Just read this. I guess I agree that the government agency doing this stuff will probably get it all horribly wrong, and it's very abusable. But I was thinking, something similar could be right and good:

What if police see something suspicious, and just ask the guy what's up? I think our laws say you don't have to incriminate yourself or answer, and if you refuse, the police can't do anything. But a good person will recognise that what s/he did *was* a bit suspicious, and, taking into account privacy concerns, will want to tell the police some info to let them rest easy knowing s/he didn't do anything wrong. A good person will not say "I refuse to answer." At worst, a good person will think a bit and say "I really can't think of anything I can safely tell you b/c of privacy concerns, sorry." So, like, the general idea of trying to go after people who have all this nice shit and won't tell us where it came from and otherwise act like bad people, does make some sense.

Getting answers wrong isn't the only way to look an idiot. It's striking how effective asking the wrong questions can be.

"Is it invariably wrong to act selfish?"

"Is consequentialism or deontology right?"

"How certain does induction make us?"

"What's a certain statement?" (as in come up with one)

"What would make a good foundation for our knowledge?"

"What's more important, my joy, or starving children in Africa getting a meal?"

"Is love or happiness more important?"

"What if I have to go to the doctor, but my child doesn't want to wear his seatbelt, and I'm in a big hurry, then can I beat him?"

"Did you know that two thousand rain forest species go extinct every year?"

"Did you know that if we don't anchor Australia, a sea snail might be crushed?"

OK, some of these are kinda cheating, but some are incoherent philosophical garbage that a lot of otherwise reasonable people waste time thinking about.

(I don't think these examples are very good. As I don't spend my time on this kinda question, I'm not all that familiar with many of 'em. I tend to stop reading in disgust when I encounter them, and then forget about it.)

Relationship Theory

Some people like monogamy and marriage because it makes them feel safe. Their partner is not allowed to leave them, and not even allowed to look around for something better. And, if the partner does anyway, these people can now play victim, and most everyone will agree they were wronged. This is a bit perverse. For one thing, it seems to say "I'd rather you stay with me, than be as happy as possible, because I'm just that selfish."

By reader request, Asceticism

Ascetic is the opposite of hedonistic. It means scorning worldly desires and pleasures, and self-denial. It's sometimes thought to create spiritual discipline, or sometimes just someone's tendency.

The spiritual discipline version is on the same order of magnitude of absurdity as theism.

One common cause of ascetic qualities is arrogance. Another is anti-capitalism. TV is for the masses of capitalist drones, to keep them mindless. Products are a trap for lesser people, and I shall avoid them. Toys are for low brow kids; mine will enjoy nature and possibly some books and be free. Look at all those Joe Schmoes wasting the money they slaved away for at McDonald's for a few minutes of pleasure, they won't fool me. blah blah blah

Joy is a great thing.

I suppose there is an important distinction that needs to be made now: some ascetics don't value joy, others simply have trouble creating much.

Feh, this isn't going well. Write comments with questions, I'll just make this really simple.... To those who don't value joy: you're silly. To those who have trouble finding joy: I sympathise.

Here's an explanation for why, in some domains, women may find they need to work harder to prove themselves than men do (it works in reverse too, for other fields):

Parents (wrongly) gender-stereotype their children, and treat boys and girls differently. This results in boys and girls, on average, having different skill-sets. Employers and bosses know this.

Dale Amon of Samizdata writes:

I don't always agree with what SecDef Rumsfeld says and I find his statements on volunteer human shields to be particularly wrong:

"And I want to note, again, it is a violation of the law of armed conflict to use noncombatants as a means of shielding potential military targets -- even those people who may volunteer for this purpose. Iraqi actions to do so would not only violate this law but could be a -- could be considered a war crime in any conflict. Therefore, if death or serious injury to a noncombatant resulted from these efforts, the individuals responsible for deploying any innocent civilians as human shields could be guilty of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions."

There is no such thing as a "voluntary human shield".

But there is. If I voluntarily use myself as a shield, I am one.

The words cancel each other out and leave... just another ordinary enemy combatant.

Not a combatant (no gun...), and not ordinary, but yes an enemy.

Any British, American, Australian or person of whatever nationality who makes a decision, of their own free will, to intentionally place themselves in harms way in defense of a combatant's facilities should be treated like any other member of that combatant's forces.

Rumsfeld is completely right. Their attack on America is to try and hurt the US politically, through immoral means. It's committing suicide and blaming the US. (Reminiscent of suicide attacks in Israel). So, it definitely should be a war crime, and they should not be treated like any other enemy combatant. You don't shoot people without guns without a damn good reason. And we won't go around killing these people. That'd be horribly immoral. They know that. That's the whole point of their attack: they want to remain in a position where they shouldn't be killed, while doing everything they can to provoke their own deaths. (Think Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and tanks.) Rumsfeld is right that if some die because they get in the way, it's not our fault (morally), but that's true only as long as we don't intentionally kill them.

On LGF, it said protest organisers estimated 200,000 thousand people at the one in San Francisco. Aerial photos show about 65,000 peak. (Source Here)

How should we explain the protestors ignoring the facts? I suggest my anti-theory explantion: because they are more focussed on their cause then on morality. And they think lying will further their cause.

And in a direct sense, it's hard to tell. Lying has advantages (because people will think the ideas are more popular than they are) and they disadvantages (because people will get annoyed with their exaggerations and stop listening). And thus, calculating whether to lie, based on how it furthers their cause, is at best, an expensive calculation prone to error. Not at best (and in reality), their approach is, even in the limit, divergent from morality aka wrong.

If we just look at the morality of the situation, though, it's easy. They are attempting to mislead and manipulate people. End of story.

Minimum Necessary Force

A certain variance *on either side* of the right amount of force is reasonable -- only people who use significantly more than the right amount should be prosecuted. Also, the right amount to aim for is more than the "necessary" amount, strictly speaking, because we shouldn't have to take undue risks. The minimum necessary force concept pulls against both these points, and is thus highly misleading.