A discussion on TFES forum

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brimstoneSalad
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

Post by brimstoneSalad »

teo123 wrote:And how do you know if something is ethical or not? Aren't the philosophers the actual experts on the issue?
No, people who consider themselves "philosophers" is too broad a stroke. It includes rational consequentialists, and irrational deontologists and theologians. There are even Randians considered philosophers.

It is unfortunately a polluted field, because unlike in science where pseudoscience is basically exiled, the tradition in academic philosophy is to accept everybody and all ideas -- even dialetheism.
teo123 wrote:Only 60% of them of them think it's wrong to eat meat from mammals
You may not realize this, but 60% is still a majority. :roll:
And that's even considering the mess that is the field of philosophy today. It's hard to get them to agree that it's wrong to kill humans.

The argument against eating meat is very simple.

You need to learn basic logic so you can understand them yourself.

Start by learning what a premise is:
http://www.uky.edu/~rosdatte/phi120/lesson1a.htm
http://people.umass.edu/klement/100/logic.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premise

Premises are typically empirical, which means science: and philosophers are not scientists. Some even deny that animals are sentient, and they are WRONG when they do so, since that violates scientific consensus.

Philosophy only deals with the reasoning, not in validating the empirical premises (that part is science).
teo123 wrote:and most of them still do that.
That doesn't negate the understanding that it's immoral; actually it makes it more credible.

If a person eats meat, that person has a cognitive bias in favor of deciding meat is moral. As such, if they decide it is immoral to eat meat despite that bias against vegetarianism, the argument must be VERY strong to overcome such a bias.

Much like how Dawkins admits it is wrong to eat meat: he does that despite his biases in favor of eating meat due to his behavior. He is forced to admit it because the argument is so strong.

teo123 wrote:And what if what I've been told in school is actually true? Seriously, which country is more likely to be corrupt: the small Croatia or the big USA? It takes only one person to corrupt the whole government, so, since USA has way more people, USA is way more likely to be corrupt.
No, it takes poor transparency and power concentrated in FEWER individuals to create corruption, or the collusion of many people, not one person acting alone. One corrupt person acting alone in a transparent system is caught and put in jail or fired.

The U.S. has highly distributed power, and it is much more transparent (freedom of information), so it takes a massive conspiracy to carry out any meaningful corruption.

I already linked you to the corruption index.
STOP assuming you can understand these things. You don't know how corruption works, and you don't understand how it affects government systemically.
The corruption index makes it clear that your country is more corrupt.
Your country is also less educated and more controlled by religion, which is NOT science.

You might as well ask "what if the flat Earthers are right after all?" and go back to square one.

The scientific consensus is right (which is not just based on one country, but across many), and your unscientific corrupt government is wrong.
teo123 wrote:Anyway, that case shows that doing the experiments doesn't help those who don't think logically, as you say it does. Namely, he tried to test his lemon-juice hypothesis and it seemed to work.
An experiment is not very meaningful if it is not blinded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_experiment

Lack of blinded experiments is a large part of what defines pseudoscience. You will often confirm your beliefs through subtle biases in observation if you aren't blinded.
teo123 wrote:And I don't understand how do you mean that science doesn't make things purely mathematical? How is engineering done then? I mean, if you know Bool's algebra, you can figure out by yourself how does an electronic circuit add, subtract, multiply or divide binary numbers. While I am not quite certain, I think that it's quite similar for other types of engineering.
You have to start with a correct understanding of how the science works to translate correctly between empirical fact to math, and from math interpret the results back into empirical facts.
You could do the math, but if you don't understand the empirical reality properly, you can not translate to and from the mathematical form.

You also have to have a means to check your math, or you may have done it wrong. You could check your math when it came to a distance equation, and in those limited cases you can figure things out by yourself.

Ask yourself how you check your conclusions, and how you prove them. Can you do it? If not, then you are not qualified to come to conclusions on your own.
teo123 wrote:And I think that people who have, let's say, backyard chickens have more illusions about how is factory farming done. I haven't found any study about it, but that's what I concluded by talking with people about these things.
Don't make assumptions based on your own reasoning and experiences.
teo123 wrote:And, about that your suggestion not to make any conclusions by yourself if you can find out what the scientific consensus is, what about when you don't have access to the scientific consensus?
If you don't have access to the knowledge, then you will be stupid for the rest of your life.
You have access, though, now that you should know how to find it.
teo123 wrote:Most of the people don't do that, yet they manage to make good day-to-day decisions.
No they don't, they make terrible decisions constantly. They just don't usually make decisions which kill them quickly (before they procreate) due to evolution. If somebody makes lethal decisions, that person won't survive to have children and teach those methods of decision to them.

For example, eating meat probably won't kill you until you're 50, which is well after most people have children and teach them to eat meat.

