In the state of Utah, state representative Ken Ivory introduced a law banning books containing obscene, or indecent material.
Now, this law has lead to The Bible being banned from school.
But Ken Ivory now promises to "clarify the standard" and perhaps even mentioning The Bible in his law, explicitly stating that his preferred book is exempt from his law.
I think this is quite a good situation report on San Francisco’s Valencia Street bike “lane” project. There is no good outcome here. We use the center-running lanes and risk getting hurt or killed, or we take the drive lane and risk enraging drivers, or we don’t do either and that gets interpreted as lack of demand. Obviously avoiding injuries and deaths is better between those options, but what a stupid outcome; what a waste of goodwill. https://sf.streetsblog.org/2023/06/28/commentary-dont-bike-on-valencia#BikeLanes#SFMTA#SanFrancisco
But if there's stuff you really need people to avoid touching and you can't necessarily trust everyone who has access to avoid touching it... Maybe you should add some layers or locks or something.
If a terrible person says something correct or true, you don't have to say "[Terrible person] was right about [X]." I mean, you can say it, but you don't have to.
The terrible person is rarely the originator of whatever it is that they said that was correct. Saying that they were right about [X] is often an attempt to give them credit for something positive. It comes from a place of wanting them to be more accepted by the public.
We should explore why the speaker wants them to be more accepted
Also, without empathy and the knowledge that no one is wrong all the time it's easy to develop the habit of thinking that all dangerous people are inhuman super villains. Which then leads easily to thinking everyone is either (xor) a dangerous super villain or a good person.
But moral monsters are just normal people. Pretending otherwise feels safer but is actually less so. We can be monsters or not and to varying degrees. Caricatures can make it harder to see this.
Our first ever new mailbox and we got to pick it out. Son John installed it over two days to make sure the cement in the hole was set up well. Hours of drip watering that spot to get the old one out. Soil here is very hard to get through due to caliché about 4” down. Feeling accomplished, ha ha!
Well this is going to be a trip. Taking son to dental college for 3 fillings. 45 minute drive and 2 1/2 hours in appointment. We leave in 15 minutes and he’s roaring and pounding already.
As some of you have probably noticed, I’m hanging out in rural Maine visiting my mother and doing assorted chores. Today a friend of hers came by, along with her 8 year old grandkid. I’d been working outside and was sweaty, so I was watching from the door when my mother went to greet them. And I immediately noticed two things.
The kid was was wearing a t-shirt that said “Equality” with a rainbow.
Their grandmother referred to them as “she” and then corrected herself to “they”.
So I popped inside, took off my sweaty shirt, and put on my “Some Kids Are Trans. Get Over It” t-shirt and came out to greet them.
Super bright kid. I had a nice time chatting with them and showing them around. And they were awesome with my mother’s dog, who is afraid of kids.
I did my level best to get my mother to use the right pronouns. But despite myself and the grandmother using them, she didn’t get the hint. Then when folks were out of the room, I told her specifically. She said she’d never heard of such a thing. Later she was talking to my uncle and she said it was silly and she wouldn’t do it. As silly, she said, as all the fuss over using “he” and saying it didn’t automatically include women. Later over a lunch, I had a knock down/drag out fight over it that left me shaking. What’s frustrating is that it’s not non-binary or trans she’s complaining about, she just thinks anything that makes her change is silly and not worth the effort, and no stats will change her mind. Plus, she absolutely denied she had told my uncle she wouldn’t do it. And then when backed into a corner, claimed that she hadn’t meant what she said! CW SUICIDE: STOP HERE It doesn’t help to remind her (didn’t have to, she brought it up) that as a teen back she had a close Native American friend who transitioned but later killed themselves. (In the 40’s, good lord, poor woman). But she refused to put two and two together. Left me absolutely shaking with anger. SAFE TO KEEP GOING
Oh well. Maybe some of will sink in eventually once she’s gotten over my telling her “No”. She doesn’t like it when I do that.
But lets hear it for trans and non-binary eight year olds! Absolute breath of fresh air.
@ispeters@nazgul
The "boost" button is for that. It's the two-arrows-in-a-loop icon. It's basically a share or repost action. Starring has no amplifying effect.
Popular intuitions about the nature of morality seem to shift by era and culture quite a bit.
For example, turn of the century intellectuals in elite Western settings often presumed that morality is nothing more or less than personal taste - and as consequential as your taste in ice cream. It was just supremely unimportant.
And yet topics that we, today would think of as being serious moral issues were just not seen (by the intellectual elites, mind you).
Nietzsche famously railed against the existence of morality (by which he meant the strict, hierarchical Victorian mores of his context) but then also wanted people to lead authentic lives where they take their own actions and character seriously.
Why does the first count as morality but the second does not? That's just the only way N could imagine the word applying.
Well, 1, notice that the moral principle in the example is a premise and not a conclusion. That's usually how it works.
2, logic is derived from language, or at least ordinary experience, so it's not surprising that, whether it's prudent or not, we use logic for everyday things all the time. Moral reasoning is just one of them.
3, just because logic is involved in ordinary life doesn't mean ordinary life is logical.
4, I wouldn't say Gödel & Turing are saying this imo.
To elaborate on 1, something is always given. Even in axiomatic systems there are... Axioms. And first principles of ethical systems is a core piece of the history of ideas.
The Modern World Can't Exist Without These Four Ingredients. They All Require Fossil Fuels
Four materials rank highest on the scale of necessity, forming what I have called the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia are needed in larger quantities than are other essential inputs. The world now produces annually about 4.5 billion tons of cement, 1.8 billion tons of steel, nearly 400 million tons of plastics, and 180 million tons of ammonia. But it is ammonia that deserves the top position as our most important material: its synthesis is the basis of all nitrogen fertilizers, and without their applications it would be impossible to feed, at current levels, nearly half of today’s nearly 8 billion people.