Slightly tangentially: the conversation about Mars always seems to turn to colonization. And it makes me sad that humans fantasize about terraforming Mars when they can't even stop themselves de-terraforming Earth. This discovery is interesting in itself though.
Sigh, I had posted this to Hubski hoping for a debate a cut above what was going on at Reddit. There is nothing "retarded" about the view that educators should not simply define away the whole question of moral realism versus antirealism. How ethical discourse and debate works is very much a live and open question, just as much as the ethical questions themselves. Whatever our ultimate stance on ethical realism versus antirealism (or all of the more subtle position that this crude dichotomy of options obscures) it is by no means obvious which is right. It is not dispiriting to see people taking a the view that "there are no moral facts". But it is dispiriting to see people treating this as obvious and anyone who disagrees as "retarded". This has been a live philosophical debate for as long as we have records of such things (excepting those times and places where people were too afraid to speak the questions aloud). I'm not aware of any great recent discovery that suddenly makes the answer obvious beyond debate. And yet quite a few people seem to think moral realism is just obviously wrong. To plenty of intelligent people it's not obvious. To me that just confirms that something has gone awry in our culture - people are not merely siding with moral antirealism and relativism (which could be fine), but they're not even aware that there's a debate to be had about this and if anyone proposes a debate they get written off as an idiot. And I don't know what you mean by "Plus those are the actual definitions" of fact and opinion. Whose definitions? Who's the authority on this? Maybe they're accepted definitions in US educational institutions, but the point of the article is to question them.Exactly, the author of the article is retarded.
That's a pretty succinct summary of the problem with US police these days. This attitude is the problem. How far gone do you have to be to say that and not notice what's wrong with it?Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?
Popular Science's explanation of why they shut off comments is worth reading: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-commentsA politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.
I once got spotted by a bishop swigging communion wine out of the bottle in the vestry. I think it may have been consecrated. He didn't say anything but I saw he saw and he saw that I saw that he saw. So I hereby use Hubski to say: I'm sorry, I was a young idiot being idiotic. I don't believe in an eternity of damnation but I do believe in the eternal douchiness of me in that moment. Sorry, Bish.
No, I mean that we are easily distracted into fantasy when we find the real problems before us overwhelming. And we tend to overestimate our abilities: the best proof that we could terraform Mars would, surely, be fixing the climate problems we're creating here on Earth.
One of the interesting things about Hubski is how it uses a different mechanic from reddit and its clones - it's not a simple vote up/down and the most popular wins, there's a sideways sharing thing going on too. I feel like sharing something on Hubski is more of a commitment to stand behind it than upvoting something on reddit or a reddit clone. I wonder whether that simple difference has anything to do with the more civil tone of discussion on Hubski?