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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/05/22 in all areas

  1. I think it's immoral to outlaw meth, heroin, cocaine, ... But I'm sure as hell not going to use them on principle.
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  2. I mean, not really. While there is a great deal of exegesis of "the arbitrary as neither true nor false" in ch. 5 of OPAR, but the burden of proof principle is a logical commonplace. On the second point, I had made the following remark already: "The one way we could know whether we were in error about a given faculty is by discovery of some truth which reveals us our error." This is the way to counter the method of Cartesian doubt with regards to individual faculties, that all of our faculties couldn't be in error all the time. But the point of the simulation or BIV scenarios is not to deny existence, it's to deny your knowledge of it. Imagine someone saying you are really a brain in a vat, you are hooked up and experiencing a simulation. They're perfectly content to say yes, existence exists, you just don't genuinely experience it beyond what is fed to you. And since we can imagine this being the case, it is therefore possible, unless the realist prove it's not. The way to counter this is the burden of proof principle, and a denial of the assumption that because something is imaginable it is possible.
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  3. If Webster's or anyone else did this, they are wrong. There is a clear difference between being anti-vaccine and being anti-mandate. Being anti-vaccine means holding that vaccines are bad and people shouldn't use them. Being anti-mandate, in the context of vaccines, means holding that people shouldn't be forced to vaccinate. This follows from the meaning of the prefix "anti-". I am anti-draft, but I am not anti-military. If you are talking to someone who is confused about this, whether because of Webster's or for any other reason, you may need to explain the difference. If they are too irrational to listen, you won't be able to communicate with them.
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  4. The problem here is that failure to get vaccinated is not an initiation of force. The government exists to protect people from criminals (and invading foreign armies), but not to protect them from natural phenomena such as hurricanes, earthquakes -- or viruses. In a free country, people can organize to protect themselves against such things, and the government is only involved insofar as it prevents crime from occurring. In some circumstances it might be possible to sue someone for negligence if their failure to do something causes a natural phenomenon to be worse for someone else. Generally, however, I think you have to willingly assume a responsibility before you can be held liable for shirking it. Interestingly, the government has granted the manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines "immunity" from liability lawsuits.
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  5. The purpose of government is (supposed to be) to protect individual rights. The only way to violate individual rights is by initiation or threat of force. Therefore, the government maintains a monopoly on force to ensure that it is only used in retaliation and only against those who initiate or threaten its use. As such, the only "mandates" from a proper government are negative obligations, e.g., don't murder people, don't defraud people, don't steal from people, don't extort stuff from people, etc. The government can enforce these without ever initiating force. Individual rights are not (supposed to be) subject to vote. Unlimited democracies usually end up tyrannical, as mob rule. As for vaccine mandates, the issue here is whether one has a right to one's own body. I would say so, and therefore I oppose vaccine mandates on the same grounds that I oppose the forced pregnancy and childbirth that result from abortion bans. A vaccine mandate is not the same thing as a vaccine itself, and it's possible to recommend a vaccine without supporting a mandate. I mean, I think everybody should read Atlas Shrugged to "inoculate" themselves against socialism and communism, but I absolutely don't believe that the reading of Atlas Shrugged should be mandated by law.
    1 point
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