DJP
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ALB wrote:Must be a lesson somewhere.
Think it's this one:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tTVf519uIk
Vin wrote:Wasnt Kautsky a member of the German SDP that voted for ww1?Or am i thinking of another bloke?Yes that was him
Probably a browser compatibility problem. The website is going to be completly revamped in a few months anyhow. In the meantime you could try using a different browser.
Young Master Smeet wrote:The notion of free will is incompatible with thermodynamics, since it implies causeless events […] the only true freedom would be in random meaningless action.If 'free will' means the ability to break free from the casual laws of the universe and makes choices regardless of ones past, desires and inclinations then yes there is no such thing. But then the question is, if this where what 'free will' entails would we want such a thing anyhow? What's the freedom in randomly flapping about like a butterfly from one situation to another without any reason for our action?When we consider what people really mean when they talk about "free will" are they really talking about some proposed freedom from the laws of physics? For the most part it turns out that they are referring to nothing more than the capacity to regulate our behaviour and to act freely, without coercion, according to our desires, beliefs and values. I think this is the only meaningful way to go. Defining 'free will' in this second way might not be as magical as the first but it does allow us to about 'free will' and lets us avoid the silliness of thinking that our thoughts play no casual role in world (what is called 'epiphenominalism).Here's a link to a video by Julian Baggini, who wrote a rather excellent book called "Freedom Regained"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHJAr1bH2s0
Determinism : Every event has a cause.Indeterminism : Events just happen at random without a prior cause.Fatalism: What will be will be regardless of what we do.Economic Determinism : It is only economic factors that effect what happenTechnological Determinism : It is only technological factors that effect what happenIt is a common mistake to confuse determinism with fatalism. Economic determinism is not the same thing as determinism. Marx was not really an "economic determinist" (though he is sometimes crudely depicted as being one) since he also held the importance of political struggles (as we do) but he could be refered to as a 'determinist' I think. The quote from Hardy isn't about determinism but about those who thought that Capitalism would automatically collapse because automation would remove human labour from the production process.The quote from me was a moan coupled with a comment about power and ideology.Follow up question: Is free will compatible with determinism?
SP I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea, but we should deliberately look for arguments against socialism as well (and could then debunk them). It would make it a more interesting website anyhow don't you think? But as it stands, personally I have no spare time to put into new projects…
Charles Darwin wrote:I had also, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.Collecting only facts that support a certain point of view is what psuedo science does.To be scientific it should also collect facts that (at least seem to) go against the argument.
ALB wrote:Yehudi Webster argued that the appeal to establish a world without commodities (goods produced for sale), wage-labour and money should be addressed to all humans appealing to their reason, not just to a section of them such as the working class (however defined).I think there is some merit to this since some issues such as the degradation of the environment, threat of nuclear war and social alienation are cross-class issues. But that said, seeing as it is the working class that forms the vast majority and it is this class that reproduces capitalist socialist relations, it is still the workers that hold the pivotal position.
Vin wrote:Climate change doesn't seem important when you live in poverty.Those who are going to suffer the most from climate change are also those in the most poorest and undeveloped countries. Like the article says it is the least powerful that will suffer.
The reason we still have capitalism is that the majority accept capitalist ideology, and one of the ways that this ideology is spread and reinforced is through film and the media. The article is a fine explanation of this..
Kevin M. Folta wrote:It’s particularly paradoxical that we can take two plants that are almost not related, and we can cross them together, to generate a next-generation which then can be marketed in organic markets, it can be cerrtified as organic no problem. We can mix forty thousand genes with forty thousand genes from these two different species maybe and that’s perfectly acceptable. We have no idea what genes are mixing, we have no idea how to trace their products, we have no idea what allergens may be produced, what other toxic compounds may be produced… but still this is fine. (Here I'm just talking about) standard traditional breeding. Wide crosses. The whole idea in breeding is to incorporate new variation that the consumer may find acceptable or preferred. So many breeders go out into the wild and find plants that could never cross with cultivated materials naturally. That’s the idea – bring in something really unique. Other laboratories – and this is another major thing that’s been done throughout the last century – was mutation breeding, where you could treat seeds or plants with chemicals, you could treat them with radiation and generate variation that way, just by damaging genes or causing chromosome rearrangements – sometimes whole genome duplications – and that’s perfectly acceptable. But if you want to improve a plant by introducing one gene, and by doing it in a way where you can trace how that gene is going to behave in the plant, you can trace its products, you understand what it does, you understand how this protein that’s eventually produced is interacting with other parts of the plant’s biology, that’s UN-acceptable.And so it’s that paradox that if we want to use a sledge-hammer, it’s perfectly allowed – but if we want to use a scalpel, it’s not allowed. [from the SGU (The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe) Podcast].