People make very bad financial choices, bad relationship choices, harmful diet choices, they misunderstand the universe to such an extreme degree that they're essentially wrong about everything in terms of science and religion, they survive on primitive instincts in a modern society. All they have to do is live long enough to procreate and teach their children their bad (but less lethal) habits which let them survive for 40 years.
teo123 wrote:And do you trust your intuition when it tells you that somebody is lying or being a lunatic?
I can't very reliably guess if somebody is crazy or lying, but if somebody is wrong, it's going to be one or the other ("crazy" in the informal sense).

Claiming the Earth is flat is a crazy claim. Either you are crazy to believe it (which you were, your brain was running on broken software), or you didn't actually believe it and you were lying.

As to the difficulty of rigorously defining insanity, that's another matter.
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

Post by teo123 »

It is unfortunately a polluted field, because unlike in science where pseudoscience is basically exiled, the tradition in academic philosophy is to accept everybody and all ideas -- even dialetheism.
And how do you know those ideas are bad? Isn't dialetheism exactly what quantum physics is teaching us?
You may not realize this, but 60% is still a majority.
I meant, if only 60% agree it's wrong to eat meat from mammals, how many of them do you think agree that eating all animal products is wrong?
The corruption index makes it clear that your country is more corrupt.
So, where is that corruption? The media is full of the stories about the corruption in other countries, probably about a half of them being in America, yet there is nothing about the corruption in Croatia. If there were such stories in Croatia, the media would benefit from publishing them because more people would listen to them. It's your government that wages pointless wars, it's your government that gives innocent people capital punishments, it's your government that's constantly being accused of conspiracies… There is nothing like that in Croatia.
Your country is also less educated and more controlled by religion, which is NOT science.
Croatia invests large amounts of money in education. In fact, many people argue they invest too much money in education. And Croatia is quite successful on international science competitions. It won 76 medals on the International Informatics Olympiad, 11 of them being golden. It was 16th this year. And in 2012, it was 5th. On International Mathematical Olympiad, it was 15th in 2016. That's extremely good, considering that it only has 4 million people. And, I don't know about USA, but 4% of Croats define themselves as atheists. Besides, this all things with Creationism and Global Warming Denial happen mostly in USA. Many famous scientists were Croats. Nikola Tesla, Slavoljub Penkala, Ruder Boskovic, just to name a few. And, again, Croatia has only 4 million people.
The scientific consensus is right (which is not just based on one country, but across many), and your unscientific corrupt government is wrong.
OK, how am I supposed not to be completely messed up if I believe that our government is in a conspiracy? I would have no problem believing that when I believed there were no airplanes and that the Earth was flat, but now I simply don't want to believe such things again.
An experiment is not very meaningful if it is not blinded.
And how would you make a double-blind experiment testing the hypothesis that covering someone's face with lemon juice makes it invisible to the camera? And, correct me if I am wrong, but most of the studies favoring vegetarianism also aren't blinded.
Ask yourself how you check your conclusions, and how you prove them. Can you do it? If not, then you are not qualified to come to conclusions on your own.
Well, now, many things I think I've concluded by myself were concluded using computer-simulations. For example, I was trying to figure out how do processors do some things, and, when I figured it out, I checked my solution in Logisim, and it worked. I also used computer simulators to figure out things about programming for mobile phones, and for programming in assembler. Do you think I am justified to believe that those things I discovered would work in real life?
And, on the other hand, if you are fractally wrong about something, yet enough confident, you can still build a computer simulation proving what you believe, just like I did with the perspective.
So, do you think that computer simulations are a way of knowing?
Don't make assumptions based on your own reasoning and experiences.
Then, what assumptions am I justified to make to make any decision? Am I, for example, not justified to believe that a brick can fall on me if I am near a ruin, just because I see that bricks can fall down if not properly fixed?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

Post by brimstoneSalad »

teo123 wrote:Isn't dialetheism exactly what quantum physics is teaching us?
No, it is not. Not even remotely. Take everything you think you know about quantum physics and throw it out: you know nothing about quantum physics but myths and lies.
teo123 wrote:I meant, if only 60% agree it's wrong to eat meat from mammals, how many of them do you think agree that eating all animal products is wrong?
You'd have to do a survey, but you'd also have to limit it to philosophers who accept logic, accept consequentialism, and limit the questions to assume the premises provided by scientific consensus, since most philosophers are ignorant of science.

Doing that, you would find very different results.
teo123 wrote:So, where is that corruption? The media is full of the stories about the corruption in other countries, probably about a half of them being in America, yet there is nothing about the corruption in Croatia.
Nobody cares about Croatia, and beyond that it's not news when somebody in Croatia is corrupt. There also aren't many stories of corruption in Russia or China or Italy.
It's actually news when corruption is discovered in a generally non-corrupt government.

You're falling for a media publication bias.

We see the same thing when children are killed, or white people are killed in a rich area: lots of reporting. Black adults killed in a poor area doesn't make the news. Would you assume based on that most murder victims are cute white kids?
You'd be an idiot to do so.

