Cakelore

Father, politically adrift, nerd

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@realOkayTeacher @politicalmath Ah, I see. I was making a point that the Bible isn't a source of morality, but an expression of it, and that the true source is God, or God's nature to be more precise.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@realOkayTeacher @politicalmath I mean, that isn't the Christian position.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

LLM

Gears and cogs and wheels—
the fruits of Archimedes—
a clockwork Plato

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@LessCheerful Thanks for the kind words! I'm proud to be your friend, too, fwiw

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

Trying to figure out a submission packet for poems. It's making me insane! I've never submitted anything for publication and the anxiety and perfectionism are putting my head into some weird spots. If anyone out there knows poetry and is willing to sanity check, DM me!

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@B_Rana76 @ArcherBM @bAnthonYsr Did those other people stab anyone? No? Then they're irrelevant.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

Henry

His was Arthur's blood,
his was Aethelstan's,
as he bled into the sidewalk
and you cuffed his blooded hands.

He died there, captive,
bleeding and alone
dripping crimson onto the ground
which once was Arthur's throne.

[𝐄𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐚 @EudaimoniaEsq]

A lot of people in the anti-abortion camp are criticizing this post. And I get it. I’m not countering them. But one thing I haven’t seen anyone say, at least not explicitly, is how little epistemic humility this guy, and people like him, have. And this complete lack of epistemic humility results in them playing God and making inapt comparison—comparisons they cannot possibly make because they cannot rightly evaluate the two alternatives.

This man and his wife were informed that their child would have a series of medical difficulties, both physical and mental. We know that about Down Syndrome. We know that by almost any metric this is a “harder” life than someone without any such condition. But these people turn around and say “and, thus, it would be better for the child if the child actually just died now.”

But they can’t know that. They can’t actually compare existence with Down Syndrome to non-existence/death, because they don’t know what the latter entails. In order to rightly and ably compare two things, you have to know enough about them. We don’t know enough about death to ably compare it to life—even life with difficulties. So one cannot truly and reasonably say “death is better than living with Down Syndrome.”

It would be like me asking “do you prefer to eat apples or smoogaboogaloogas?” Of course, you don’t know what a smoogaboogalooga is, so you would reply “uh, I don’t know what that is, so I can’t compare it to an apple.” That’s epistemic humility. This guy and his wife have none of that, because they decided that death (which they cannot understand and appreciate) is better than life.

But even now I’m being charitable. I’m assuming a lack of epistemic humility when in reality they weren’t deciding what was “best” for the child (death vs. life). They were deciding what was best for themselves. And they decided killing their child was best for themselves.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@UntiedWolfdog Yes, Paul changed Christianity completely, which is why the 11 remaining disciples decried his writing and missionary work, because they knew he was changing things. Wait, they didn't do that? They were in agreement? Next you'll tell me it isn't actually incompatible at all!

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@alexandrosM @BobMurphyEcon Mind reading? Who said anything about mind reading? Your sudden dismissive hostility is a surprise.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@alexandrosM @BobMurphyEcon An LLM does not qualify as a mind, it isn't conscious and does not have subjective experience. If it did, that wouldn't be occuring in material hardware.

So I ask again, what is a material mind?

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@alexandrosM @BobMurphyEcon And what is a material mind?

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@Zagarna_84 @SlothmanAllen @NateSilver538 You mean those people slightly to the left of Biden?

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@SlothmanAllen @NateSilver538 Yes, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats will solve it! And conveniently they never have their own biases to influence things either.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@Wannu001 @alfkkifine Well, in my view, God, but He isn't necessary. Evolutionary Biology, Natural Law, take your pick.

Under any/all, the only biologically intelligible reason for sex is reproduction. All other reasons are parasitic from that one.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@Wannu001 @alfkkifine 2/x position, but it does significantly change the moral/ethical framework.

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@Wannu001 @alfkkifine Your window analogy fails because the ontological function of leaving a window open isn't someone stealing your kidney, but the ontological function of sex is pregnancy.

Additionally, again the home invader has a choice, the baby doesn't. You can claim it does it affect your 1/x

[Cakelore @Cakelore]

@Wannu001 @alfkkifine A good attempt, but two things:
1) you've admitted the baby is a person
2) only one person in this scenario made any choices about being in said scenario