Spelling a word out loud is an infrequent task for me. I have to simulate writing or typing it and then dictate the result of that simulation. I would characterize myself as adept at language. Choosing the appropriate words comes easily to me, and I don’t think this skill is related to spelling bee performance.
Hook
Karma: 151
Jack and mattnewport both seemed to do a good job above.
Since when were terminal moral values determined by rationality?
Leaving aside the physical complications of moving cows, I think most vegetarians would find the decision to push a cow onto the train tracks to save the lives of four people much easier to make than pushing a large man onto the tracks, implying that humans are more special than cows.
EDIT: The above scenario may not work out so well for Hindus and certain extreme animal rights activists. It may be better to think about pushing one cow to save four cows vs. one human to save four humans. It seems like the cow scenario should be much less of a moral quandary for everyone.
Show me someone who actually needs to be convinced. Just about everyone acts as if that is true. One could argue that they are just consequentialists trying to avoid the bad consequences of treating people as if they are not morally special. I’m not even sure that is the psychological reality for psychopaths though.
Also, a corollary of what Matt said, if humans aren’t morally special, is anything?
Another test:
Could smoking during pregnancy have a benefit? Could drinking during pregnancy have a benefit? It’s not necessary that someone know what the benefit could be, just acknowledge the nicotine and alcohol are drugs that have complex effects on the body.
As for smoking, it’s definitely a bad idea, but it reduces the chances of pre-eclampsia. I don’t know of any benefit for alcohol.
I think “making the argument that humans have some special moral place in the world” in the absence of an eternal soul is very easy for someone intelligent enough to think about how close humans and goldfish are “in the space of ‘things that one can construct out of atoms.’”
Any given chemical is not equally likely to cause pleasure for human beings, so of course alcohol and nicotine consumption have a genetic basis. It seems equally obvious that the availability of alcohol and nicotine are part of the environment. Additionally, they are parts of the environment where it is easy to imagine life being substantially similar without them (unlike environmental influences such as oxygen and gravity).
Athletic ability at birth isn’t really all that variable. Besides, “at birth” doesn’t eliminate in utero environmental effects.
Correlation with race does not mean genetic causation. Having 100% recent African ancestry correlates highly with living in Africa.
That’s just about what I was thinking. Anything that pointed out that the “all other things being equal” clause doesn’t describe reality would be sufficient.
Richard Lindzen is a nut, but he’s also an MIT professor of meteorology who has made arguments from physical reality (mostly) that AGW isn’t real.
My litmus test for whether someone even has the basic knowledge that might entitle them to the opinion that anthropogenic climate change isn’t happening is: “All other things being equal, does adding CO2 to the atmosphere make the world warmer?”
The answer is of course “yes.” Now, if a climate change non-skeptic answers “yes” the follow up question to see if they are entitled to their opinion that anthropogenic climate change is happening: “How could a climate change skeptic answer ‘yes’ to that question?” The correct answer to that is left as an exercise for the reader.
It’s an important note for the soccer game that Barbados needed to win by two points in order to advance to the finals. Otherwise, Grenada would go to the finals. Now people have a chance of imagining what happened.
Whether something can be used for evil or not is the wrong question. It’s better to ask “How much does computer vision decrease the cost of evil?” Many of the bad things that could be done with CV can be done with a camera, a fast network connection, and an airman in Nevada, just as many of the good medical applications can be done by a patient postdoc or technician.
Yes. That does seem to be the correct context for a critique of the article. I was thinking more along the lines of “giving odds” in terms of “offering bets” in order to make money (ie, a bookie).
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I didn’t see any, but it is close to 100 pages longer.
Looking at that amazon link, has anyone considered automatically inserting a SIAI affiliate into amazon links? It appeared to work quite well for StackOverflow.
I’m waiting for the revised edition to come out in May.
Your calorie intake is slightly high for the zone diet. That could be fine. The typical version of the zone diet is meant for weight loss and you need a higher amount of calories to maintain weight. The zone recommendation is to get those extra calories from healthy fats. The zone diet is also very concerned with maintaining the correct ratio for every meal and snack, not just as a long term running average. This makes sense if the goal is controlling insulin spikes after each meal.
I agree with Kutta that your protein consumption is much higher than is necessary. I am less clear on what the health consequences of that are.