Media reporting is not a statistically valid survey, it's telling people unusual things, things people are interested in, things that will bring in views and money.
teo123 wrote:If there were such stories in Croatia, the media would benefit from publishing them because more people would listen to them.
Are you talking about the media IN Croatia? :lol: So China's probably spotless, since the media in China never reports corruption (except on cleaning up corruption, with a positive spin).
The fact that your media doesn't report corruption is an indication of how commonplace it is, and how corrupt it is that your government probably keeps a thumb on the media, or is so corrupt and there's so much complicity and such low transparency it's hard to reveal the corruption.

The corruption index makes it very clear how corrupt your country is. End of story. You are in no place to contradict that. You're an idiotic country bumpkin overtaken by irrational feelings of patriotism that blind you to reality. If you don't want to believe your country is corrupt, you can fuck off.

Your country is obviously very corrupt and ignorant. Your school books are obviously wrong. If you want to believe it and live in ignorance, again, you can fuck off. I was trying to teach you, but you're pissing me off again.
teo123 wrote:It's your government that wages pointless wars, it's your government that gives innocent people capital punishments, it's your government that's constantly being accused of conspiracies…
You should know conspiracies don't work, they fall apart. Look at Snowden.
The government transparency and ethics of whistleblowing assure that.

Wars are irrelevant to corruption, and have more to do with incompetence and bad international diplomacy.
Mistakes in capital punishment also is not an indication of corruption: they are honest mistakes made by jury trials.

In order for those things to stem from corruption, there would have to be a massive conspiracy (like all of the jurors bought, evidence falsified, etc.). That's moronic.

Having a low corruption index doesn't mean a country is perfect, a country with low corruption can still have bad democratically elected policies and incompetent governance. The important thing is that the government doesn't meddle in the scientific community and inject propaganda instead of science as your government does.

teo123 wrote:Croatia invests large amounts of money in education.
They invest it badly, into propaganda. You're proof that your education system doesn't work well.
The U.S. education system isn't much better. Public education in general is of poor quality.
teo123 wrote:And Croatia is quite successful on international science competitions. It won 76 medals on the International Informatics Olympiad, 11 of them being golden. It was 16th this year. And in 2012, it was 5th. On International Mathematical Olympiad, it was 15th in 2016. That's extremely good, considering that it only has 4 million people. And, I don't know about USA, but 4% of Croats define themselves as atheists. Besides, this all things with Creationism and Global Warming Denial happen mostly in USA. Many famous scientists were Croats. Nikola Tesla, Slavoljub Penkala, Ruder Boskovic, just to name a few. And, again, Croatia has only 4 million people.
Then why are your school books filled with pseudoscience bullshit? Why do you have a theology book at all? That's not something that should be studied in public school. Do you even have separation of church and state written into your constitution?
Why did you come out of your public school system believing the Earth was flat while getting top marks?

Maybe there's good science education in some national capital that makes up for the piss poor education in the countryside and produces good scientists now and then. Wherever it is, you clearly don't have access to it, and your school is clearly teaching you for shit.

teo123 wrote:OK, how am I supposed not to be completely messed up if I believe that our government is in a conspiracy? I would have no problem believing that when I believed there were no airplanes and that the Earth was flat, but now I simply don't want to believe such things again.
They could also just be complete morons.

Your government is small and more corrupt, so it's much easier for them to pull off a conspiracy. The larger a conspiracy is, the easier it is for it to fall apart.
I don't know why your schools are filled with religious bullshit. It may even be written into your constitution that your education system teaches theology and that your school books are written and approved by the church (in which case the conspiracy to lie to the students is rooted in your church, or they're just idiots, which is probably a given).

The largest conspiracies in the modern day were instigated by religions. Look at operation Snow White. When religious faith is involved, it's much easier to get people to keep secrets.

But it's not a secret, apparently, that your school books are filled with bullshit. It's no secret that middle school and high school books generally are filled with factual errors and the propaganda of their biased authors. Low level schools have very poor educational standards across the world.
Croatia would only be expected to be worse than the U.S. based on its corruption.

teo123 wrote: And how would you make a double-blind experiment testing the hypothesis that covering someone's face with lemon juice makes it invisible to the camera?
You plug your nose, and mix up solution A (lemon juice) and solution B (water). You have somebody else label them so you don't know which is which.
You test both.
teo123 wrote: And, correct me if I am wrong, but most of the studies favoring vegetarianism also aren't blinded.
The statistical analysis of the data is usually done blinded. When dealing with a trial, like having somebody take cholesterol and seeing its effects, some people get cholesterol and some will usually get a placebo (like in the example above), and the experimenters don't know which is which until after.
There are many ways to blind studies.

