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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 7:36:00 PM   
cpK69


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quote:

ORIGINAL: subfever

It seems to me that the issues are greed and prejudice, and their offspring of hunger, pollution, and war.



Interesting. Do you think that (one size fits all) law fits the description of prejudice? Seems to me as though it could.

quote:

The questions are... who does greed and prejudice truly serve, and why do the masses continue to support it?


By my calculations, greed and prejudice serve pride and ego. As to why the faithful following, I can only guess; though I suspect, it is largely due to it being so difficult to picture existence without them.


quote:

All treat symptoms of a larger problem.


Yes; it is like thinking that taking cough syrup will cure bronchitis because it helps to stop coughing.


quote:

In a world of scarcity, where we are force to compete against and feed off of each other, there will always be fear. And most have difficulty being honest with themselves when the truth challenges their identities.


I agree, but I think the problem goes a little deeper than that of challenging identity; many cannot face the judgments they have place on others, which would then become their own.

Hope you are well.

Kim


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Humility is where weakness and strength meet and humanity begins.

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 8:02:14 PM   
Silence8


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Status: offline 		Am I the only one who found the speech not-so-subtly racist and, hence, not objective?

(in reply to cpK69)
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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 8:05:08 PM   
cpK69


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Kim

_____________________________

Humility is where weakness and strength meet and humanity begins.

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 8:46:57 PM   
LadyAngelika


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

Am I the only one who found the speech not-so-subtly racist and, hence, not objective?


I didn't see it, but I would appreciate if you could point out an example or two. I'd like to see it from your perspective.

- LA

< Message edited by LadyAngelika -- 3/30/2010 8:47:18 PM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 8:52:27 PM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

I didn't see it, but I would appreciate if you could point out an example or two.

See here

anti-Muslim rhetoric... militaristic fixations... scapegoating

But racism per se, I don't know. Semantics? Perhaps further comment will clarify.

K.




< Message edited by Kirata -- 3/30/2010 8:57:14 PM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 9:00:39 PM   
LadyAngelika


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

I didn't see it, but I would appreciate if you could point out an example or two.

See here

anti-Muslim rhetoric... militaristic fixations... scapegoating

But racism per se, I don't know. Semantics? Perhaps further comment will clarify.

K.


Anti-muslim rhetoric isn't racist. Muslims are of many races, black, arab, indo-pakistani, persian, white, etc. Is speaking out about the atrocities that a religious group commits 'anti'. He spoke out about Christians as well.

I'm not saying his speech was perfect but it had some good points.

- LA



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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 9:08:22 PM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

I'm not saying his speech was perfect but it had some good points.

I was just pointing you to where he laid out his issues... not agreeing with him!

K.

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 9:13:21 PM   
Silence8


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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

Am I the only one who found the speech not-so-subtly racist and, hence, not objective?


I didn't see it, but I would appreciate if you could point out an example or two. I'd like to see it from your perspective.

- LA


I mean, I think there is a thread of anti-Muslim rhetoric, even if cooled in comparison with some things I see and hear.

It's not as if, from my impression, Harris just really likes middle-eastern culture and for this reason is using these references... it's clear that Harris is responding to terrorism, and using the issues of women's rights as a prop. The stronger claim would be that Harris is himself a sort of sublime fundamentalist -- women's subjective independence being used as an object for what he does not directly reference, but ultimately what all of this is point toward, namely, war.

Still, his method is actually pretty good in terms of structure.

And it is a difficult question -- I imagine most progressive types would take the road of 'I am all for cultural relativism, but we need to have women's rights', but even a short walk down this path shows immediately how conflicted these positions are. I'm not sure whether you can dictate the clothes people wear without engaging in a form of imperialism, one that logically would promote things you don't want, like terrorism.

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 10:34:41 PM   
GotSteel


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Status: offline 		Last I checked Muslim wasn't a race.

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/30/2010 10:47:40 PM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

I think there is a thread of anti-Muslim rhetoric... it's clear that Harris is responding to terrorism, and using the issues of women's rights as a prop.

What seems clearer, at least to me, is that you're being irrationally defensive for some reason.

K.




< Message edited by Kirata -- 3/30/2010 10:48:28 PM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 5:07:16 AM   
LadyAngelika


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

I'm not saying his speech was perfect but it had some good points.

