Anti-abortionists don't believe that life begins at conception.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Would you rather it be the people flying by the seat of their pants?

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I would rather be ruled by the majority of those knowing the problems of todays world.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

I would rather be ruled by the majority of those knowing the problems of todays world.

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The best experts tend to be very knowledgeable about the history of the problem they are an expert on, funny how that works....

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

The best experts tend to be very knowledgeable about the history of the problem they are an expert on, funny how that works....

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Where I have implied that we should disregard our history...?

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Odd how you recognize history is complex, but still subscribe to the idea that history is one long thread of positive progression.

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The positive progressions of technology has so far simply been a fact, and it has created the fact of a break from human history following the 19th century in terms of social organization.

The world bears very little similarity to how it was 200 years ago. In 1800, the world was much more similar to the way it was in ancient times than to the way it is now.

Actually, to riff off the Jon Stewart video in the Climate thread:

Those who deny accelerating technological change with concomitant impact on our way of life be like, 'But I can still breathe, so technological growth must be slowing down!!!'.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Where I have implied that we should disregard our history...?

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

And why should "history" dictate the present?

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

The positive progressions of technology has so far simply been a fact, and it has created the fact of a break from human history following the 19th century in terms of social organization. The world bears very little similarity to how it was 200 years ago. In 1800, the world was much more similar to the way it was in ancient times than to the way it is now.

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Technology does not progress towards something. If there were no tin on earth, there would be no bronze. If there was no uranium, any nuclear power technologies would be radically different.

There are only three themes within history, conflict, exchange and extraction/production. The methods are different, but these themes are universal across all time periods. I hold that any view which separates us from those before us simply because we have shinier tools is a blind kind of exceptionalism.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Odd how you recognize history is complex, but still subscribe to the idea that history is one long thread of positive progression.

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You're reading too much into it. Stagnation do occur and so does regression. But technological improvements (progression) forces social changes to move forward, even when the society is kicking and screaming. A regressive social movement moves one step forward and two steps back, which is different from one step back, unless they also reverse the technological improvements as well.

History contains both a cyclical pattern and a path of (almost) irreversable changes. Trying to fit in what someone wise said a long time ago while ignoring the changes is hardly an effective method.

Also, globally and generally, history has been a long thread of positive progression.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Technology does not progress towards something. If there were no tin on earth, there would be no bronze. If there was no uranium, any nuclear power technologies would be radically different.

There are only three themes within history, conflict, exchange and extraction/production. The methods are different, but these themes are universal across all time periods. I hold that any view which separates us from those before us simply because we have shinier tools is a blind kind of exceptionalism.

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...To paraphase. Improved communication, transportation, food production, etc has had no impact? Despite changing how conflict, exchange and extraction/production looks like? The ideas behind Communism and Fascism are old, very old. Yet as political systems, they're young. Why is that, according to you?

Technological progression means that the tools used today does a better job than those in the past. That's the reason the old tools are replaced. It doesn't mean moving up through the teach tree of civilization.

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Technology does not progress towards something. If there were no tin on earth, there would be no bronze. If there was no uranium, any nuclear power technologies would be radically different.

There are only three themes within history, conflict, exchange and extraction/production. The methods are different, but these themes are universal across all time periods. I hold that any view which separates us from those before us simply because we have shinier tools is a blind kind of exceptionalism.

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Nonsense. There is no progress towards, but there is progress from. Progress is simply movement, simply change. To deny this is the true exceptionalism.

It's similar to the arguments presented to explain both "behavioral modernity" and the "Neolithic Revolution".

I'm sure this image is familiar to you:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Attachment 14699

Action potentials operate according to the All-or-Nothing Principle. Below a certain threshold, there is simply stable variation in potassium-ion exchange. Once the threshold is met, however, there is a massive leap in activity producing ever-more leaps in activity. The same is argued here to hold for the activity of living creatures in an ecosystem, including humans - the only real difference being that it should be much harder for an ecological "leap" to contribute inhibitory effects within the system, and no inherent developmental constraints on the sum of "leaps". Without these constraints, we can expect unbounded growth past the point of familiarity. This is assured. You will see it in your lifetime.

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Originally Posted by Ironside

You're reading too much into it. Stagnation do occur and so does regression. But technological improvements (progression) forces social changes to move forward, even when the society is kicking and screaming. A regressive social movement moves one step forward and two steps back, which is different from one step back, unless they also reverse the technological improvements as well.

History contains both a cyclical pattern and a path of (almost) irreversable changes. Trying to fit in what someone wise said a long time ago while ignoring the changes is hardly an effective method.