You don't understand this kind of thing.
teo123 wrote: Do you think I am justified to believe that those things I discovered would work in real life?
If you did a blind trial in the simulation, you can believe them about the simulation. It only applied to the computer, it doesn't necessarily apply to anything in reality outside the computer.
teo123 wrote: And, on the other hand, if you are fractally wrong about something, yet enough confident, you can still build a computer simulation proving what you believe, just like I did with the perspective.
Which is why you can only assume the computer simulation applies to the computer. You can't "translate" results from the computer to the real world so trivially.
You have to not be fractally wrong, and the only way to make sure is to test against reality in a blinded experiment.
teo123 wrote:So, do you think that computer simulations are a way of knowing?
Usually not, no.
Definitely not for you.
teo123 wrote:Then, what assumptions am I justified to make to make any decision? Am I, for example, not justified to believe that a brick can fall on me if I am near a ruin, just because I see that bricks can fall down if not properly fixed?
No, but you are justified in not walking under bricks anyway because you have no reason to do so, and they may or may not be capable of falling.
It's called the precautionary principle.

In order to have a justified belief about bricks falling, it would have to be statistical: you'd have to experiment and determine the odds of a brick falling.
Lacking that, it's OK to be careful. Unless somebody else did an experiment which showed that the odds of a brick falling were one in a trillion: in which case, your fear would be proved irrational.
Sometimes people make assumptions about dangers in their environments without evidence, and these create phobias which affect their lives.

If you have no reason to walk around under unstable bricks, though, it's fine not to do it to be careful.
If an authority has said that bricks may fall, it's reasonable to believe that authority unless you have evidence to the contrary from a higher authority, or a study you have done yourself with proper blinds and statistical analysis.
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

Post by teo123 »

You'd have to do a survey, but you'd also have to limit it to philosophers who accept logic, accept consequentialism, and limit the questions to assume the premises provided by scientific consensus, since most philosophers are ignorant of science.
Yeah, yeah, so, basically, include only those who think that science is the only way of knowing, right? I would be surprised if there were any. And why would they need to accept consequentialism? I mean, many vegans are deontologists, since they, for example, avoid honey, even though there is almost certainly nothing bad with it, just because it comes from, probably non-sentient, animals. And, correct me if I am wrong, but consequentialism teaches that we should basically punish people for not knowing everything.
Would you assume based on that most murder victims are cute white kids?
Kids? No. White? Probably, whites are majority. That's called null-hypothesis, right? Or do you have some study that shows otherwise?
You're an idiotic country bumpkin overtaken by irrational feelings of patriotism that blind you to reality.
And you could also be.
They are honest mistakes made by jury trials.
How do you know?
Then why are your school books filled with pseudoscience bullshit?
Probably because authors of the text-books are ignorant, and so are those who are supposed to check them.
Why do you have a theology book at all? That's not something that should be studied in public school.
Why not? And it's not even an obligatory subject. I am just too lazy to do what's necessary for me not to attend it any more. And I don't even see what's wrong with it, everyone gets A there.
Do you even have separation of church and state written into your constitution?
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia#Religion
Why did you come out of your public school system believing the Earth was flat while getting top marks?
Probably because the exams didn't show me I have such weird misconceptions. I did very well solving the tasks, so…
Maybe there's good science education in some national capital that makes up for the piss poor education in the countryside and produces good scientists now and then. Wherever it is, you clearly don't have access to it, and your school is clearly teaching you for shit.
Not quite. I was 4th in Croatia in ICT, and 7th in Croatia in Latin. And, yes, on the national competitions, there are many students from Zagreb, the capital, but that's probably because Zagreb has 25% of the Croatia's population.
When religious faith is involved, it's much easier to get people to keep secrets.
You know, we've recently had an atheist president: Ivo Josipovic. So much about it. And, no, our government wasn't putting people into jail for being Christians, as your government apparently does.
You plug your nose, and mix up solution A (lemon juice) and solution B (water). You have somebody else label them so you don't know which is which.
You test both.
That wouldn't work. Plugging your nose isn't enough. The lemon juice would also be burning your eyes when you wear it.
The statistical analysis of the data is usually done blinded. When dealing with a trial, like having somebody take cholesterol and seeing its effects, some people get cholesterol and some will usually get a placebo (like in the example above), and the experimenters don't know which is which until after.
I was talking about those studies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism#Longevity
Usually not, no.
I must say I am very surprised that there are people who think like that. Where would our modern physics be without the computer simulations? Where would our modern chemistry be without the computer simulations? Where would our modern physiology be without the computer simulations? Wouldn't the modern engineerings be almost impossible without the computer simulations? I mean, yeah, you would definitely need to be a bit more careful than I am in drawing the conclusions, but that doesn't mean they are useless.
In order to have a justified belief about bricks falling, it would have to be statistical: you'd have to experiment and determine the odds of a brick falling.
Why then did you say then that flying was a common place just because you were there about 50 times? Isn't that line of reasoning then very fallacious?
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

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teo123 wrote: Yeah, yeah, so, basically, include only those who think that science is the only way of knowing, right?
That's not what I said.
The scientific method is the only reliable way to answer EMPIRICAL questions which appear in premises.

Some things can be reasoned, but empirical matters typically can not be.

If I have a box here, can you reason how many marbles are in it without any measurement?
No.

You use science to measure reality and identify facts: like that most animals are conscious and sentient, providing at least we eliminate solipsism from the equation.

