mbohu

Not exactly what I am trying to say: There are some aspects of the scientific method that can be used for internal experiences just as much as for externally measurable experiences, and reproducibility (is that an actual word?) is one of them. If you read some texts (modern or ancient) around meditation or other internal technologies, you can see that this has been used. Experiences of such nature can be reproduced and they are often similar in nature when you do reproduce them (if you leave out the difference in interpretation). There is also the concept that you can use this reproducibility to gauge if the experiences are genuine or not. However, the reporting of the experiences and the judging of them will necessarily be SUBJECTIVE and not OBJECTIVE (meaning: you cannot have a team of scientists watch the meditator, or the one engaged in a spiritual ceremony or prayer or whatever and have them judge what experiences (s)he has. This can only be done by the person experiencing it herself.) If you only value OBJECTIVE reality in this sense, then you exclude these experiences A PRIORI, and that is not based on any evidence itself, but simply a part of the assumptions of objectivistic systems. So, no: Not all internal experience is as valid as measurable reproducible external "facts" BUT some internal experience is reproducible in meaningful ways, and others may become so in the future. Also: Both realities are NOT the same, and should be treated differently and have different areas where they are applicable (if I am going to construct a parachute, I'm certainly going to focus on the objective measurable side of things--but if I am trying to determine the nature of experience itself, I will not limit myself to that) You can see the limitations of the objectivistic systems when it comes to the question of consciousness, for example: It can, in principle, not deal with that essential reality. It can only try to reduce it to objective data (brain functioning, etc) which of course misses the point entirely, or explain it away as "an illusion" (but isn't consciousness required for an "illusion" to exist? What objective thing IS an "illusion"? Can you point to it?) So, each has its realm of validity. Edit: So to be clear, I'd say these experiences can be reproducible but they cannot be measurable (in the objective sense)

Good point, and I would say that these two are actually not very different at all (see my above post). In essence, you take comfort in the exact same thing as the religious people: That the world conforms to your preconceived ideas of it, only that your ideas consist of "there is no purpose" and "there's no justice, there's just us". That's really the same thing in principle. If it wasn't, atheists would not have to spend so much time and effort "refuting" believers in countless YouTube videos and making sure everyone understands how "stupid" believers are. Fact is, on a subconscious level the ideas of believers scare them as much as their ideas scare the believers. (And yes, I know some atheists "fight" believers for political reasons--but even in that case I think there is more to it if you dove deeper into the underlying psychology)

Looks like there are a number of different sub-threads (sub-topics) in this thread, some more interesting than others: The first one seems to be about "what influence should government/society have upon belief systems and religions. How should laws be designed to either make sure no specific religion has undue influence, or how should it, on the contrary, support specific religions (because they are important to "our" culture), etc." While this may be the most IMPORTANT question, it is also the least INTERESTING one, so: being the entitled liberal brat that I am, I'll leave these important but boring questions to others. One much more interesting question circles around the ontological arguments about evidence and how believers and "non-believers" come to believe what they do, and I think that something is being missed here (particularly by the non-believers' side). It is my experience that the more steadfast believers in any religion or spiritual doctrine, usually do not primarily believe in it because of some book or passed down doctrine (as you seemed to imply, Wendy), but because of some deep internal experience, that they feel is undeniable and and irrefutable (to them). This experience, they feel, cannot simply be argued away by rational explanations and references to "lack of proof" as it is a much more alive and direct thing, than these rational arguments. For example, RonD alluded to such experience for him, when he wrote about his experience of what it means to him to be born again. (I could be wrong about this, of course, because with him, who the heck knows??? Sorry, Ron!) Now I know, many atheists (or otherwise self-identified non-believers) will dismiss these experiences as explainable by all kinds of "rational causes" ranging from brain chemistry, to "the stupidity and naiveté of the believer" (see Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, etc.) However, none of these arguments will convince anyone who has had these experiences (for better or for worse.) What I find interesting though, is that believers then need to assign some kind of fixed, limited, story to their experience and they usually latch on to a given pre-existing interpretation, and this is--at least in the ontological sense--where organized religion and various "sacred texts" come in. The problem being, that these of course have very limiting explanations and often are purposefully exclusive to every other possible interpretation of these experiences. (I think this may well be intentional, as--consciously or sub-consciously--the creators of these systems and texts may have recognized the immense psychological powers of such deep experiences and felt the need to put them into a framework that could control them in a way, that felt "safe" to them). So now we end up with Christians who are convinced of their own personal experience with, and connection to, God (and I think that is something very real to them and not just something learned from scripture and their pastors) but completely negate the possibility that such an experience is just as real for the Buddhist or Sikh or Muslim or even the Pagan (even though all would explain it in completely different language.) Of course, this tendency is again, psychologically explainable by our need to think we live in a "safe" well-explained reality, rather than some unknown, mysterious universe that doesn't give a crap about our feeble attempts at comprehending it. Personally I feel the "non-belivers" are in no way different in this respect. They may say they are open to the unknown mysteries of the universe, but that applies only as long as this universe ONLY consists of things that comply with the dogma of "only externalities exist" and they need to conform with what our thinking constructs as "logical" and what can be observed with our physical senses or their extensions (measurement instruments, etc.) So: I think the real interesting exploration of this topic starts where the safety nets of our limited perceptions and imaginations stop. There is another interesting topic, and it revolves around the implications of religion and atheism in regards to morality, but this post is long enough and the LSD is wearing off, so I'll leave this for next time.

