Fun With Sophistry

curi: ok you can't rape an animal, right?
curi2: yeah
curi: ok, so if you dehumanise someone enough, in your mind, you can't rape him
curi2: yeah
curi: so, dehumanising people must be worse than rape, because it's as bad as rape *plus* you think of the person as less than human.
curi2: yeah
curi: the theory that people behave like animals, controlled by their genes (sociobiology) is dehumanising
curi2: sure
curi: therefore sociobiology is WORSE THAN RAPE
curi2: brilliant deduction!

on the one hand, Bush gets accused of doing nothing before 9/11.

on the other, he gets accused of planning from the very beginning to change foreign policy and/or invade iraq and/or support preemption.

ho hum.

list of clubs at Diablo Valley College

there are clubs listed for: blacks, chinese, muslims, indonesians, pacific islanders, philipinos, latinos, gays, russians, french, afghans, women (more than one)

there are no clubs listed for: whites, jews, men. one for xians.

there's something else i forgot to mention. it's so normal it just doesn't stand out in memory very well.

20 minutes into class. the teacher has said about 5 sentences of content. she's written each one on the chalkboard. I look around. Everyone was taking notes. Everyone. (2 ppl or so i couldn't tell. has to be over 9/10 though)

the teacher writes worthless crap on the board. they copy it down. copy. maybe a few weren't copying, but the general note taking strategy is to copy everything. not understand it, and jot down a couple memory-triggers. not put the arguments in ur own words (ie, as u understand them). not figure out which parts are important and just write those. but just plain copy down everything.

it's horrid

a friend had a philosophy class 2day (at UC Berkeley). i snuck in out of curiosity. omg!

the teacher talked for like 2 hours about a 10 page section in the book that i skimmed in 20min while listening. and one girl raised her had to ask how you could say that nazi death camps were worse than interning japanese. another guy asked how can their be objective truth if we might all be hallucinating? (ummm, then the objective truth is we are all hallucinating. duh. any question of the form "What's the objective truth of the matter if X?" is easily answered by "X, duh")

and apparently some time after i stopped listening (had manga), the teacher endorsed individual relativism (the topic had been cultural relativism, which she did not endorse. presumably b/c it meant she couldn't criticise israel)

the entire piece on cultural relativism in the book was basically 1) explains what it is 2) explains some reason you might be uncomfortable adopting it. nothing on truth or falsity. also seemed to endorse a quotation saying everyone thinks their own society is the best (which is obviously false. immigrants. and ummm anti-American protestors in america too)

also the teacher said if anything was a moral imperative, it was saving a baby on the street drowning in a puddle. she gave no reason why. just thought it was obvious.

she also asked some questions that revealed her view of taxes was something like: what's the best way to redistribute wealth?

for a decent argument against cultural relativism, try:

People immigrate. And not randomly. There are some countries that many people think are great, and wish to move to. While others have almost no immigrants. How can a cultural relativist explain this? (Answer: His theory can't account for this very well, thus making it a bad explanation of reality.)

A friend suggests cultural relativists might say people go to get jobs.

That one's easy. It implies jobs are better than no jobs. Thus cultures that create enough jobs are better than ones that don't.

My friend says they will say jobs are not better. Umm, yeah. But then why do people want them more than no jobs? I suppose it must be because people like money. But wait, wouldn't that make cultures that create more money better? etc etc cultural relativists are dumb.

anyway, after that i bought a book on munchkin gaming. it's amusing ^^ one good joke is:

player: alright, i wanna cast a fireball on the orcs
DM: you're mixed in with the orcs. it'll hit you too.
player: that's ok, i have an amulet of fire resistance.
DM: it will still kill the other players
player: ohhh ... so do I get experience for them?

Criticism is scary because:

Even with a very good structure, there are some costs to changing one's theories (effort. but the point is it's not automatic). And with an average structure and a load of hangups, for all sorts of topics, the costs are quite high.

Criticism is scary when you do not have confidence that you will be able to fix your theories (due to being attached to them).

Maybe it's easier to see the other way around: the reason criticism doesn't scare me is if some of my theories are bad, I will simply change them. So the criticism, even if it's true when given, won't be for very long. It's just a tool to become better.

