@chtierna

For the record, I didn't say people in Africa were uneducated. I said overall there is a lack of education about condoms--their use and their connection to disease prevention. I also said there is there are severe cultural obstacles to rolling out their widespread acceptance. So maybe before calling me naive, you ought to read the NY Times. I'd like to highlight the part of the article where the AIDS-infected counselors are giving speeches in church urging condom use. Nowhere in that article do you see anything about people not using condoms and getting AIDS because they are Catholic...probably because--like I originally said--that's not been a major reason for the spread.

As to what might have happened if the church had a different view, all I can say is read the article again. Those problems don't go away just because the Pope makes a proclamation.

For your other points--I guess we just disagree there. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "religious moderates." Religion is not the same thing as dogma, although if your only experience of religion is Catholicism then maybe I could understand why you believe that. Also, I don't think calling anyone an idiot has any positive effect on their core beliefs whatsoever. It is much more likely, in fact, to make them ignore what you say entirely. I believe this is true whether we're talking about religion, politics, baseball, the weather, or pretty much any topic on which a person might have an opinion.

Not all libertarians agree wholeheartedly with this philosophy though. Regulation (if not overburdened by politics) can have a positive effect in restricting businesses from hurting the consumers. Regulation is obviously required.

Blankfist:The libertarian solution is to remove regulations and restrictions from the market that continue to tip the playing field in favor of corporations. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a lot better than the crony capitalist system we currently have. Libertarians understand that things like health care and minimum wage and protective regulations sound really good and necessary, but unfortunately it simply destroys competition and employment opportunities.

Glad to hear everything's okay in RL!

So, to answer your first question, yes, I have read the Bible and many Buddhist sutras (particularly the Lotus Sutra). I'm familiar with some parts of the Koran, but have not read it in its entirety. What knowledge I have of Hinduism comes from Hindu friends.

Your interpretation of these religious texts is that they promote an obedience to a God or gods. For sure the Buddhist sutras do not, as most sects of Buddhism do not believe in sentient gods per se but in an innate (non-sentient) life force that we all share. But leaving that issue aside, I don't see how you can't have both themes (love thy neighbor/obey god). You couched it as an "either/or" solution, but why does it have to be? There's no logical reason why you can't follow your individual deity and treat other humans with compassion and respect. In fact, in most cases the themes go together--by treating other people with compassion and respect you are following the commands of your deity.

But let's take it further than that. I'm just going to quote you here: Of course you dont have to [interpret the Bible that way], and most religious people dont, read or interpret it that way. Wouldn't you agree that if most people don't interpret the Bible as a form of control, then really your interpretation is not the representative of Christian belief? For certain some people do interpret those religious texts as you have-- fundamentalists, for instance. But I would hardly consider them the majority of religious people or the average representative of religion. In short, just because you’ve interpreted a particular religious text in a particular way, it doesn’t mean your interpretation is by any means “correct” or mainstream.

On a side note, I agree with you that there's a lot of f'd up stuff in many religious texts. Take the Old Testament for example and the bloodshed and wars described within it. However, we’re looking at religion as a whole--not just superficially at the religious text but how that text is interpreted and how the people who follow that religion conduct themselves in daily life. One problem with this, as I mentioned in the last post, is that the most vocal nutcases are usually the ones that you see in the media and not your "average" religious person, so it is easy to form a biased perception of virtually all religions if you’re not associating with members of that particular religion on a daily basis. If you ask the majority of Christians what the major theme of the Bible is, you’ll almost certainly get some answer regarding love and redemption—not your interpretation or violence and control.

To address your second question about empirical evidence about the benefits of religious belief--there's lots. I don't have time now to find all the links. You’ll just have to Google it. I've seen the studies--legit ones on both physical and psychological health published in JAMA and other peer-reviewed sources--and they were enough to convince me. Very few counter-examples have been published with the exception of a recent one in 2010 that showed a correlation between religious belief and obesity, but it was such a small sample size that it could have been a chance finding or attributable to other factors (it drew its participants predominately from African-American /Hispanic communities which typically have worse health-care access than other ethnic groups).

