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Black Wolf

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Everything posted by Black Wolf

  1. But why not? Verificationism, as far as I know, simply refuses to accept arbitrary claims, and place the burden of proof on the person making the claim. I guess what I'm trying to ask is: What is the difference between verificationism, and the burden of proof principle?
  2. But what if 5000 people have claimed to personally seen the resurrection of Jesus? Should they be dismissed?
  3. Is verificationism dead? Is it no longer used in a court of law, or by scientists? Is it a good thing that it isn't? In a court of law, isn't eye witness testimony believed to be true until proven otherwise? Isn't the burden of proof on someone else to prove that the eye witness testimony is incompetent or hallucinating, rather than dismiss the eye witness altogether? Does expert testimony require any burden of proofs?
  4. If Zip's plan of New Atlantis ever comes to fruition, that should be "year 0". "The year someone REALLY parted the Red Sea." Or whatever body of water that is outside of any EEZ that would be available
  5. He is pretty socially conservative. When asked about gay marriage? He said he believes it should be defined as between one man and one woman. He's not perfect, but such is politics.
  6. Congratulations to Egypt for revolting with a minimal body count

  7. Ahh.. defeaning silence from dakota. I find it intresting that (s)he can not respond to Dante. Though she does have a point about "Read this" being an inadequate response. When your response is nothing more than a deferment to someone else, it implies that you are a layman. I liked Dante's response, and he managed to put into words what was on my mind.
  8. Not only that, but someone actually beat him to it. I believe there was an Islamic aviator in the Arabian Golden age
  9. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/ Several objectivists such as Yaron Brook have denounced the war in Iraq, because the justification for it was "spreading democracy". The original reason for going to war with Iraq were claims of finding weapons of mass destruction. Top intelligence analysts were unable to find these weapons of mass destruction, but Wikileaks revealed that there was a continued search for them. Turns out that laboratories for chemical weapons still remained, and chemical weapons were produced. Judging from the article, it seems that the most deadly thing they were actually producing was mustard gas. Mustard gas is defined by NATO as a weapon of mass destruction. Were the initial reasons for going to IRaq valid? Sorry if this is old news.. but I did have an argument with someone about the war in Iraq's validity.
  10. I feel that the author has poorly supported that it's not accurate to come to the conclusion that slavery was eventually gonna die out in the South. He didn't address the economic arguments
  11. I'm not asking about his definition of existence, though - it's pretty straightforward, and it's hard to argue against it. I'm talking about his definition of universe. ..You're on long island too? Awesome.
  12. Leonard Piekoff claims that the universe is "the total of that which exists—not merely the earth or the stars or the galaxies, but everything. Obviously then there can be no such thing as the “cause” of the universe". What is the proper way to define the universe? Is Piekoff's definition question-begging, or is his definition already the proper one? I've gotten into arguments with many people, and they've objected that the universe only pretains to what is within the space-time continuum. I responded, using the etymology of the Universe, which means "Rolled into one" (Unus = One, Versum = Rolled into). I argued that he was the one who was begging the question, based on the etymology of the word, as there is no reason to conclude that "universe" is strictly limited to space and time as domains. I acknowledge that, despite the lack of overall conention, that I was rather inexperienced. I didn't put my argument into syllogism form. He didn't really argue any further than that, but what is the proper way to define "universe"?
  13. Their policies are already turning on them, but they don't seem to realize it. Our current tax law, for example, is what's keeping people homeless. There's no motivation for someone to hire a homeless man if he has no I.D. or mailing address. To accept a homeless man who does not have this would be hiring someone under the table - which is illegal. So what's he supposed to do? Panhandle for a P.O. Box? That's great, but you already have to have a mailing address to be able to do this. Even so, a P.O. Box will only get you so far. It is rather hypocritical for liberals to support zoning laws, though.
  14. Republicans are calling him a democrat, Democrats are calling him a republican. But this man obviously has no consistent principles - he likes Mein Kampf, he likes the Communist Manifesto, and he likes We The Living. I think it's safe to say that he has no consistent principles, and can be best described as "the man without a purpose". "The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose—a productive purpose . . . . The man who has no purpose, but has to act, acts to destroy others. That is not the same thing as a productive or creative purpose." ~ Ayn Rand, playboy 1964
  15. After I just got done shoveling snow off of my driveway ramp, the snowplower pushes it right back on. If I push snow into the street, I get a fine. Fuck

  16. The fact that he is even blaming the admittedly damn-near treasonous slogans is proof that he doesn't want everyone to put down their guns: He just wants his enemies to. Blaming both parties for minor, unconnected inconveniences like these is the most convenient way to give yourself credibility. You're non-partisan, therefore, you must be objective and have no hidden agenda of your own. If Keith Olbermann truly wanted everyone to put their guns down, he would not have even conceded that this was an incident that was connected to anything. Gun metaphors and slogans are bad, but it's stupid to insist that a person is going to motivated to kill a political figure by listening to gun metaphors. Jared Lee Loughner is a conspiracy theorist, and conspiracy theorists do not tend to view themselves as immoral for initiating violence against government leaders. Keith Olbermann is most certainly not the only person to say something like this, at any rate. http://www.alternet.org/news/149460/how_the_right%27s_rhetoric_fueled_the_actions_of_arizona%27s_mass_murderer?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=alternettop_stories
  17. If a political system depends on the conditions that it's started in, it's not prosperous. Prosperity can only be the result of a political system, not the other way around.
  18. ..Huh? Strange, I can't edit my own post? by .3 Celcius, not from. Also, .3 Celcius was a round-up. It's actually .26 celcius that carbon dioxide intake from platns is accounted for Here's a Chemical Engineer's persepctive on AGW. http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/ThermostatCO2HPFeb10.pdf
  19. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the article omit certain things? They estimated that carbon dioxide intake from plants would decrease the global temperature from .3 Celcuis, making the actual range 1.64-4.2C. I don't know about this report, it seems as though they took the lowest possible number of a range, and presented it as if it was the maximum. Also, if the temperature raises that much, it could make the weather more tolerable for disease spreading mosquitos. A little temperature increase makes a big difference for them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/dec/17/register-climate-myths
  20. A debate with somebody about abortion ended up with us arguing about whether or not giving birth was forceful. I am not sure if there has been a similar thread, but I felt there should be a topic about this. I have a solution to the question in this title, but I'm not sure about the validity of my response. I put this in political philosophy because this is a question of force = which politics answers. Nobody consents to being born. Nobody asks their parents to give birth to them. Was the birthing mother being forceful? My response would be: If you were to accept that conception is an act of force, then you would have to ask: who is the aggressor? A woman's only role in conception is receiving sperm and waiting. If giving birth to someone is an act of force, then who is the aggressor? The woman can't be considered the aggressor, she's only a vessel for it. If birth is an act of force, then the aggressor in question is an arbitrary being, one that is not known yet - the mother should not be considered an aggressor.
  21. Just wait until he demands free medical care for his jumping. You are upset about losing your health entitlements.. so you jump off of a balcony.
  22. I think we all heard the name Jesus.. the question is, do people actually -follow- Jesus? Thankfully, they don't, but I wish people would stop pretending they do
  23. DADT filibuster was broken. I'm very excited about this, but it's not over yet

  24. Wouldn't want those peasants to find out that there's better health care then they're actually getting
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