But all of that reasoning is premised on a value system, don't you see that?  Take this one:

There's no syllogism to determine whether it should be compulsory for people to purchase health care.

You can reason based on effects.

I don't think you can, even if you focus only on consequences.  Simply put, the consequence of requiring people to buy health insurance is that more people are covered in case of crisis (good!), but people have less economic liberty (bad!).  Because some people value economic liberty more than others, there's not some calculus that can tell you whether this policy is a net good or a net bad to society.  Unless you want to suggest a metric?  What is the aim of public policy, in your view?  Maximize average income per capita?  Maximize individual freedom?  Maximize the standard of living for the poor?  How do you answer this question without inserting your own values?

Edit: On second thought, never mind.  On reading your edit to your post, it just sounds like your ideal government comes down to "an omniscient AI handles everything," and you're not very interested in the details of how it's done.  I actually think I owe you an apology; I thought you were more serious than you actually are, and so I asked you a bunch of questions that made you defend something that you were tossing out there as a one-day-maybe utopia scenario.  Sorry!  I am going to disengage from this conversation now.

Last edited by satyreyes (07-26-2012 03:02:55 PM)

Overlord Morgus wrote:

I think that it's more cost-effective to improve access to fresh fruits and vegetables for the poor, especially people on food stamps. I'm really surprised they allow people to buy alcohol and tobacco with food stamps.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailers/eligible.htm

Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:

    Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco;

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10101.html/

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, helps low-income people buy food

Sources. I was nice enough to provide some, now you need to do the same.

Well, well, well. You actually supported an argument you had. Now do this sort of thing when you make all your other grandiose and sweeping statements, and maybe I can begin to take you seriously.

We were talking about hypotheticals up until now, no need to be prissy.

@not-so-fast

I originally said "food stamps," but I unwisely narrowed the classification to SNAP. This was a state food stamp program; the Feds don't give out most of the welfare money in this country, at least not directly.

Last edited by Overlord Morgus (07-26-2012 04:55:47 PM)

What else would the government do to administer people? Outside of religion, control of the media and activism, the police, and outright propaganda, what else is there?

Overlord Morgus wrote:

I originally said "food stamps," but I unwisely narrowed the classification to SNAP. This was a state food stamp program; the Feds don't give out most of the welfare money in this country, at least not directly.

The firing had nothing to do with state or federal food stamp programs -- as you would know if you had read the WMUR article on which the opinion piece you cited was based.

You're still not paying attention, not listening, not thinking, and the only reason I'm not banning you right now is that I'm angry and I know I'm angry.  Need Gio's opinion.

EBT cards are issued by all state or federal agencies for all programs. It stands for Electric Benefit Transfer. Different cards are issued for each different program. When someone gets U/C and they choose the EBT option instead of direct deposit, they get one card. If they also receive SNAP, they get a second card. If they recieve child support, they get a third card. And WIC is a fourth card. These are all called EBT.

SNAP and WIC have federal restrictions because they are specifically to be used for food. HOWEVER cards handed out for Unemployment benefits have no such restrictions. All that the WUMR piece says is that it was an EBT card. It doesn't mean that it was a SNAP card. So no, you can't say that you know for a certainty that someone was using "food stamps to purchase alcohol and tobacco."

Here's what's got me irritated Overlord: Not even 24 hours back from a ban, you go and do the exact same thing that got you banned. You started up a difficult thread that doesn't have easy answers. Sure, it could have been a fun and cute one with easy answers like, "my ideal form of government is run by unicorns, b/c RAINBOWS WHEEEE", but you take a heavy topic, and you want heavy involvement. You then post minimal answers, which are often cliches. You post minimal answers with big words, in a context that, frankly, doesn't make sense. You don't support your arguments well, and what statements you do make, come across as dismissive. Like

Overlord Morgus wrote:

I was going with Frau Eva's conception of dyslexia and learning disabilities as things that keep someone from being the "best of the best," and I don't see a problem with only selecting for the "best of the best." But obviously dyslexia didn't keep your sister from being amongst them, and I really jumped the gun by calling those problems "debilitating."

As you often do with your grand, sweeping, generalizing sentences.


You say that you

don't see a problem with only selecting for the "best of the best."

which means to me, that my statement meant nothing to you, and did not affect your way of thinking. To me, that means that your mind is made up and not open for discussion. SO WHY DO YOU EVEN INSIST ON POSTING THESE TOPICS.

You made a generalized and insulting statement. Then, when called on it, you state that you "jumped the gun." I don't consider that an apology. This is like a replay of your prev thread. You post questions that don't have easy answers, and when people actually try to play along with it, you trivialize it by posting inane garbage and assumptions. You state that

dyslexia didn't keep your sister from being amongst them

Right. It didn't -in my mind. Does that mean she's still considered one of the best by others? No, she's had to fight for every inch she's gotten. But it's not just my sister you insulted. And you need to take that into account. It's everyone who knows and loves someone with an LD and is tired of them being referred to as stupid or special, or less deserving. You have trivialized everyone who has had to receive welfare by using unverified information to make sweeping statements on topics where you have -quite frankly- displayed amazing ignorance. You want to discuss topics like this? Then actually invest yourself in the discussion; stop acting like someone who has all the answer wrapped up in either a tidy little sound bite or by answering an honestly directed question with a flippant question. 

Question 3: Do you believe that most of the important questions facing our government can be solved using "principle and logical rigor" alone?
What else would you solve problems with?

eta: rethought some wording.