Also, globally and generally, history has been a long thread of positive progression.



...To paraphase. Improved communication, transportation, food production, etc has had no impact? Despite changing how conflict, exchange and extraction/production looks like? The ideas behind Communism and Fascism are old, very old. Yet as political systems, they're young. Why is that, according to you?

Technological progression means that the tools used today does a better job than those in the past. That's the reason the old tools are replaced. It doesn't mean moving up through the teach tree of civilization.

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Yes, but what is "forward"? We can move "forward" to a number of scenarios with technology. We can move "forward" into a clean society, with tolerance and transparency using the technology that has only emerged in the last twenty years. We can also move "forward" in to 1984, or Brave New World, or Deus Ex.

The hindsight of saying "things are better now then they have ever been" isn't an argument that things will always be getting better. I don't think that the first half of the twentieth century was "two steps forward, one step back" I think it was one big step back. Genocides on scales never seen before, racism, eugenics and anti-semitism present and openly advocated for across all the "liberal democracies". The fact that we did not engage in a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, does not mean that the history of humanity will not end tragically and painfully.

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Yes, but what is "forward"? We can move "forward" to a number of scenarios with technology. We can move "forward" into a clean society, with tolerance and transparency using the technology that has only emerged in the last twenty years. We can also move "forward" in to 1984, or Brave New World, or Deus Ex.

The hindsight of saying "things are better now then they have ever been" isn't an argument that things will always be getting better. I don't think that the first half of the twentieth century was "two steps forward, one step back" I think it was one big step back. Genocides on scales never seen before, racism, eugenics and anti-semitism present and openly advocated for across all the "liberal democracies". The fact that we did not engage in a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, does not mean that the history of humanity will not end tragically and painfully.

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Edit: I'll assume this wasn't directed at me.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

Nonsense. There is no progress towards, but there is progress from. Progress is simply movement, simply change. To deny this is the true exceptionalism.

It's similar to the arguments presented to explain both "behavioral modernity" and the "Neolithic Revolution".

I'm sure this image is familiar to you:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Attachment 14699

Action potentials operate according to the All-or-Nothing Principle. Below a certain threshold, there is simply stable variation in potassium-ion exchange. Once the threshold is met, however, there is a massive leap in activity producing ever-more leaps in activity. The same is argued here to hold for the activity of living creatures in an ecosystem, including humans - the only real difference being that it should be much harder for an ecological "leap" to contribute inhibitory effects within the system, and no inherent developmental constraints on the sum of "leaps". Without these constraints, we can expect unbounded growth past the point of familiarity. This is assured. You will see it in your lifetime.

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Humans are not potassium ions. Of course I am not denying the fact that change occurs. Why bother implying that strawman? It's a bit late (or early depending how you look at it) for me, so I gotta re-read your last paragraph later. But I do not see human progress as being modeled like an "All-or-Nothing" method, because it seems analogous to the whole idea that changes happen in waves of revolution. Most things build on things which came long before it and major events are simply notable for being an arbitrary marking point used for story telling.

EDIT: This one is for you monty. <3

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Most things build on things which came long before it and major events are simply notable for being an arbitrary marking point used for story telling.

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But that's exactly what I'm saying.

Obviously the physical processes underlying "revolutions" will not be exceptional - but from our human perspective they will be. These "major events" will simply signal a profound shift in our way of life, and whether at the core the same processes are evident is just a rather-crude halfway-reductionism that totally misses the point, which is this:

The "human/behavioral" and "Neolithic" revolutions of the prehistoric era and the Industrial Revolution of the modern age are about to be overshadowed and obliterated by a "Post-human" revolution in which we become evolution itself. There will no longer be 'human stories'.

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Originally Posted by Montmorency

There will no longer be 'human stories'.

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But what will I watch on TV then?

OK... I have no idea what you people are talking about

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Yes, but what is "forward"? We can move "forward" to a number of scenarios with technology. We can move "forward" into a clean society, with tolerance and transparency using the technology that has only emerged in the last twenty years. We can also move "forward" in to 1984, or Brave New World, or Deus Ex.

The hindsight of saying "things are better now then they have ever been" isn't an argument that things will always be getting better. I don't think that the first half of the twentieth century was "two steps forward, one step back" I think it was one big step back. Genocides on scales never seen before, racism, eugenics and anti-semitism present and openly advocated for across all the "liberal democracies". The fact that we did not engage in a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War, does not mean that the history of humanity will not end tragically and painfully.