Also, if I don't change my theories because I don't understand the criticism, I won't feel bad. I wouldn't even know if the criticism was true. But people with less confidence, who trust in appeals to authority, might have trouble with that situation.

Also, even if you are told some of your theories are bad, and the criticism makes sense to you, and you find yourself unable to change them (yet -- of course you always might figure it out later). It doesn't rationally follow that you must feel bad about this, or be coerced. But suffice it to say that's quite a common response today.

atheists oppose religion

Here it is suggested (last question) that religious people figure stuff out and come to their views using, "fantasy, intuition, and tradition". Obviously using fantasy to inform your worldview would be bad, so this is a huge slander. On the other hand, tradition is very useful and important, and so is intuition, so this is revealing of atheists generally having the wrong approach to thought, and having it because they oppose any methods they associate with religion (yes it could go the other way. first they made a mistake about philosophy, then this caused them to oppose religion. that wouldn't make atheists any better though). (They would not put stuff in an introductory FAQ that was controversial. Especially not an FAQ designed to make atheism very inclusive by welcoming agnostics.)

At American Atheists, the frontpage currently has a news release that's pretty rabid about separation of church and state. basically they don't want Bush to be allowed to pray. He could write a book on why Satanism is great, and that would be free speech (to atheists), but if the president seems to support Christianity in public they get mad. If they were really indifferent to religion, they would care just as much as if the president endorsed hockey.

And here's what the American Atheists think is a good essay on morality without God. To start, it suggests life wasn't worse 2000 years ago. Then it calls Christian morality unsophisticated, which is pretty damn persuasive *cough*. And it continues to go downhill:

Hum, my behavior is subject to psychological rules? Sociolological? Well I'll wait until he expands on that to yell and scream, I guess. Saying "religionists" helps expose his anti-religion stance.

And then his argument here, umm, doesn't work. First he calls Christians liars, and then he declares human behavior is *entirely* regulated by certain non-religious things. Which would make religion ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT, which we all agree its not.

Oh dear God! OK I'm done with this essay. And this website. Except to suggest nature is his God.

this guy freely admits he spends time thinking of arguments against Christianity. also against other religious, but mostly christianity, b/c he knows more about christianity, and was raised catholic.

Look at this

mmm hmm. and to a keen observer this atheist is spending quite a lot of time thinking about God. would someone who really didn't give a shit about God relate tapeworms to God?

here an atheist site gives the main reasons ppl become atheists:

1) contact with other religions. this doesn't make sense though. if the other one was persuasive, they'd convert not become an atheist.

2) bad experiences with religion

3) b/c of science, no longer need religion -- except religion's are full of *moral* content, so anyone replacing religion with science is totally fucked.

4) idiotic, entirely misconceived philosophical arguments

and 5) atheism, they claim, is the default position b/c ppl aren't born believing in God. this is no good. by that logic not walking is the default. any sense in which not walking is the "default" is a rather pointless sense though, huh? babies have no position on theism b/c they aren't even aware of it yet. better to look at an adult who has chosen theism or atheism. among adults, who have chosen, neither position can be sensibly called the "default" and given automatic priority, nor can the burden of proof be put on the other side b/c of some default status. sorry, no good, it just begs the question.

-----

Why are you an theist?

someone starts to answer: "What caused me to reject not only religion, but also belief in the existence of any gods?"

down a little more they admit many atheists think atheism=rationality and theism=irationality.

and ok i'm bored with this.

the below is a log from a chess server where some liberals could not give reasons for the Iraq war that would be endorsed by conservatives, but I gave reasons against the war that they cheered for. thus demonstrating i understand their position, and have an informed view, while they don't have a clue what my position is, and thus can't compare it with their own position to see which is better. also, i was called a liar, which is amusing as it's a stereotyped liberal way to "argue" and he did it... (he thought i got my speech from an email, but I made it up on the spot)

here is my anti-war speech in italics first, then the full log. so u can skip the log if you want. (keep in mind this took like 5-10min, and of course i could make it nicer if i edited it now)

The problems with a war in Iraq are many-fold. First and foremost, the war is not justified. It will take the lives of many innocent Iraqis, most of whom do not want the US there. They know the US invasion won't help them but only make their lives worse. But aside from this clear moral problem, it gets worse. Bush has not only lied about the reasons for war, but given unacceptable ones.

i suppose i forgot to mention faulty intelligence. that should be in there too.