Frankly, I’m a bit surprised at your next argument about MLK. You seem to be stating that it wasn’t MLK’s religious beliefs that prompted him to take action. All I need to do to refute this is point you to any biography of the man or his numerous speeches where he clearly states that his religious beliefs have led him to believe in both the moral imperatives of equality for all people and non-violence as a means of achieving this. Was religion the thing that made him what he was? Absolutely. Same with Ghandi. And Mother Theresa. And the Dalai Lama. And a host of other people who have attempted to or succeeded in changing the world for the better.

Next, let’s talk about the Hitchen’s challenge. I find the challenge ridiculous. Why should religion have to be somehow separate from daily life? All religions are deeply concerned with secular life—with how we live and act. Furthermore basic psychology tells us we don’t act because of any one reason but due to a complex interaction of many reasons, some of which are conscious and some unconscious, and which in the end are in our own self-interest. Hitchen’s challenge is a straw-man argument—replace religion with some other construct such as democracy or music and you will be equally unable to find anyone who meets that challenge (by promoting democracy you protect your own rights; musicians may love music but even they need to sell songs in order to pay the rent and will compose for money).

I think equally ridiculous is the argument that things such as genital mutilation have no other possible explanation or cause than religion. Wouldn’t misogyny be a much better and more rational explanation than religion? Clearly religion is used to fuel the misogyny but it would certainly be a mistake to assume that the misogyny couldn’t exist without religion. Let’s take another example—the Spanish Inquisition. The cause of that tragic slaughter was clearly secular in nature—having finally wrested the southern part of the country from Muslim rule, Ferdinand and Isabella chose Catholicism to unify a country in which many different religions co-existed. In short, religion didn’t cause the Spanish Inquisition; plain old political power-struggles did. Religion was simply the vehicle through which it was carried out.

And this is really what I’ve been saying all along—that religion is not, as you keep painting it as, the cause of humanity’s problems. It is a tool—a tool that, can be used for great good or great evil. As the folks at religioustolerance.org state: “Religion has the capability to generate unselfish love in some people, and vicious, raw hatred in others. The trick is to somehow change religions so that they maximize the former and minimize the latter.”

Later on, they go on to state that they feel that religion overall has a positive effect on society. That pretty much sums up my view of religion. If you do away with religion, you throw out the baby with the bath water. You lose the Martin Luther King Jr.’s, the Ghandi’s, the Mother Teresea’s, the Dali Lama’s of the world. It’s too a high a price to pay. For me, it’s all about dialogue—talking with others, getting them to see the common ground we all share, respect each other, and, as they said on their website maximizing the good and eliminating the bad.

As long as we keep talking—as you and I have been doing through these threads--we will keep moving forward. But I believe the instant dialogue ends—the instant you demonize the” other” and refuse to engage with them--you’ve planted the seeds of the next conflict: the next Spanish Inquisition, the next Bosnian massacre, or the next 9/11.

I'm not terribly good with formatting these broken quotes, so excuse the cut off of your reply

There is definitely something to be said about standardising such a thing, I wouldn't be on board with a 2-day experiment as the norm, we don't really get to see if friendships were mended etc, so you have a point there. My comment was more about discussing the topic at that age level in a more serious way than just doing the old "ugly duckling" story.

There is something about discrimination that is hard to understand from just hearing it's wrong, it's horrible to wish the feeling upon someone but what I would try to aim for is the lighter more humbling discrimination. For example, if you come from a white dominant culture and travel to a different culture, you feel a little "reverse discrimination", it's not like a "I feel like crap for being hated" feeling, it's just more eye-opening.
>> ^MilkmanDan:

>> ^yellowc:
If you have an issue with the age of the kids in this video, maybe you should step back and actually listen to how they talk. They are MORE than capable of learning this lesson, I think people forget how switched on our brains are at that age. You'll also see they grew up just fine, why ignore that part when discussing how young they were.

