escarpment

escarpment, 25 days ago

@shekinahcancook I think you are letting your opinion (anti abortion legislation is bad) cloud your view of the facts (millions of people live in states that have severely restricted access to abortion). The latter is a fact, currently. That may become not be a fact at some future point if the people who want it not to be a fact are able to muster the power to make it not a fact.

escarpment, 25 days ago

@shekinahcancook The laws of prohibition were real.

During prohibition, it was in fact illegal to have alcohol. People in fact went to jail for violating that prohibition.

You seem to be talking in poetic or optimistic tones about reality, when I am talking in extremely neutral tones about it.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook If N > 0 person went to jail for alcohol during prohibition, the outcome matched the proponents' of prohibition's mental model more closely than its opponents.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook I think it's simpler than that. The person getting caught is a fact. It's a part of reality. Do you dispute that? Do you dispute that it is true some people got caught and incarcerated?

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook I'm sorry. I see exactly how you don't understand me. It almost feels like you're trying not to understand me. I guess this really won't be much more productive.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook I'll try one more time. Forget about when prohibition was repealed. At that point in time (call it t=3), opponents of prohibition won. The laws on the books reflected the preferences of the opponents of prohibition. N = 0 people were jailed for alcohol.

During prohibition, call it time t=2, the laws on the books reflected the desires of prohibitionists. N>0 were jailed, a real outcome.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook No I am not claiming they changed there minds. I am literally claiming that, in this real world, they spent some time in a jail cell.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook I don't think passing a law changes subjective conclusions. I merely think a law being passed is an objective fact.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook Laws change something indeed. A law means a real thing will happen that otherwise wouldn't happen. If the law is on the books, some people will be fined or go to jail for it. If it is not, no one will be fined or go to jail for it. Do you dispute that?

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook And, breaking that down further, that means a police officer might be commanded to enforce that law. A jury might convict for that law. A corrections officer might imprison you for that law.

None of those events would happen if the people who opposed the law had had the power to prevent those actions from occurring.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook I am not "wanting" anything. I'm not making some sort of paean to the legislative system. That's not my point. I'm not saying "aren't laws great?"

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook I'm sorry, I just think that's a bunch of hot air and I really wish you would understand what I'm saying.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook Let me try one more time. Let's focus on the other side, the bootlegger. The bootlegger's mental picture is to be able to sell booze. So, using information ("let's use secret code words"; "let's do this at night") and population ("they can't catch all of us") the bootlegger uses power to bring about the reality of speakeasies and alcohol usage during prohibition.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook Let's forget about laws. Take the flip side, the people who defy laws. They also have power. They have sufficient power to bring about real outcomes in defiance of the law. Do you dispute that?

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook But alcohol is not wrong was not a consensus. Do you dispute that N > 0 people thought alcohol was wrong? Do you think if you polled every American in 1920 all would say alcohol was not wrong? Do you deny the existence of the temperance movement?

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook This consensus idea seems very vague. How do you define it exactly? I define consensus as 100% alignment. Majority is >50%. Plurality is the largest percentage of people, even if under 50%. Do you have a different definition of consensus?

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook 99% alignment is not consensus per my definition. Is it in your view?

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook Majority and consensus are different by my view. Majority is 51%. Consensus is 100%. So do you mean consensus or majority.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook That definition of consensus still seems vague and not the meaning of consensus. What if a minority view is that everyone is wrong? What if the 1% of Americans who are vegans + millions of animals think animals should not be killed for food. Do the 99% of non-vegans represent consensus?

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook I think this consensus idea is extremely half-baked. I understand you seem to be a moral relativist, which is a tenable position in modern ethics. But you can't seem to pin down what consensus really is, and you seem to have arbitrarily pinned your faith on this idea of consensus for no apparent reason.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook @meltedcheese The claim "power has distorted reality" I characterize as false. Nothing can "distort reality," in my view.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook @meltedcheese Power is just part of reality. It is a real phenomenon that some people have the power to effect changes in the world. With a plan, some shovels, beams, etc a team of people can make the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal exists because the people making it had the power to make the landscape match their plan. No distortion there.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@shekinahcancook @meltedcheese That is a huge leap. You suddenly started talking about "good" and manifest destiny and a bunch of irrelevant topics related to this poetic concept of distorting reality.

I hope you can see the leap. Now undo the leap. If you take a picture in Panama, do you see a waterway or not? That is the reality. There is now a waterway. Power produced that waterway.

No distortion.

escarpment, 25 days ago

@bleakfuture @tristansnell I'm not a vegan by the way. I just think this is a reasonable ethical argument under certain ethical frameworks that deserves serious scrutiny.

escarpment, 24 days ago

@bleakfuture @tristansnell That all tracks with me. But I think it comes into play when we try to scold others for ethics- we're all potentially ethically compromised ourselves.