curi42: Artificer(4): lol curiosity has been gone for a while. probably on google
\ searching for reasons
t 4 am not. i'm looking for an old email ;p
Curiosity(4): am not. i'm looking for an old email ;p
(told 122 players in channel 4 "Chat")
Artificer(4): ...so you're not doing it from memory like me then
curi42: Artificer(4): if your original point curiosity was to prove that i know
\ nothing of your arguments from memory (without consulting a source), then
\ you just failed miserably.
curi42: Curiosity(4): fine you want me to do it from memory?
(told 124 players in channel 4 "Chat")
Artificer(4): i bet curiosity just finished reading the e-mail
t 4 i didn't find it
Curiosity(4): i didn't find it
(told 124 players in channel 4 "Chat")
Artificer(4): what a joke.
Artificer(4): sure i believe you. hahahaha
t 4 if you think i'm lying i can stop talking to you
Curiosity(4): if you think i'm lying i can stop talking to you
curi42: Artificer(4): ignore me if you want curiosity. you've been doing so for the
\ last few sentences anyway.
, huh?
Curiosity(4): huh?
(told 125 players in channel 4 "Chat")
ZZSpence(4): I agree with Rumsfeld, why resign because a few politically
\ motivated fruitcakes want him to resign....perhaps they should start at
\ the UN where billiuons has been pocketed by those who opposed forcing
\ Saddam to cooperate with the UN.....
, i did not find the email. i didn't google anything. if you think i'm lying about this, we probably shouldn't talk about this. otherwise, i'll be happy to continue, from memory.
Curiosity(4): i did not find the email. i didn't google anything. if you
\ think i'm lying about this, we probably shouldn't talk about this.
\ otherwise, i'll be happy to continue, from memory.
(told 127 players in channel 4 "Chat")
ZZSpence(4): When Kofian rersigns and goes to Washington to kiss Bush's
\ behind....then I'll consider Rumsfeld resigning.
apestyles(4): shake it shake it shake sha shake it shake it like a polaroid
\ picture...
Artificer(4): curiosity: think about it if you were in the reverse position.
\ naturally you would not trust me either.
papovik(CA)(4): curio, you deny that what we say is what you think, yet you
\ have to go and read what you think because you can't remember it
t 4 you've had just as much time to google something if you wanted to
Curiosity(4): you've had just as much time to google something if you wanted
\ to
(told 127 players in channel 4 "Chat")
Artificer(4): i responded within seconds.
t 4 and got it wrong :-)
Curiosity(4): and got it wrong :-)

curi42: landocorn(4): why is it difficult for some on the right to call to scumbags
\ who tortured those poor prisoners what they are!
Artificer(4): lol pminear
apestyles(4): viva revolucion
Artificer(4): not really curiosity
pminear(4): wait I'm not sure if I got that entirely correct
pminear(4): but whatever
Game notification: acdc (2123) vs. pminear (2183) rated wild/8 3 0: Game 48
ZZSpence(4): I love it when you can't find a liberal who can support the
\ hypocracy of their beliefs.
Artificer(4): you guys act as if "liberals" are one whole group.
Artificer(4): political ignorance.
ZZSpence(4): game....set ...match
Notification: JATorres has departed.
Artificer(4): exactly
Notification: JATorres has arrived.
apestyles(4): i love it, i cant find a conservative who can argue his point
\ without being obnxiously arrogant about it
tsgarp(*)(4): lol
landocorn(4): that is their substitue for reason
ZZSpence(4): When Kofian resigns we can move to whether or not we hold Donald
\ Rumsfeld responsible for what some dumb soldiers did in an Iraqi prison.
Artificer(4): i know plenty of liberals who don't support abortion; i know
\ plenty of conservatives who refuse to vote bush. why treat it as if there
\ are clear lines?
apestyles(4): but really, im no better when i get into personal attacks either

curi42: Curiosity(4): The problems with a war in Iraq are many-fold. First and
\ foremost, the war is not justified. It will take the lives of many
\ innocent Iraqis, most of whom do not want the US there. They know the US
\ invasion won't help them but only make their lives worse. But aside from
\ this clear moral problem, it gets worse. Bush has not only lied about the
\ reasons for war, but given unacceptable ones.
(told 126 players in channel 4 "Chat")
MprJohn(*)(TM)(4): you cant find a `anybody passionate about politics` who can
\ argue his point without being obnxiously arrogant about it
ZZSpence(4): It is justified
apestyles(4): true enough
Artificer(4): true curiosity, but as i said, it took a bit too long.
landocorn(4): hear, hear, old chap
Artificer(4): he's not supporting us landocorn
ZZSpence(4): Bush didn't lie...the U.N. lied and stole billions
papovik(CA)(4): why don't you explain why you espouse the war curio instead of
\ reasons why you wouldn't
ZZSpence(4): We're suppose to listen to those crooks?