I was just pointing you to where he laid out his issues... not agreeing with him!

K.


Yeah, I got that :-)

- LA

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 5:18:05 AM   
LadyAngelika


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8
I mean, I think there is a thread of anti-Muslim rhetoric, even if cooled in comparison with some things I see and hear.

It's not as if, from my impression, Harris just really likes middle-eastern culture and for this reason is using these references... it's clear that Harris is responding to terrorism, and using the issues of women's rights as a prop. The stronger claim would be that Harris is himself a sort of sublime fundamentalist -- women's subjective independence being used as an object for what he does not directly reference, but ultimately what all of this is point toward, namely, war.

Still, his method is actually pretty good in terms of structure.

And it is a difficult question -- I imagine most progressive types would take the road of 'I am all for cultural relativism, but we need to have women's rights', but even a short walk down this path shows immediately how conflicted these positions are. I'm not sure whether you can dictate the clothes people wear without engaging in a form of imperialism, one that logically would promote things you don't want, like terrorism.


I didn't see him as trying to dictate the clothes people wore. I saw him as questioning motivations. Is a woman wearing a hijab, a niqab or a burka. Are the women being forced to wear it or are they wearing it out of their own personal conviction?

I'll tell you honestly, I've seen quite a few young women here wear the hijab, al-amira or shayla style and be quite flirty with it. I used to go to middle eastern shisha bars and see the girls who didn't have to wear the head scarfs chose to wear it sometimes as a form of play, like denial. My ex used to say it looked like a French headscarf and could be seductive... as always, YMMV.

Well on this specific issue, he did show a picture of the Western World newstand with the exploitation of the female body, all the skin, all the make up and reconstructed body parts and ask if this was technically any better. He did say that we needed to find a balance. I really think this was his point.

- LA

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 6:51:31 AM   
Elisabella


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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika


Well on this specific issue, he did show a picture of the Western World newstand with the exploitation of the female body, all the skin, all the make up and reconstructed body parts and ask if this was technically any better. He did say that we needed to find a balance. I really think this was his point.



I think the problem was not only that he only spent a few seconds on the Western aspect, and when he said that the Taliban knew no more about human well being than about nuclear physics, he didn't mention the West as well.

The biggest issue I have with the idea that there is any objective standard of well being is that there's really no 'typical' person. That thread I linked you to in CMail shows that pretty clearly - the situation in which one person would thrive another would suffer in, and saying 'you can choose to do whatever you want' completely ignores the social and cultural aspect - the damage done by following your true nature, and being ostracized for it. Harris says he believes that it should be a womans' choice to wear "a veil or a funny hat or whatever" but the fact that he even compares it to a "funny hat" means that he is implicitly devaluing her choice.

One of the most profound things I've heard about cultural relations was in my Middle Eastern Politics class, a Muslim woman came in and gave a speech and she talked about two different types of freedom. In the West, she said we have "freedom to" meaning freedom to do what we want, freedom to make any choice we can imagine. In the Arab world, she said, they have "freedom from" which she found liberating on its own. Freedom from being ogled, from being treated like a piece of meat, freedom from having to fend for yourself due to divorce or weak family ties, and since she was a volunteer speaker I have no doubt that she was speaking the truth, she was happier with her "freedom from" than she would have been with "freedom to."

Another thing that comes to mind is something like women working outside the home and contributing equally to housework and bills. I think it's great that women have the freedom to do that, but at some point freedom to do something turns into an expectation of doing something. There's a stereotype of the "successful woman" - college educated, going somewhere in her field, being open with her sexuality, etc...and I've known many women who thrive like that and many others who are miserable with those expectations. Which would science support? My guess would be, whichever the researcher was more inclined to agree with.

Anyway I think it was a fairly interesting speech but I don't think there was anything all that concrete in it. And I'm fairly confident that once a standard is set for 'how people thrive' there are going to be plenty who will say 'but that is not what I want.'

(in reply to LadyAngelika)
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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 7:13:30 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Elisabella

Anyway I think it was a fairly interesting speech but I don't think there was anything all that concrete in it. And I'm fairly confident that once a standard is set for 'how people thrive' there are going to be plenty who will say 'but that is not what I want.'

