101–110 of 174 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boy. :) a) Yes, I understand you are a specific person, not a statistical average. b) I'm sorry you didn't find the bit of flavor I added to the thread interesting and wish you hadn't felt attacked by it.
All in good fun, I didn't feel attacked :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Consider a world without antibiotics In a world without antibiotics I’d rather not want anyone getting within 10 feet of my son’s penis with an unsterilized blade, thank you. Not to mention the whole “direct oral suctioning” tradition of some religious groups [1], which sounds like a recipe for spreading herpes and other goodies. [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/safe-bris...
Considering in that world said child, with or without circumcising, often only had 50:50 odds of making it to adult hood, but if they were an adult, these things would matter? You’d likely have others overrule you. Such is society, or something.
You'd likely have others overrule you regardless, but the same applied when it came to unambiguously harmful quasi-medical procedures like FGM blood-letting.
The thing that progressivism has gotten wrong is that tradition isn't completely arbitrary and lacking in utility. The thing that conservatism has gotten wrong is that tradition isn't simply defensible for its own sake. Modern progressivism feels like going into a house to remodel, with a sledgehammer, without bothering to give any consideration to which walls might be load bearing. Conservatism feels like keeping a…
To bring this out of the abstract, take something like feminism. First wave had it right, in my opinion, by focusing on liberation. Women weren't free to choose their own paths, and conservatism was the over bearing force in creating this problem. The aim of liberation was to free what arbitrary constraints were put on women simply due to tradition or presumption. Modern feminism, however, focuses on equality rather…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In short the Monarchy serve no real purpose in modern societies. Even as a symbol, it's a very bad symbol. TBH I'm sort of baffled by this stance given the events around Queen Elizabeth II's passing. To be clear, I'm not a monarchist, and I share the opinion that their continuation in modern society is, well, weird, to say the least. A modern constitutional monarch holds no real power, and often times holds less po…
This person pretty much sums up my thoughts. I'll let him speak for me (although my position is probably a bit more moderate). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TzM1TO2pb4 He's also English while I'm not.
My argument is that it's just as probable that the media is feeding into a desire that a large portion of the population holds. The line to see QEII's coffin was 5 miles long, with a wait time of 13 hours. Clearly some people really were interested in the queen.
My point is that I see the attitude professed by the author of that video a lot "Why would anyone be interested in the monarchy? It's just stupid propaganda, I should be about as interested in them in the Kardashians." There is always a subtext of that opinion along the lines of "If you're interested in the monarchy, you're just a stupid sheeple." And the weird thing for me is that, while I kinda agree with that assessment, I think I would be the stupid one if I were so clearly dismissive of an institution that is held in such regard by a huge portion of the populace.
Chesterson's fence is about understanding: tradition may be smarter than you, maybe not, but it would serve well to understand the reasons why it's a tradition before disposing with it.
well and good. the issue I have is that when no one can be found that knows anything about why it was put there in the first place. every day I have to climb over that damn fence to get groceries. at what point do we tear it down to see what happens? in software, I would rather tear it down and find out what it was there for. most developers I've worked with in the past couple decades operate in an atmosphere of cons…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> literally peak autism Thanks. That completely invalidates everything I wrote. Super effective technique you have there.
Way to skip past the last two-thirds of the sentence. Do you have anything meaningful to say or just wasting my time?
Chesterson's fence is about understanding: tradition may be smarter than you, maybe not, but it would serve well to understand the reasons why it's a tradition before disposing with it.
well and good. the issue I have is that when no one can be found that knows anything about why it was put there in the first place. every day I have to climb over that damn fence to get groceries. at what point do we tear it down to see what happens? in software, I would rather tear it down and find out what it was there for. most developers I've worked with in the past couple decades operate in an atmosphere of cons…
Chesterson's fence is about understanding: tradition may be smarter than you, maybe not, but it would serve well to understand the reasons why it's a tradition before disposing with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
well and good. the issue I have is that when no one can be found that knows anything about why it was put there in the first place. every day I have to climb over that damn fence to get groceries. at what point do we tear it down to see what happens? in software, I would rather tear it down and find out what it was there for. most developers I've worked with in the past couple decades operate in an atmosphere of cons…
The recourse when nobody can be found who knows or remembers why the fence is there, is to figure it out based on first principles. It's fine to do "tear it down and see what happens" as a consciously chosen trade-off for expediency. But in my experience people often act like there's just no way of knowing if you can't find someone to ask, and that's very rarely the case.