Many philosophers are just profoundly ignorant of empirical reality.

teo123 wrote: And why would they need to accept consequentialism? I mean, many vegans are deontologists, since they, for example, avoid honey, even though there is almost certainly nothing bad with it, just because it comes from, probably non-sentient, animals.
Because consequentialism is a process of reason, and deontology is a process of dogmatic assertions supported only by faith. Two deontologists can't reliably come to consensus, since the assertions they make are nothing but distilled bias.

The conclusions of vegan deontologists are not valid, because they were not reached through logic, but simply arbitrary assumptions about some set of impractical rules of what is supposedly wrong based on their personal biases.
teo123 wrote: And, correct me if I am wrong, but consequentialism teaches that we should basically punish people for not knowing everything.
You're wrong. As in the case of the Earth's shape, you don't know anything about this subject, but you're making assumptions anyway.
teo123 wrote: Kids? No. White? Probably, whites are majority. That's called null-hypothesis, right? Or do you have some study that shows otherwise?
Not globally, and not in the places where the most murder occurs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Most victims are apparently "brown" or "black", but there are rarely covered on the news, evan in places like the states where the non-white population is high.
You can't get your information of probability from the media, they have reporting biases, and only report what makes them money, or based on the biases of the reporters and networks. It's not statistically representative of reality.
teo123 wrote: And you could also be.
I hold no patriotic feelings for any country. I care about citizens of the world.
teo123 wrote:
They are honest mistakes made by jury trials.
How do you know?
Because conspiracy theories on that scale are pretty much mathematically impossible.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35411684
teo123 wrote:
Then why are your school books filled with pseudoscience bullshit?
Probably because authors of the text-books are ignorant, and so are those who are supposed to check them.
There you go, then. It's acceptable to blame it on ignorance, but it's not acceptable for you to claim that they are correct and the rest of the world is wrong.

I'm saying you need to use Western sources, because they're more reliable than your middle school or high school text books. And governments of smaller countries don't have the knowledge, resources, or political transparency and low corruption necessary to make the least biased recommendations.

Even the U.S. government is subject to bias: look at the USDA which regularly promotes meat. It's just lesser than most other countries, so it's the best of the sources you'll find. And if you look on government resources from the USDA, they provide nutrition recommendations for vegetarians/vegans, and links to other credible sources.

https://fnic.nal.usda.gov/lifecycle-nutrition/vegetarian-nutrition
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/tips-vegetarians
teo123 wrote: Why not? And it's not even an obligatory subject. I am just too lazy to do what's necessary for me not to attend it any more. And I don't even see what's wrong with it, everyone gets A there.
What is necessary to not attend it? Do you have to get a religious exemption?
It's a problem when a public school is devoting public resources to teaching religion.

Is it a general theology class where you study all religions, or is it devoted to a particular religion?
You need to look into separation of church and state.
teo123 wrote: You know, we've recently had an atheist president: Ivo Josipovic. So much about it. And, no, our government wasn't putting people into jail for being Christians, as your government apparently does.
You don't know where I live. If you're talking about the U.S. government (I assume you think that's where I'm from since I recommended U.S. sources and use it as a reference for educational standards), that's some pretty absurd propaganda.
You're still buying into the conspiracy theories.

An atheist president doesn't mean anything if the vast majority of the people and the government as a whole favors religious indoctrination.

teo123 wrote: That wouldn't work. Plugging your nose isn't enough. The lemon juice would also be burning your eyes when you wear it.
Now you're starting to understand it. Put it on your hands, and just film your hands then. Or wear goggles. Whatever your theory is, you usually can find a way to test it. If it is by definition impossible to test, then your theory is probably not a theory at all, but pseudoscience.

Acupuncture is a good example of a practice that's very hard to placebo test, but it has been done (both with sham acupuncture, and with other forms of pinching and pricking, and I believe small electric shocks to simulate the feeling of needles).
teo123 wrote: I was talking about those studies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism#Longevity
Yes, the statisticians are typically blinded.

It won't be labeled "vegetarian group" and "meat eat group", it will be labeled Group A and Group B. Then they analyze the data and say which one had fewer deaths. Then you reveal that group A was vegetarians.
This way no biases affect the analysis of the data, and result in math or rounding errors to distort the numbers (intentional or not).

Population studies, however, are of limited use because people self report their diets (they often lie), and it's hard to get a good breakdown of what they're actually eating. There are also other variables involved.
For example, instead of eating butter, a vegan may make the mistake of eating shortening with trans fats -- that could be worse than butter, and take away some of the benefit. Or the vegan may assume his or her risk of cancer is lower (it likely is), but because of that not go to the doctor for a checkup, while the meat eater visits the doctor and the cancer is caught and treated. Fewer vegans would get cancer, but if they don't watch out for it, those who do may be more likely to die from it sooner. Some vegans also spend too much time in the sun, etc.
There are so many variables which affect life and health, unless you control ALL of them, it's very hard to take strong conclusions from population studies like that.