Yes. And so did we, when we were in their phase of development. That is why we need to give them a path to achieve that development by different means. We are asking them for something that WE weren't asked to do at that time. We are asking the 6 year old to behave like a 12 year old. (and I hope it's clear that I am talking about the development of a country's infrastructure, economy and wealth, and not the development or capacity of its people.)

These are 2 different questions: Why do we have to offer something BIG: Well, it's not too hard to chart out what would happen if all other countries took the same path to development and prosperity that we took. If they did that, pollution, CO2 emissions, etc. would be off the chart and would not be sustainable at all. We are telling them that they cannot take our path to prosperity, even though WE did it that way. That is a huge ask. That is why we need to have a huge GIVE. (or to use a different metaphor: We are now 12 year olds that are asking our 6 year old brother to behave as responsibly as we as a 12 year old are behaving, even though, as 6 year olds we did in no way behave like that.) Should we be the world's police man? Ideally no. Ideally that job goes to international organizations and ad-hoc coalitions. Given our size and state of development though we will probably disproportionally contribute in that arena. (And: I don't think it's relevant what "the left" agrees with or not. If "the left" doesn't have the right solution here, let's not care about what "the left" says or wants!)

Yes, and we need to help them, so this does not create a competitive disadvantage for them and makes it harder for them to catch up. This may SEEM unfair to us, because why should we do our own part and ALSO help THEM to do their part (isn't that their business?) but because we did not do our part when we were in their position, that is why we now have to do more. And yes: this needs to be sustainable for us as well--and that may be where the discussion will be: What is actually sustainable for us, how much do we OWE, so to speak, how much can we now ask from others, etc. I am sure China has a different view on that than we do, and other poorer nations will have an even different view. It won't be an easy negotiation, but it needs to be engaged in.

Oh, and as DJL is pointing out (if I follow him) in this example it would be more like we previously dumped all our leaves in everyone else's backyard and now we are suddenly asking for everyone to just clean up whatever happens to be in their own yard.

Well yes. All of that is true and all of that has to be accounted for and thought about. It's certainly an issue that we (the most developed parts of the world) are now asking less developed countries NOT to do what we have done in order to get as wealthy as we got, because we are suddenly realizing that the way we did it is actually not sustainable if EVERYONE did it. That is an extremely tough ask. That is why we have to offer something BIG. That is why we have to probably show that we are now willing to do 5 times as much to make up for what we already took previously. That is why it may be necessary to first do SO much more: Not because that in itself will solve the problem, but because that may just give us some of the leverage and moral authority to ask these other countries to be better world citizens than we were when we were in their shoes. Well, that's a bit much to ask. In this case, what would be better would be to get together and come up with some kind of regulation that applies to all. That way, the one who is willing to do their part does not get to carry that burden by themselves for all the others. One thing that a lot of people seem to forget is that--for the very reason you point out in this example--regulations can actually HELP the businesses (or countries) that they apply to. If I am running a business in a way that is ethical beyond the standards of others, and there is cost involved with this, then I am making myself less competitive in relation to these others. If there is then regulation that penalizes others if they do not do the same as myself, then that helps me to be on a level playing field again. That's why we crazy progressive actually like (some) regulation, even if it sometimes seems to limit our own "freedoms". So: To come back to the issue discussed here: International regulations (well, all we can do there are really "agreements" rather than regulations, as we do not have the infrastructure for "regulations" and there is currently way too much fear of developing such infrastructure, so it won't happen)--International Agreements are what can help here, and these agreements can only work if we are committing ourselves to them and, as the above point explains, for some time actually give MORE than our share to them.