I did listen to the kids. Many seemed highly uncomfortable with the experiment as it was happening (which is arguably the point), and their comments at the reunion as adults never really confirmed whether or not they were glad that they went through it in hindsight. I agree that young kids are often more clued in than we give them credit for, and also that this particular sample set "grew up just fine". I don't think that I ignored that in my original post - here's a snip:
>> ^MilkmanDan:
I think the teacher definitely had good intentions and arguably got good positive results; ie., her point was made and the lesson was learned, and learned in a much more weighty way than merely talking about it.
But to clarify, I still think that this particular methodology combined with this age group of students is a risky combination. If this was a standard teaching exercise probably most kids would go through it, benefit from learning the lesson, and have no real negative effects. But there would be a few for whom this experiment / lesson could potentially have long-lasting consequences; lost friends, confidence, etc. The consequences would probably not be severe, but eventually it boils down to a value assessment.
I'd concede the point that this technique teaches the lesson in a way that will have much more impact and be much more memorable than nearly any other (reasonable) approach. However I think that simply talking about discrimination at this age, asking the students to imagine how it would feel to be discriminated against on some arbitrary basis, etc. could have, say, 90% of the same positive effect. Follow that up with further contemplation, history, etc. when they are older and it might be 95-99% as effective. 99+% effectiveness with no risk of having things go too far seems most likely preferable to me.
I guess it is very open to differences in opinion, which is probably what makes it interesting. So, upvotes for the video and discussion!

>> ^yellowc:

If you have an issue with the age of the kids in this video, maybe you should step back and actually listen to how they talk. They are MORE than capable of learning this lesson, I think people forget how switched on our brains are at that age. You'll also see they grew up just fine, why ignore that part when discussing how young they were.

I did listen to the kids. Many seemed highly uncomfortable with the experiment as it was happening (which is arguably the point), and their comments at the reunion as adults never really confirmed whether or not they were glad that they went through it in hindsight. I agree that young kids are often more clued in than we give them credit for, and also that this particular sample set "grew up just fine". I don't think that I ignored that in my original post - here's a snip:
>> ^MilkmanDan:

I think the teacher definitely had good intentions and arguably got good positive results; ie., her point was made and the lesson was learned, and learned in a much more weighty way than merely talking about it.
But to clarify, I still think that this particular methodology combined with this age group of students is a risky combination. If this was a standard teaching exercise probably most kids would go through it, benefit from learning the lesson, and have no real negative effects. But there would be a few for whom this experiment / lesson could potentially have long-lasting consequences; lost friends, confidence, etc. The consequences would probably not be severe, but eventually it boils down to a value assessment.

I'd concede the point that this technique teaches the lesson in a way that will have much more impact and be much more memorable than nearly any other (reasonable) approach. However I think that simply talking about discrimination at this age, asking the students to imagine how it would feel to be discriminated against on some arbitrary basis, etc. could have, say, 90% of the same positive effect. Follow that up with further contemplation, history, etc. when they are older and it might be 95-99% as effective. 99+% effectiveness with no risk of having things go too far seems most likely preferable to me.

I guess it is very open to differences in opinion, which is probably what makes it interesting. So, upvotes for the video and discussion!

>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


A widely held but incorrect view. Limited global population MUST be the desired outcome or humans will exceed the carrying capacity of the Earth. Relying on the promise of new technologies is a naive recipe for possible disaster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity

If you want to talk assumption, you're assuming that maximum relative wealth is the desired outcome. Pretty selfish, eh?

Baby boomers leaving the workforce is really only a problem because of Social Security and health care costs and an unbalanced worker to retiree ratio. That ratio will change over time and we'll probably have a period of austerity as it changes back to something resembling equilibrium. The baby boom being correlated with economic growth/decline is really not proof that increased population causes increased wealth. There are many other factors involved which have nothing to do with population.