The best studies are those where people are fed in a lab one food or another, and we look at the effects on their blood over a short term. These studies can be blinded, and we can be sure they consumed what was given. When the people are tested, the nurse or doctor just knows it's A or B, and the patient doesn't say whether he or she was eating vegan or not that day, and they take the numbers, and a statistician analyses them without knowing which group is A or B.

Usually, the more blinding the better, and the less the chance of biases affecting the results. Sometimes blinding is unnecessary, but you don't understand science well enough to know when it is or isn't necessary, so you should use blinding all of the time and assume it's always necessary for your purposes.

teo123 wrote:
Usually not, no.
I must say I am very surprised that there are people who think like that. Where would our modern physics be without the computer simulations? Where would our modern chemistry be without the computer simulations? Where would our modern physiology be without the computer simulations? Wouldn't the modern engineerings be almost impossible without the computer simulations? I mean, yeah, you would definitely need to be a bit more careful than I am in drawing the conclusions, but that doesn't mean they are useless.
I said usually not, because people have to be very careful in drawing the conclusions, and you can't trust most people to be able to do that.

And the ONLY way we can test these is by running certain simulations in them that we know the results of in reality, and making sure they're accurate. They have to be carefully tested and calibrated, and even then it's not perfect. Computer simulations make mistaken predictions because the laws that govern them are approximated. Anything built by engineers on computers needs to be field tested too, it mostly just helps with iterations in design. If it passes a computer test, then it can go on to be tested in reality.
teo123 wrote:
In order to have a justified belief about bricks falling, it would have to be statistical: you'd have to experiment and determine the odds of a brick falling.
Why then did you say then that flying was a common place just because you were there about 50 times? Isn't that line of reasoning then very fallacious?
I didn't say it was common because I flew 50 times or whatever. I said it was common. And I gave an example to give you context.

http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/ ... 30-01.aspx
IATA wrote:On average, every day more than 8 million people fly. In 2013 total passenger numbers were 3.1 billion—surpassing the 3 billion mark for the first time ever. That number is expected to grow to 3.3 billion in 2014 (equivalent to 44% of the world's population).
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

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If I have a box here, can you reason how many marbles are in it without any measurement?
No.
Well, yes, but you can reason, for example, the formula for the kinetic energy or the centripetal force, if you understand the Newton's three axioms.
Because consequentialism is a process of reason, and deontology is a process of dogmatic assertions supported only by faith. Two deontologists can't reliably come to consensus, since the assertions they make are nothing but distilled bias.
Well, consequentialists often can't agree about what the consequences might be or what consequences matter. For instance, I thought that everyone going vegan would make al the food ridiculously expensive, and it's not a stretch to imagine that many philosophers also think that.
You're wrong. As in the case of the Earth's shape, you don't know anything about this subject, but you're making assumptions anyway.
How? Consequentialism teaches that we should punish those who do the actions that have bad consequences. People do such actions because they are ignorant. I am not a mathematician, but adding up two and two isn't hard.
Most victims are apparently "brown" or "black", but there are rarely covered on the news, evan in places like the states where the non-white population is high.
How do you know? Yes, the white race globally isn't a majority, but it's the majority in US. It's hard to imagine that most of the murder victims belong to the 12% of the US population, that is, blacks, isn't it?
Because conspiracy theories on that scale are pretty much mathematically impossible.
Why? I mean, you just need to corrupt the judge and maybe, if you want to be certain it would work, a few of others.
What is necessary to not attend it? Do you have to get a religious exemption?
No, I and my parent just have to sign some papers at the beginning of a school year for me not to attend it any more, since I already attend it. My mother didn't want to do it, and I didn't insist. Now I don't even understand why would that be important.
Is it a general theology class where you study all religions, or is it devoted to a particular religion?
To Catholicism. Most of the Croats are Catholics. Though they also teach Islamic theology to Muslims in school.
Or the vegan may assume his or her risk of cancer is lower (it likely is), but because of that not go to the doctor for a checkup, while the meat eater visits the doctor and the cancer is caught and treated. Fewer vegans would get cancer, but if they don't watch out for it, those who do may be more likely to die from it sooner.
Yeah! I think that many vegans and vegetarians overestimate the effect of the diet to their body. It's only around 30% less risk of heart disease. It's very unlikely to actually affect your life. Vegetarians, according to those studies, live, on average, 3-4 years longer. But that doesn't mean it's likely that you will live longer by going vegetarian.
Sometimes blinding is unnecessary, but you don't understand science well enough to know when it is or isn't necessary, so you should use blinding all of the time and assume it's always necessary for your purposes.
That's true. In the case of McArthur Wheeler, he probably assumed it was unnecessary to test whether a face without a lemon juice is going to be visible on camera. It always is.
I said usually not, because people have to be very careful in drawing the conclusions, and you can't trust most people to be able to do that.
Well, many things in science have been figured out using computer simulations, so, do you think that those things are uncertain?
On average, every day more than 8 million people fly. In 2013 total passenger numbers were 3.1 billion—surpassing the 3 billion mark for the first time ever. That number is expected to grow to 3.3 billion in 2014 (equivalent to 44% of the world's population).
That's probably just the same people going many times. But, still, damn, I had no bright idea how big conspiracy I was asserting.
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