curi42: Curiosity(4): He says the war is over weapons of mass destruction, except
\ Saddam problably doesn't even have any, and both the US and Israel do. He
\ says Saddam supports terrorism, but the link with Al Queada has never
\ materialised. He says Saddam violated UN resolutions, but he doesn't even
\ have the UN on his side.
(told 126 players in channel 4 "Chat")
Artificer(4): interesting... i told you guys taht there are no clear lines.
\ curiosity and ZZspence are btoh conservative, and even they disagree with
\ one another.
ZZSpence(4): Naahhhhhhh
MprJohn(*)(TM)(58): 2-0 pistons :-)
Notification: JATorres has departed.
Notification: JATorres has arrived.
Artificer(4): in fact, i don't know why people came up with the terms
\ "liberal" and "conservative" anyway. it's like as if you believe there is
\ a clear "endgame" or "middlegame" in chess.
Artificer(4): wow, managed to relate politics to chess, i rule. :-I
:Notification: alrightnow(*)(TM), the COO, has arrived.
apestyles(4): well, why dont we just do away with categories in general and
\ live in state of absolute confusion

curi42: Curiosity(4): And his real reasons for war are much worse. He seeks revenge
\ for his father, but that's simply no reason to start a war and kill
\ innocents. He wants oil, and to secure contracts for his friends, but
\ again that's a horrible reason for a war. And he wants to exercise
\ military power in the name of Christian values, but we shouldn't be ruled
\ by magalomaniac religious delusions.
(told 126 players in channel 4 "Chat")
ChugiakCharlie(4): anarchy rules
Artificer(4): that's an interesting irony
ZZSpence(4): Call for Kofian to resign....call for Bush to resign because a
\ White House guard urinated on the White House lawn during Bush's
\ watch....you should listen to the hypocracy of the left wing
\ fruitcakes....they are hypocrites that wouldn't admit the sky was blue if
\ it meant no power.
apestyles(4): i can dig it curisoity
apestyles(4): *curiosity
MprJohn(*)(TM)(4): have the oil in my driveway.. plenty there :-D
landocorn(4): i recently met a couple who ardently believe that some of our
\ senators wish to abolish our constitution so the UN can rule us.
Artificer(4): Curiosity: thanks for demonstrating you can read e-mails. :-)
ZZSpence(4): Rubbish....Curiosity

curi42: apestyles(4): zzspence, please provide a reasonable argument with a point
\ rather than a personal attack with no real point
Curiosity(4): And then there's the political ramifications of war. Very few
\ other countries support the war, except mostly the ones the has leverage
\ over. Why does Bush suddenly think Europe doesn't matter? He shouldn't
\ try to oppose the whole world.
(told 128 players in channel 4 "Chat")
ZZSpence(4): total...drivel
t 4 how's that artificer?
Curiosity(4): how's that artificer?
(told 128 players in channel 4 "Chat")
ZZSpence(4): whin ing
t 4 i suppose i forgot to mention faulty intelligence. that should be in there too.
Curiosity(4): i suppose i forgot to mention faulty intelligence. that should
\ be in there too.

curi42: some junk. then:
curi42: apestyles(4): no, i didnt really agree w/ your argument... thought it was a
\ bit on the hysterical side
curi42: i spent a while trying to explain to zzspence that i didn't believe the argument i'd given. heh
curi42: now artificer is trying to get out of giving pro-war reasons by saying that pro-war people are different.
curi42: Curiosity(4): can any of you liberals give pro-war reasons that an average
\ Christian conservative would endorse?
(told 125 players in channel 4 "Chat")
Artificer(4): curiosity your question is as invalid as asking "why is the sky
\ green?"