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Things getting better are driven by two things. One, new technology replaces the old one if there's a benefit. Two, people prefer it to have it better, which means that oppression, genocide etc, needs to be imposed. Such imposing can't last for ever.

Nuclear war, massive irrerepairable ecological destruction, genetic manipulation Brave New World style, other things that wipe out humanity or irrevesibly destroys the human abillity or drive to invent are negative end states. And yes I do consider them possible.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

I would rather be ruled by the majority of those knowing the problems of todays world.

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Do you vote your political leaders in only if they are engineers, scientists or in the tech sector... because here we only have a bunch of technically illiterate lawyers chasing sound bites to choose from in 9/10 elections.

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

This sort of mentality always strikes me as an abuse of what separation of church and state was originally intended for.

Especially in an American context, it meant that there was not be any established national, or federal, church. It was never intended to mean that Christians must abandon their religious beliefs as soon as they go to the ballot box, or engage at all in politics. Why should atheists vote according to their conscience, but not Christians?

The above should be obvious when you consider that many states had their own established churches which citizens were required to pay taxes to and attend if they wanted to hold public office. Connecticut and Massachusetts had established Congregationalist churches. More strangely, some, like Virginia, continued for a short time after the establishment of the constitution to have the Church of England as their established church; which is of course a national church, just not that of their own nation. :dizzy:

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Individual rights should be protected from abuse by groups including the majority. Democracy isn't just majority rule it is minority consideration. Makes sense as this voting cycle minority might be next ones majority so play nice.

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Originally Posted by Vincent Butler

You are welcome to feel the way you feel about religion. The Bible says we walk by faith, not by sight. But the concept of people doing what they want with their own bodies...that baby is a separate person, not just an extension of the woman's body.
Separation of church and state comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Dansbury Baptists, with the context being that the government could not come in and tell the church what to preach. Our founding fathers in no way intended for religious beliefs to be kept out of government, virtually all our founding fathers were deeply religious.

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Again international board, so it is your founding fathers whose beliefs were heavily based on the European Enlightenment.

When the US can rule out capital punishment it will be in a better state to not hypocritically rally against abortion.

I also believe that abortion should not be decided by men, peer, wise, founding or otherwise. When a committee of men decide what women can do with their bodies then committees of women can decide what happens to men. I, for one, am not going to let a group of women rule that I should get a vasectomy, so I'm not going to decide on a woman getting an abortion.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

...I, for one, am not going to let a group of women rule that I should get a vasectomy...

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Would you allow a group of men to do so?

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Originally Posted by rvg

Would you allow a group of men to do so?

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Stupid question disregarding the entire topic.

Did you have a point?

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

I, for one, am not going to let a group of women rule that I should get a vasectomy, so I'm not going to decide on a woman getting an abortion.

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Many governmental heads of health and human services are women, do they refrain from making decisions about mens health?

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Many governmental heads of health and human services are women, do they refrain from making decisions about mens health?

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An expert balancing budgets based on modern science vs a committee of self anointed elders using their version of heavily edited and redacted scifi compendium based on events that may have occurred that none of the editors let alone authors witnessed.

I'll go with the qualified burecrat thanks.

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Originally Posted by rvg

Would you allow a group of men to do so?

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Well for the greater good they can lead away and I'll check on the data they gather.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Well for the greater good they can lead away and I'll check on the data they gather.

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What if the same data is presented by people with vaginas? What would that change?

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Technology does not progress towards something. If there were no tin on earth, there would be no bronze. If there was no uranium, any nuclear power technologies would be radically different.

There are only three themes within history, conflict, exchange and extraction/production. The methods are different, but these themes are universal across all time periods. I hold that any view which separates us from those before us simply because we have shinier tools is a blind kind of exceptionalism.

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Note the quotation marks on "history" in the post you quoted. They are there for a reason.

Learning from history =/= being dictated by some random guys from the past.

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Originally Posted by rvg

What if the same data is presented by people with vaginas? What would that change?

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Nothing. I am not letting a committee decide if and when I get a vasectomy, so not wishing to be a hypocrite I'm not going to advocate deciding if woman can or cannot get an abortion. That the group think decision is based on a system that has no solid evidence other then collective wishful thinking for a security blanket just reinforces why not to go down that path.

Now this is a story...
http://www.itv.com/news/2014-10-26/m...aughters-life/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...child-die.html

Mother wins right to end disabled daughter's life:
A mother has made legal history after she won a High Court case to end the life of her severely disabled 12-year-old daughter.