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I hold no patriotic feelings for any country. I care about citizens of the world.
I think it's good to have patriotic feelings. At least it makes it easier to get a good job, right?
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

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teo123 wrote:I think it's good to have patriotic feelings. At least it makes it easier to get a good job, right?
Well, I don't think they're very justified. Being born in a country is pretty much an accident at birth, you didn't choose to be born in a country, it just happens to be where you were born, buy the actions of your parents and possibly the actions of those before them. And depending on the state, doubt it's harder to get a job if your patriotic or not.
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

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teo123 wrote: Well, yes, but you can reason, for example, the formula for the kinetic energy or the centripetal force, if you understand the Newton's three axioms.
If you had perfect reasoning ability, you may be able to. But if you can't check your result against reality, you'll never know if you made a mistake somewhere.

Newton's laws are also a little bit low in accuracy/precision. See special relativity.

That still won't help you figure out how many marbles there are, though.

Some questions are logical in nature, while others are more strictly empirical. The latter you need to answer with scientific evidence.
teo123 wrote:Well, consequentialists often can't agree about what the consequences might be or what consequences matter.
Consequences are an empirical matter. They don't agree when they are guessing. It's up to scientists and economists to determine consequences. This isn't the philosopher's field of expertise.
teo123 wrote:For instance, I thought that everyone going vegan would make al the food ridiculously expensive, and it's not a stretch to imagine that many philosophers also think that.
That's because you tried to answer an empirical question by reasoning it out without understanding the field of economics.
If you had asked an economist, you would have gotten the correct answer.

This is where the arrogance of some philosophers can be a pitfall. They assume they can reason anything out without bothering to learn about the science, and without bothering to check with an expert. Usually, they can do no such thing.
teo123 wrote:How? Consequentialism teaches that we should punish those who do the actions that have bad consequences.
Consequentialism teaches no such thing.

You've completely misunderstood consequentialism.

It teaches we should do things with the best consequences.
If somebody does something with bad consequences, we can say that was wrong, BUT it does not say we should punish that person. We should only punish that person IF punishing him or her has the best consequences (like, for example, teaches him or her to stop doing that harmful thing). That's not an assumption you can make. Consequences are empirical, and require science.

When you look into the actual science on criminal justice, you find that punishment often increases criminality, and jail makes people worse. What consequentialism suggests, then, is that we reform and teach them instead of taking vengeance on them and hurting them. We find out why they did the bad thing, we help them understand why it was bad, and we give them other options. Maybe the person was poor or uneducated, and we give the person a job and education: no more crime.
teo123 wrote:People do such actions because they are ignorant. I am not a mathematician, but adding up two and two isn't hard.
The problem is you're misunderstanding the very concepts. You didn't understand consequentialism, and you can't just apply math to these situations. You need empirical science. You need to actually physically measure and find out how many marbles are in the box -- you can't just reason it on paper.
teo123 wrote:How do you know? Yes, the white race globally isn't a majority, but it's the majority in US. It's hard to imagine that most of the murder victims belong to the 12% of the US population, that is, blacks, isn't it?
In the U.S. slightly more white people are killed nation-wide. But only slightly.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls

Does that look proportional to you?

Blacks make up 43.5% of murder victims, based on that. Sound right based on a that % of the population?
And that's nationwide, in cities the proportion is likely to be much worse (there should be a strong black majority of deaths despite the demographic being a minority).

News reports rarely cover black deaths, because people don't care and they're common. Unless it's by police, and then it's all over the place (and police shooting of whites are underreported). The media has a particular narrative, and knows what sells: they only report what people want to read.

Media bias is important to understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias

Here's an even better example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome

The point is you can't trust what the media reports to reflect the statistical reality of what's happening.

Think police shootings are increasing? The media would make you think so. But they aren't. They're just reported more.
Think there's more autism now? No, it's just diagnosed more and reported on by ignorant reporters.

The news is not a good source of information.
teo123 wrote:
Because conspiracy theories on that scale are pretty much mathematically impossible.
Why? I mean, you just need to corrupt the judge and maybe, if you want to be certain it would work, a few of others.
Quite a few others, actually. Judges are not kings, they answer to other judges, who answer to the people. You'd need to keep it bottled up. You'd have to have the prosecution AND the defense in on it, along with the judge. And you'd probably have to buy off the jury too. Then you'd have to pay off prison guards to make sure the person got killed in prison and didn't make a fuss about it. The key is to block off all routes of the information escaping. And then you have to deal with dozens of people having guilty consciences, and their spouses and close friends (because they're going to spill to them).

Functionally impossible, if you know how jury trials work.