Wealth is obviously not directly tied to population, or the United States wouldn't have vastly higher wealth with such a relatively low population density compared to the rest of the world. If you mean overall world wealth, perhaps that's true, since more people = more work = more promises to pay back debts, but when you're talking about a closed loop system, it's all relative. So, if you take the view that more world population means more poor people for rich countries to exploit, that would be true, but then you also have to assume infinite resources and an undamageable environment.

>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


Ironic that you say Hans Rosling doesn`t know what he`s talking about. How can 2 billion of the poorest people turning into 4 billion help economic growth? In fact, its one of the factors that perpetuate the cycle of poverty, as limited land is passed down to successive generations. When your small plot of land is divided amongst your 6 children, and they each divide their land amongst each of their 6 children, it does not help your condition one bit.

Also, sure an individual from a developed nation choosing to live frugally (like the 'sandal people') may result in a net positive effect on their local climate by reducing their individual carbon footprint. However, an additional 2 billion 'sandal people' will significantly increase our environmental impact through increased demand and things like deforestation.

>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


Wealth is not created by humanity's growth. Much of the financial "wealth" of the last century was created by banks and bankers. Money is a very misunderstood concept. http://videosift.com/video/What-is-money

In relation to population growth and the environment Rosling's concern is that the trend of rising economies is that they tend to adopt the behavior of the economic state they rise towards, i.e. trading in bicycles for volvos. He states point blank that technologies should be developed so that these people can choose to use electric volvos rather than diesel ones, and thus curb behavior to have a reduced environmental impact.

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.

This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.

If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).

>> ^entr0py:
Anyone else think the decrease in usage is simply due to real drug treatment programs being FAR more effective at reducing recidivism than simple imprisonment?


Yes. The first time I heard the anecdote about Portugal's "legalization" having reduced usage, it sounded like some sort of libertarian misrepresentation of facts. Sure enough, it absolutely was. No legalization, just decriminalization, and the state "punishes" some drug users with a trip to talk to a therapist, and provides drug addiciton treatment for those who want it.

So basically, compulsory socialized medicine reduced usage.

I'll gladly credit decriminalization with the other positive effects, and I'm definitely on the legalize/decriminalize bandwagon, let's just not go nuts and start pretending that the best way to reduce the commission of illegal acts is to legalize it.

*news

@vaporlock. Yes, big corporations are exactly what people mean when they say "small business". I seriously sighed out loud reading that.

Look, I'm not saying this politician has the right idea or even knows enough about history and governmental policy to make a positive effect for small businesses, but it certainly doesn't take a genius to spot the shrinking middle class and how most jobs in the US are corporate jobs which is a fairly new phenomenon.

>> ^AugustSpies:

You may think the response looks more satisfying, but you gave them what they wanted - exposure. These morons will not go away as long as people keeping giving them exposure. They are like attention craving 5 year-olds. Seriously, IGNORE THEM!! Even conservatives hate them because they harass the families of dead soldier, they only have the support and attention we give them!


In this case I think it's fair to say the WBC were overshadowed. Also, consider the positive effects of the school and community coming together like they did.

@imstellar28, this makes me think there's some way for us to eventually see eye to eye about things:

Society is like a pyramid...built on the backs of the working class who comprise the base. Nobody at the top cares about the poor - nobody - because the poor must exist for them to be rich. You think this tax gives money to the poor, all this does is give more money to the rich. Get real, who do you think you are talking to? You think I'm the CEO of Citibank or something? Why would I want to make more money for anyone at the top? Why would I want to take money from anyone at the bottom?

I'm all for the intentions of this measure - save the poor etc.

It's very Marxist of you to see things through the lens of a class struggle.

You also say:

This "Robin Hood" idea rests on the very naive assumption that if a bank adds a -$100,000,000,000 line to their operating expenses they would just say "oh well" I guess we are all taking pay cuts from now on, and the poor would rejoice with their newfound money. You must be kidding if you think thats what happens in the real world.

