> Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

> 1: Logic is still meant as a way to determine the approach.  If you want to kill people, you have to somehow determine a method to most effectively do so.  Otherwise, you're doomed to failure.>

Right. Logic can weigh the costs and benefits of your perceived options, and most people pursue the one that has the fewest risks and costs and highest returns. However, it isn't telling you what to do. It is telling you that if you want a, then you must do xyz.

<2: How do you deal with conflicting desires, then?>

That's why we have diplomacy and its many options for conflict resolution.

<3: How about the way society as a unit should move?  Is there a collective emotion, aside from those associated with major events, such as 9/11 or victory at WW2?>

It can't decide that. It may be able to predict the outcome based on conditions prevalent in humanity and the circumstances faced by one or more human societies.

Logic is a tool for evaluating arguments. It isn't meant to reveal what path we should go on.

I think the better conclusion is that Obama is a weak president who can not control the elite, rather they control him. I knew in the elections that he was all talk, and that is exactly how his presidency is looking.

Zarf,

The probability of an effect given certain conditions is testable, but it is a stretch of Logic to suddenly call those conditions rights. For something to be a right, at least in the context of this discussion, it has to be a law guiding what we ought or ought not do, and it must exist independently of human invention. Two main proposed possibilities have been that rights are mandated by a divine being (as is stated in the US constitution), or that they are a feature of nature that can be discovered by reason.

You can negotiate an agreement for certain values and then test how to best accomplish them all you want, but is not going to prove that there are rights. It will only support the idea that rights are human inventions for causing desired outcomes.

Acolyte,

That is an interesting article. But it fails here:

"A society that placed no bounds on rape, pillage, and murder would disintegrate. Its members would defect. Without these limitations, society would be impossible. It is intrinsic to the nature of every social group that each member can rely on others not to arbitrarily rob them of their lives or their assets. Each of us reasonably declares this as a right."

I agree with the argument that the restraint of certain activities like murder and theft are essential features of a functioning human society, but the author's use of "intrinsic to the nature of every social group..." is conveniently ambiguous. The sentence could mean that these restraints are essential features of a functioning society, as I agree with, or that rights are features of nature that human societies must respect in order to function. The author's evidence suggests that the former conclusion is true, but the remainder of the paper assumes that the latter is true and relies on the reader to be duped by the ambiguity. It's a clever ploy, but it is bs all the same. It is the same as saying that the educated elite of ancient Greece had the right to rule and be obeyed, because without their expertise society could not function.

In other words, the author's evidence that functioning human societies require the restraint of human behavior does not in any way prove that there are rights. It actually supports the hypotheses the author condemns like convention or positivism, theories stating that rights are human inventions, and not that rights are features in nature.

Rights can not be empirically tested, and therefore we have no knowledge of them.

I win!

Einstein,

Fair enough, and I largely agree.

Fool,

Marriage right now has limited utility because its greatest benefit to men is lower taxes, and on the other hand it is a huge gamble. A man faces a high risk for suffering the highest burden of alimony/child support payments and a loss of property in a divorce settlement etc. And while there are pre-nuptial agreements, and yes they are a huge protective measure, it is no guarantee because all it takes to nullify it is for a judge to determine that it was unfair or coerced. Divorce, however, unfairly benefits women. They are much more likely to receive alimony and child support payments and custody etc.

That is why I think marriage is currently oppressive. That said, it does not have to be that way. It is conceivable that divorce laws could be reformed to be fair, or in fact that marriage offers no legal benefits. In the case of the latter, I question why we have to legally recognize a marriage in the first place. There would only be administrative costs and no tangible return other than people's desire to be legally recognized, which is no compelling reason at all.

In the case of the former. If marriage results in lower taxes, certain legal rights over one another's person like hospital visitation, and fair divorce settlements, then the question for me is utility and whether there are alternative ways to accomplish the same thing.

As for lower taxes in marriage, it seems the only utility for this idea is to increase the availability of resources for raising children. However, a marriage tax deduction is not fair for couples with children who have decided not to marry. Moreover, it is an abuse if people can easily just marry and decide to have no children just to pay lower taxes. Increasing the available resources for people raising children with tax deductions can be fairly accomplished without marriage.

As for rights relating to one's own person like visitation rights in a hospital, that too can be accomplished by alternative means. And divorce settlements can also apply to unmarried couples who have decided to separate as a form of separation settlement, as a way to protect children etc.

It seems to me that the most compelling reason for marriage in a modern western society is to benefit children by increasing the available resources for them, because this is the sensible way to justify its unique feature of lower taxes and payments accompanied by divorce. If marriage is seen this way, then it is presently unfair and open to abuse. If marriage was reformed to accomplish the intended goal to benefit children in a way that was fair and less open to abuse, then marriage would just become an option with the same legal standing among others (like those who just wanted to raise a family with the same effective standing today as a girlfriend/boyfriend) and therefore be meaningless and not worth the administrative costs. The other benefits that marriage provides like rights to one's person can moreover be easily accomplished through other means.

Fool,

What I am saying is that the state simply does not recognize marriage, and therefore does not reward those who are married.

However, for those who want their effective boyfriend or girlfriend to be given the right to receive their property in the event of their death, or to receive hospital visitation rights etc, then they can specify those rights in a legal document. This is not an alternative to marriage, rather it is an option that can be pursued by couples who decide they want their boyfriend/girlfriend to exercise rights relating to each other's person that have been voided by the abolition of marriage as a legal institution. Hell, you can deny your girlfriend the right to visit you in the hospital or receive your property if you die, if you so chose.

And I like this set up because then women would first stfu about getting married. Women use marriage to raise the price of sex. It gives them security and control, yet at a man's perspective the risks outweigh the rewards. By eliminating marriage, people become more equal and more easily able to control their own bank accounts and assets. And if you removed those senseless and archaic legal benefits of marriage, which are more unfair than beneficial, then it would become completely meaningless for the state to recognize.

Zarf,

But you can have stability of two parents living together and sharing resources without marriage. So it isn't marriage that causes stability, it is monogamy. Hell, it may not even be monogamy, but a commitment by both parents to assist raising a child.

Key,

I'm 23 and have been coming here since I was 15-16. It's a habit, really.

Key fits? He sounds very reasonable to me. I recall him being a very effective debater several years ago, back in the good old days when the politics forum was active and engaging. These days there's no point in presenting a forceful argument.

I'm not doing anything. I'm waiting, waiting for a US general to march on Washington D.C and declare himself Emperor. There is only one way for the US to eliminate its plutocracy, and that is to establish a military autocracy.