If you want to get rid of somebody, it's much easier just to hire a hitman to make it look like an accident. Even that is not reliable, though. The hitman you hire may be a cop, and then you're in jail. Or, as is very likely, the hit may fail, the police will catch the hitter, and he'll give you up -- then again, you're in jail.

It's very hard to get away with anything today. The best option is to obey the law, and just be honest and transparent.
teo123 wrote:Yeah! I think that many vegans and vegetarians overestimate the effect of the diet to their body. It's only around 30% less risk of heart disease.
This is based on past results, before we knew about DHA and Omega 3. Now vegans are eating more Omega 3, so this should reduce heart disease risk more (we will have to wait a few years to see the results of this). In the past, vegetarians also ate hydrogenated oil with trans fats. Once trans fats are banned, we should also see more increase.
teo123 wrote:It's very unlikely to actually affect your life. Vegetarians, according to those studies, live, on average, 3-4 years longer. But that doesn't mean it's likely that you will live longer by going vegetarian.
If, on average, they're living 3-4 years longer, then you are likely to live longer than you would have otherwise by 3-4 years. Maybe more, maybe less, but probably 3-4.

That's far short of the vegans who think they'll live forever, of course. But 3-4 years is a lot. 3-4 years more with your grandchildren or great grand children. 3-4 more years of life is nothing to scoff at.

Instead of exaggerating the amount of benefit to life extension, I think we should focus on how meaningful just a couple of years are, and how precious life is. A better diet can also reduce risk for quality of life diseases (which are less likely to be lethal) like arthritis and diabetes: not only will you live a little longer, but there will be more life in those years.
teo123 wrote:That's true. In the case of McArthur Wheeler, he probably assumed it was unnecessary to test whether a face without a lemon juice is going to be visible on camera. It always is.
Right. That was his mistake. He jumped from his speculative theories and reasoning to an assumption about reality without testing it.
teo123 wrote:Well, many things in science have been figured out using computer simulations, so, do you think that those things are uncertain?
Exactly. It's very uncertain until we test it and prove it in reality.
Engineering done on computers is proved in reality, that's easy. Models of stars and such also have to be proved by looking for observations.

In most cases, the computer just shows us one way it might be. Not for sure how it is.
A computer could even tell us how it probably is, in rare cases. But scientists are always uncertain until it's shown in reality. There can always be a mistake in the programming, or an incorrect assumption.
teo123 wrote:That's probably just the same people going many times. But, still, damn, I had no bright idea how big conspiracy I was asserting.
Maybe, it it might be by passenger. The average may be two to four flights per person (most people who fly just take one or two trips a year). So, if it's multiple flights by the same people, it's probably still almost a billion people flying on planes every year. There are also millions people people who work at airports, and billions of people who just SEE planes every day. I see a plane flying overhead here almost every day (you can hear it, then look up to see it).
Everybody who lives near a big city has seen an airplane even if he or she has not been in one (because the airplanes are low when they take off and land, and concentrate around cities).

That's the problem with conspiracies: they're always bigger than you think they are. Until you study and understand the industry, you can't even count it. People just assume. The number of people in on a conspiracy is an empirical matter (like the number of marbles) and you can't just reason that it's a small number without checking. The box might be empty, there might be one marble or more, or it might be completely full.
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Re: A discussion on TFES forum

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Well, I don't think they're very justified. Being born in a country is pretty much an accident at birth, you didn't choose to be born in a country, it just happens to be where you were born, buy the actions of your parents and possibly the actions of those before them.
So, do you think you aren't justified to love your parents just because you didn't choose them?
And depending on the state, doubt it's harder to get a job if your patriotic or not.
Well, my parents tell me that it is easier to get a good job if you are a patriot. And their arguments are quite convincing. On television, none of those who have good jobs say anything against Croatia. If they did, they would probably get fired. Besides, most of the Croatian poetry in our literature textbook is patriotic. Of course, most of the Croatian poetry probably isn't patriotic, but those other types of poetry are published less. That means that those who write patriotic poems make the most money. And all the popular singers in Croatia, as far as I know, sing, among others, patriotic songs. Besides, you can't say that the nature and the monuments in Croatia aren't beautiful.
It's up to scientists and economists to determine consequences.
How does that matter, if they don't test it against the reality?
This is based on past results, before we knew about DHA and Omega 3. Now vegans are eating more Omega 3, so this should reduce heart disease risk more (we will have to wait a few years to see the results of this).
But hasn't that been debunked many times? Link between Omega 3 and DHA and lower risk of heart disease was assumed because of some flawed old study showing that Inuit, who eat a lot of fish, which contains those nutrients, had a lower risk of heart disease. They were trying to test it by supplementing fish oil to various people and it lead to no results, study after study. Later, it turned out that Inuit didn't have lower risk of heart disease after all. But the urban myth continued to exist.
If, on average, they're living 3-4 years longer, then you are likely to live longer than you would have otherwise by 3-4 years. Maybe more, maybe less, but probably 3-4.
Are you sure you aren't confusing the average and the median?
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