Last edited by MissMocha (07-26-2012 05:34:01 PM)

Overlord Morgus wrote:

I don't even remember what we were even arguing about anymore, we're becoming far too enmeshed in irrelevant details.

OM, I think what you're having difficulty with is recognizing that in threads like these, participated in by people with vastly different areas of expertise and view, that the meat of the conversation is going to be exactly what you call 'irrelevant details.' You often begin threads with an prompt that you answer in a brief summary of your view, though it's a multifaceted topic with no easy answer. That doesn't encourage conversation, it encourages us to either agree or disagree. Despite that, there is some truly interesting and dynamic conversation and debate in this thread. The problem is that while you started the subject, the conversation is moving around you, because your posts exclude us from your exploration rather than develop the topic for all.

Having difficulty supporting your arguments and a lack of experience with fact finding isn't a bannable offense. Some of your posts are edging on abusive here, though. Name calling is neither globalist nor bureaucratic, but it can be bannable.

I'd rather see you grow as a person, find the rationales behind your opinions, or the strength to change them, than just permabanned because you didn't want to take that journey.

You make sweeping statements about complicated things as if they're the easiest thing in the world. You support a technocratic government, but its obvious you've not given a bit of thought of just how one would determine who is intellectually and technologically superior. One of the ways I know this is because you ignored all of the class implications I brought up and just said you'd make a better test--without addressing how this new test would curb test anxiety problems, bias, etc. Greater minds than you and I have been trying since the creation of testing itself to figure out how to fairly judge someone's intellect outside of social forces and failed, but SOMEHOW YOU'VE FIGURED IT OUT. Stop the presses education professionals and scholars, you've been doing it all wrong, and here Overlord Morgus is to give you a vague answer with no indication of methodology! If you had done the research, then there's no way you'd be this cocky.

I accept this criticism; the notion of "superiority" isn't nearly as easily defined as "suitability for a position." Carl Von Clausewitz in "On War" says that in a military hierarchy, someone who excels at one position will often be mediocre or even a complete failure at a position immediately "above" or "below" the current one. A good general probably isn't as good of a sniper as, say, an actual sniper, to take a very EXTREME example.

See, determining who is allowed to run the government under your technocracy should have been step number 1, and it's clear you've done no research or given no more than five minutes of critical thought to how it would actually be implemented. If you haven't thought about the details about how you're going to implement a plan, then why the hell is it your ideal and why do you have the opinion that it's perfect? Why did you even create this topic? When I don't know very much about a topic, I either go and learn as much as I can or I don't have an opinion on it. You dismiss the details because its clear you have not thought them through. Honestly, this whole thread reminds me waaaay too much of kids in the gifted program who think the world would just run better if only them/smart people made all the decisions, and then get their ideas torn down because it's obvious they have no real world experience and have given no real thought to implementation. Seriously, I've got so many teaching flashbacks during this thread, its unreal.

I envision several ad-hoc systems being built first before the emergence of an "umbrella" hierarchy, but in a final analysis, I'm not certain that such a hierarchy will even be necessary or useful. I guess I call this system "technocracy" because there isn't really a good name for this "mess" of interacting systems. If you think this is too far-fetched, realize that this forum itself is a "primitive" example of such a network, and it is only "primitive" because it is not yet integrated with any other network.

And I just...urgh. I was a cashier for a few years, and EBT won't even allow you to buy Muscle Milk or candy, so the idea that you can buy cigarettes and alcohol is a huge load that has been circulating for far too long.

Okay.

And an AI that runs everything with a lot of buzzwords but might as well be magic.

I don't think an AI that has total control over, say, culture, or the media, is probable, but one that can predict and service supply and demand is not by any means implausible, especially if there is a continuous stream of input from the masses.

And the notion that all decisions can be made logically.......I'll be honest, I'm pro-choice and I may think individual pro-life people can be cruel and insane, but I at least acknowledge that they can work from a logical perspective. They have simply posited that life begins at conception while I believe otherwise, each of which has logical points for and against.

That's because they don't have a precise definition of "life." If life is the standard scientific definition, that is primitive self-replication and self-organization, then a cell culture in the lab, or a cheek swab, or the residue from someone sneezing is sacred and must be brought to term. If they mean "human consciousness," that is the ability to learn and process information the way you or I or a baby could, then a zygote most certainly does not have "life."

If you're going to say that they're not alive because they don't have consciousness, then you're going to live in a world where its more ethical to kill a baby than a full-grown cat.

Children aren't stupid, they pick up language and other complex, AI-complete tasks much faster and much more naturally than adults do. They have about as many neurons as any adult, and their neuro-plasticity is higher. The failure to realize this is one of the prime fallacies of any culture that's run by adults, that is to say all of them. They have fewer instincts than kittens, but they have much more capacity to learn.

The questions of "Is crappy life better than non-life?" and "What constitutes life?" have been studied since the dawn of man. To say that you've figured it out and anyone who doesn't agree is just not thinking logically is insulting to basically everyone.

This seems akin to the "potential to create life" argument that I've seen elsewhere. But this is true of every sperm and every egg that is born and discarded by the natural process. Every woman is born with millions egg cells, and yet she is only capable of creating maybe 10-15 kids if she's in the top 1% in terms of fertility. By this definition, even the Duggar mom is a mass murderer.

Last edited by Overlord Morgus (07-27-2012 11:12:12 AM)

Sorry about that. I have to say, Overlord Morgus, you really are good at taking criticism without letting your emotions get the better of you, and I admire that about you.