I think he made it clear that human beings can thrive in different ways. And if it needs to be mentioned, you can't say, "but that is not what I want," to the Taliban.

K.

< Message edited by Kirata -- 3/31/2010 7:19:51 AM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 7:23:22 AM   
Elisabella


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

I think he made it clear that human beings can thrive in different ways, and that concrete standards fall mainly on the other side of the argument. You can't say, "that is not what I want," to the Taliban or to the Saudi or Iranian religious police.



Yes but when you look at it the opposite way - if someone from one of those countries said "This is what I want, I am happy and I do not wish to be indoctrinated into your version of liberation" what would the response be?

You can boil it down to "people do not thrive if forced to go against their nature" but that's not what he focused on, he focused on one society and said "this is wrong" rather than focusing on the force aspect. Rather than saying "the Taliban knows nothing about what conditions people thrive in" he could have said "it is a rare person who thrives in those conditions" and those conditions aren't the superficial constructs that can be imitated like the veil, but the society as a whole, while we might see it as patriarchal and oppressive, some might see it as safe - knowing that if they do what's expected of them they will be treated well and never have to go it alone. One person's stifling is another person's secure.

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 7:37:04 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Elisabella

he focused on one society and said "this is wrong" rather than focusing on the force aspect.

Harris didn't focus "only" on one society, he specifically included our own, and he most definately objected to the physical brutality (the "force aspect") in both cases. Granted that he could have used medieval Europe as an example instead of the Taliban, I don't think it faults his case that he chose something current and familiar to his listeners.

K.




< Message edited by Kirata -- 3/31/2010 8:27:50 AM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 8:45:43 AM   
SL4V3M4YB3


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quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
quote:

ORIGINAL: SL4V3M4YB3
Science is neither good nor bad in terms of morality (on the whole)

Surely that is entirely inaccurate.

Science is bound up with the pursuit of knowledge - the scientists of the 17th century certainly felt that the pursuit of science at the expense of 'magic' was the 'right' thing to do for the evolution of ideas and therefore the species.

Science is certainly concerned with good and bad: good = empiricism; bad = abstract notions.

Sure the pursuit of knowledge versus ignorance is good but I believe we are light-years away from the methods and ethics employed by the founding fathers of science. Probably in the past scientists had sponsors of their research and those sponsors were just as excited about discovering the answer, no matter what it was, as the scientists. It was more about exuberance on the part of the sponsor rather than answers for profit. It's easy to find the answer convenient to the backer if the backer is setting the scope of the investigation and citing budget reasons for the investigation not being more thorough. If you investigate any problem within constraints you'll find the answer you expect quite often.


I'm not saying all modern science falls into this category take for example the CERN project, this is obviously an exercise in pure philanthropy (for the moment) but how many similar projects are there of that nature where the money is spent to find an answer; not knowing if that answer will be of any use to anyone?

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel
Last I checked Muslim wasn't a race.

Yeah but how often do you check?


< Message edited by SL4V3M4YB3 -- 3/31/2010 8:57:05 AM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 3/31/2010 11:05:16 PM   
Silence8


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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika

I'll tell you honestly, I've seen quite a few young women here wear the hijab, al-amira or shayla style and be quite flirty with it. I used to go to middle eastern shisha bars and see the girls who didn't have to wear the head scarfs chose to wear it sometimes as a form of play, like denial. My ex used to say it looked like a French headscarf and could be seductive... as always, YMMV.



I was thinking of mentioning something to this effect, that, if we really want to understand this culture, we need to understand their point of view. And it's true that creating a mystery out of the female sex only heightens the attraction. S/M, after all, probably feeds off some of the same motivations as in a lesser developed physics-ignorant culture. [I always forget how to make that smiley face that smirks.]

YMMV?

< Message edited by Silence8 -- 3/31/2010 11:06:08 PM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 4/1/2010 11:58:57 AM   
Kirata


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

YMMV?

If you don't mind me helping you out, since LadyAngelika hasn't answered yet...

YMMV = "Your Mileage May Vary"

K.



< Message edited by Kirata -- 4/1/2010 11:59:33 AM >

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RE: Science and Morality - 4/1/2010 1:05:59 PM   
Silence8


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