. If that wasn't part of Doom's post, things are still confusing and weird.