This, I think, is at the heart of our disagreement. Why do banks get to dictate their own profit margins? Why must the rest of society bend around the immutable preservation of these self-decided profit margins?

Isn't the price of a product based on "what the market will bear", and not "how much profit does the producer want to make?"

Putting a really fine point on it, why are you assuming that profit margins work exactly like production costs? Shouldn't competition reward the bank that pays the largest share of the tax out of their profit margin?

Also, $100 billion in the hands of the poor seems like it would have a positive effect on the level of consumer demand and the economy as a whole, especially when you're in a deep recession. It seems to me that banks might stand to make as much as they lose, and possibly more, assuming they're actually good at picking investments.

Mostly though, my point was that you seem to be downright hateful towards people who have a different viewpoint than yourself on how best to approach public policy, to the point where I often see you bluntly advocating violence. I also see a lot of conceit in your insistence that all people who disagree with your view are ignorant.

So I say, from the bottom of my liberal bleeding heart: Let go of the hate, man.

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^chilaxe:
That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.
Not really. I mean, right now, that's where the nastiest fights are, but that's because you really have a simple binary choice to make when it comes to HCR right now -- either you want House Democrats to pass the Senate bill, or you want them to vote against it. You can say other things when you talk to them, of course, like "you should be working on eliminating the filibuster", or "after you pass the Senate bill, they can pass amendments to it via reconciliation", but ultimately you need to address the straight up for/against question on the Senate bill.
Generally speaking, I would say that most of the left vs. left debates start from the liberal premise that government action can have a positive effect on individual and collective freedom. Great, so what goals do we have? What policies or laws would achieve them? Which issues should get the most attention? That's usually most of the debating space.
To me, it seems easy to build a cohesive coalition around negative action -- like cutting taxes and regulation no matter what it's for -- but trying to get liberals to coalesce around a particular health care plan can be challenging, even when we've got a common set of goals (reduce costs, make coverage available to everyone, make coverage reliable).
There's plenty of debate when you get into details and mechanics on how you accomplish those things.
It seems to me like it must be boring to be part of a conservative movement. You've got one, universal answer to every question: cut the size of government. To me, that seems like the soul of anti-intellectualism. Even conservative "intellectuals" seem to spend most of their time either inventing philosophical arguments to support their predilections, or saying that liberals suck because they sometimes get things wrong.


Good. Well, if you run for office (lord knows we need it), you've got my vote

>> ^chilaxe:
That's good to hear that there are left vs. left debates. However, are these mostly just folks on the far-left of the political bell curve 'pushing harder even if it means we lose'? As long as that's the dominant liberal paradigm, they don't seem to me to be reliable societal partners who can be reasoned with.

Not really. I mean, right now, that's where the nastiest fights are, but that's because you really have a simple binary choice to make when it comes to HCR right now -- either you want House Democrats to pass the Senate bill, or you want them to vote against it. You can say other things when you talk to them, of course, like "you should be working on eliminating the filibuster", or "after you pass the Senate bill, they can pass amendments to it via reconciliation", but ultimately you need to address the straight up for/against question on the Senate bill.

Generally speaking, I would say that most of the left vs. left debates start from the liberal premise that government action can have a positive effect on individual and collective freedom. Great, so what goals do we have? What policies or laws would achieve them? Which issues should get the most attention? That's usually most of the debating space.

To me, it seems easy to build a cohesive coalition around negative action -- like cutting taxes and regulation no matter what it's for -- but trying to get liberals to coalesce around a particular health care plan can be challenging, even when we've got a common set of goals (reduce costs, make coverage available to everyone, make coverage reliable).

There's plenty of debate when you get into details and mechanics on how you accomplish those things.

It seems to me like it must be boring to be part of a conservative movement. You've got one, universal answer to every question: cut the size of government. To me, that seems like the soul of anti-intellectualism. Even conservative "intellectuals" seem to spend most of their time either inventing philosophical arguments to support their predilections, or saying that liberals suck because they sometimes get things wrong.