But, like I said: THEY ARE. In fact, these organizations are the ones that ARE working in these places. The talking heads that use the "But China!" excuse, on the other hand aren't doing diddly squat there and it is clear they have no intention to do anything. Here is an example map of one organization. The dark orange is where they work. This one does not work in China (China probably DOES pose some real challenges, because of their regime, so that would need more political support to really get something done) but they DO work in India:

Absolutely. But who is working on getting China to toe the line on that? It seems like this argument is generally only used in order to argue against doing something domestically. No one I know, who uses that argument, is actively working on convincing or pressuring China on this issue. All the organizations I know about, that are doing ANYTHING about China in this regard, are the same organizations that are pressuring the US (and pretty much any other big country) to do more.

Yes. Thank you. It certainly does answer the speed question: So you're not for slow speed after all! I also agree with 1), 3) and 4) (I do like LEDs, I really don't like fluorescents, and I have to admit that I use incandescents wherever LEDs don't work.) Re. 2) I can't feel but that it is too slow. I lived a little less than half my life in a country that has universal healthcare and I just can't for the life of me imagine how anyone would not want that.--completely independent of political persuasion. Re. 5) I know too little, but I always thought it was meant to set an extremely ambitious goal in order to get maybe 20% of it done eventually. It's not a tactic I necessarily think is best, because it encourages "the opposite side" to do the same, and everyone to just move further and further apart. But again: I know way too little about the specifics. (and some of it does sound like political theater, of course.)

I think we can agree on that: Less Nonsense! (it's BORING!)

Trying to keep it away from AGW as a specific issue, so generalizing: It sounds like you are saying that technological progress has now led to unintended consequences that created bigger problems, that we would not have had, had we slowed down our progress. (I am surprised you're saying that in this regard...but like you said: let's stay away from that topic) You are right in that and there are many other examples: Nuclear technology, weapons in general, travel that has made global pandemics more likely, etc. In these cases, the way I would still be for progress, would be that we now have to think even further (rather than retreat into old ideas.) We have to start to think in terms of systems-theory and complexity-theory, so we can start addressing these more complex problems. And yes: Slowing down in certain areas (and speeding up in others) may be part of that equation--that's why I am trying to understand the conservative viewpoint (or psychology) a little more. I am aware, that beyond the rhetoric of daily politics, there are some valuable general ideas that each side is holding and some sort of synthesis is ultimately needed.

Well, as you probably guessed, I am not too excited about it. So, let me explain why--or why I THINK it doesn't excite me (just so you know how this works in a progressive's brain) Let's first address your particular points: Now, not saying that this isn't a good thing, but it does not excite me that much. Emotionally, I am not very concerned with the advantages of one country over another--yes: of course I can "think straight" and can want it to be better in the country I happen to currently live in, so I hope you know what I'm saying--but I am much more concerned with something that is better for all of humanity. So The US being better off than others, in itself does not excite me quite THAT much. Yes (if that's true, which it probably is) But not tremendously exciting, because "jobs" is kind of an old paradigm. I am aware that we are still far away from this, but in the long run the paradigm of "jobs" (=having to spend most of your life doing something that is often not in alignment with what you would naturally want to offer the world) are something I hope we will move away from (and yes, that sounds like hippy-dippy ideas, but with increase in automation, AI and changing economic landscapes I think we are actually at the beginning of the time where this movement may start) --now again: I can see how jobs for thousands RIGHT NOW is a good thing.--not sure if it outweighs the dangers though. Lastly: It is still based on old (boring) technology, using a resource that is limited (yes: everything is limited, but this one is relatively MUCH more limited than others) and emotionally I am drawn towards much more advanced technologies and resources. So in summary: I would at most see it as a stopgap and this would even be WITHOUT considering any of the negative impacts on environment and people who live close to fracking operations.

Yes. Again: cognitively I understand it. I try my best to take that into consideration. But emotionally it goes against my nature, and I am trying to imagine what it would be like to be a person that "wants to step on the brakes". Even more so: A person who jumps out of airplanes and wants to step on the brakes! Seriously though: The thing about "bringing people along" is actually what I find to be the most compassionate aspect of conservatism. I think we progressives often miss that point and in that way make ourselves the ones missing that kind of compassion (which of course we wouldn't want to admit) BUT I STILL wish people would just want to go a little faster!

AGW is a good example, because you can see why people who want to "move forward" are very open to the idea, while it goes against the ideas of people who are of the opposite persuasion: The idea that there are global problems that we will have to work together as all of humanity to solve, is an idea that perfectly fits with someone who wants to move forward and into larger and larger circles of togetherness and into more and more capability as humanity as a whole. If it isn't AGW, it would be asteroids or air pollution (in a more general sense) or the nuclear threat or a myriad of other issues. On the other hand if you don't want change, if you'd rather stay in smaller, more limited circles, the needs of global cooperation that AGW would demand would go opposite to the wish to stay "small" and "safe" (yes, I know, I use words that show my bias, but I think you get the drift!) So while the question of "is AGW" scientifically real and proofable, seems to be an objective, scientific question, that is not where the discussion is really happening from. It probably has much more to do with these basic psychological predispositions.

Yes. Exactly. For example: For me Electrical Vehicles with motors that are quiet, yet have 100% torque available from (practically) 0 revs on, do not require fossil fuels (which WILL eventually run out, be it in 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years) and have a myriad of other technical advantages and exciting technologies--are in and of themselves extremely exciting. They are something I would be interested in, NO MATTER if they are urgently needed or if they (by themselves) would make a big dent in climate change or anything else. Why wouldn't ANYONE be excited about progress like that?! Sure, with any new technologies we do need to look if there are downsides that outweigh the benefits and need to make sure we progress in the right way BUT even just emotionally, this is a direction I would want to move in. It's hard for me to truly feel myself into the mindset of someone who would want--by their nature--to stay with the old (and BORING--clearly that is MY word for it) So again: for me, my initial emotional reaction would be to be drawn to the new and the more advanced. I would want to step on the gas pedal. It's where the INTERESTING and FUN stuff is. THEN, after that initial attraction, I will have to use my rational mind to possibly temper that and look at the possible downsides and dangers, if there are any. It seems to me that the initial emotional reaction of a "conservative" that wants to slow down progress is the opposite. At first he will be put off by anything new and any suggestion to change what is currently there. He will naturally want to "step on the brakes". He will be suspicious of any attempt to change the status quo. Only THEN, may he think about it in more depth and consider if there are actually some benefits to SOME kind of change--but SLOWLY!

Yes. But I don't think you want to slow down progress--in your own mind...others here may see you that way, but to you none of this is progress. I'm interested in someone who actually does see some things as progress, but wants them to happen more slowly. That is one definition of "conservatism" and I am trying to understand that aspect of it.

Yes. That, I understand. And based on your list, I assume that you consider none of these things actual "progress". Turtlespeed seemed to say though, that he actually considers (at least some portion of) the progressive agenda progress; but he thinks it shouldn't move that fast. That is what my question to him is pointing at.

technically that is of course correct, but I mean, what else should they count? I mean, just because the firefighters were called to a house because of a genuine fire and they put out the fire, doesn't mean that in each case everything wouldn't have been fine without them coming. Sure, the fire could have gone out by itself. Nothing worthwhile may have been burnt. We'll never know. Nevertheless I still think they can count each such call as a successful "save" for themselves. You can't count the number of terrorist attacks prevented by airport security measures, as the attacks that didn't happen because of them DIDN'T HAPPEN. Same, you can't count the lives saved via AADs, exactly BECAUSE the lives have been saved!

Very consistent with your screen name! I didn't think about this before, but is that the reason you chose it? Just wondering though, why WOULD someone want to slow down progress? That seems so counter-intuitive for me.

That's only a tiny part of it, though: There are resources that simply aren't available in every country. There may also be some specialization in expertise that is not available anywhere, and most importantly there are simply projects and industries that cannot (or should not) be executed by a single country alone (most of the transportation industry--especially air travel--for example) And as long as the Scots continue to make Scotch and the French, Italians and Austrians make wine and many foods I can't get here, I'll certainly benefit from the global economy.

Well, that is what the earth was built for--to find that out. (It's a reference to Hichhiker's Guide to the Universe: An advanced race once built a super-computer to work out the answer to "life the universe and everything". After thousands of years of calculating the computer finally came up with the answer: "42". So, they built another even more complex computer to find out what the actual question was. This computer was the earth with all of its creatures (the advanced race actually lived on the earth as the most intelligent species on it--mice--dolphins being the second and humans only third.) Unfortunately the earth got destroyed by Vogons (a horribly bureaucratic intergalactic race) to make way for an intergalactic highway, just days before it could finish its programming.)

I thought 42 was the answer.

Did just a tiny bit more research on this and: "...the article conflates statements made by Brown, which did not represent a consensus view at the time, with statements made in several governmental studies that were more representative of the consensus view. " Apparently the official was "...Noel Brown, who served as a regional director of the United Nations Environment Program and who was not a climate scientist" So a bit "neither here nor there".