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Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

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Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#251

Post by philwelch »

esrauch wrote: post #246
spindritf wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you don't reject it, then it's quite difficult to accept any of the Big Three religions and simultaneously convince yourself that you're embracing an evidence-based worldview. Every worldview is based in faith. The very act of considering any evidence requires trust (faith, if you will) in the value of input provided by our senses. There is no and there cannot be any evidence for that value either way. Best…

> Every worldview is based in faith. This is just religious apologetic and it's not really true. This is the definition of faith in this context: > Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without evidence supporting the claim or disregarding all evidence to the contrary Religion is explicitly not based on evidence, and is explicitly not disprovable. You believe something despite no evidence, that is f…

Hume, who was certainly no religious apologetic, would differ.

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#252

Post by wnight »

philwelch wrote: post #140
rjurney wrote: post #41

Maybe all us angry nerds should OCCUPY something. Something big, related to SOPA. It would be cool to see EFF type concerns channeled into that movement.

The "Occupy" movement is a sinking ship run by anarchists. It's literally an expression of incoherent rage. I think a traditional, well-organized, on-message movement against SOPA would do a lot better than throwing in with OWS.

> [OWS is] literally an expression of incoherent rage.

You're clueless, likely intentionally so.

Many Occupy members are very coherent. If you haven't looked far enough to find one you must be getting your news from a TV.

And rage doesn't motivate Food not Bombs, or most other OWS participants and participating organizations.

But Occupy, like Anonymous, is a non-trademarked non-organization. Anyone can go, for any reason, and can say whatever they want under its auspices. You could cherry-pick anything you want.

The incoherent rage though is mostly to be found among the members of the armed forces who joined post 9-11 to go and kill well over a million people in the Afghan/Iraq/Pakistan-USA war (to date) to get revenge for something they didn't even attempt to understand. Yelling at our politicians and refusing to pay taxes is the sane response.

Not from anarchists, but from patriots who'll only support a government of the people, for the people.

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#253

Post by philwelch »

idiot900 wrote: post #110
stingraycharles wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what definition? There are quite a few historical scientists who made great discoveries, who very extremely religious too. Newton comes to mind.

There is no place in the scientific method for belief without evidence, which is what faith is; faith forms the basis of religion.

On the contrary: the principle that natural laws will be the same in the future as they have been in the past, or that they are the same in one place as they are in some other faraway place, must be accepted without evidence as a premise of the scientific method.

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#254

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

philh wrote: post #54
burgerbrain wrote: post #5

" "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" " That is a brilliant point.

I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist? And the "answer" is: nevertheless, there exist religious people who do good science. So I'm not convinced by the argument here. It makes too many unstated assumptions. I support this boycott, and this argument might make good rhetoric, but I wouldn't use it directly to evaluate investors.

"I've seen the argument: if someone is so clueless about rationality as to be religious, how could they make a good scientist?"

Because the argument itself is a fallacy. Believing that God exist does not make you less rational that believing that God does not exist(witch uses to be the theological affiliation of the people that proclaim the statement).

One or the other is a prejudice. If the statement were true the best option should be to be agnostic, to be able to consider both options as true, and try one and then the other. The ancient Greeks used this thinking methodology regularly.

They knew that believing our beliefs are true is a trap, everybody believes that their believes are true.

Even with wrong believes you could explore options that makes you find a valid solution. Columbus calculations(believes) for getting to Japan were terrible wrong, but it was useful anyway.

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#255

Post by philwelch »

wnight wrote: post #252
philwelch wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Occupy" movement is a sinking ship run by anarchists. It's literally an expression of incoherent rage. I think a traditional, well-organized, on-message movement against SOPA would do a lot better than throwing in with OWS.

> [OWS is] literally an expression of incoherent rage. You're clueless, likely intentionally so. Many Occupy members are very coherent. If you haven't looked far enough to find one you must be getting your news from a TV. And rage doesn't motivate Food not Bombs, or most other OWS participants and participating organizations. But Occupy, like Anonymous, is a non-trademarked non-organization. Anyone can go, for any re…

When you add together thousands of coherent, but differing signals, the aggregate becomes incoherent. This is a good summary of OWS.

I will pretend I didn't read that remark about members of the armed forces.

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#256

Post by alephnil »

philwelch wrote: post #253
idiot900 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no place in the scientific method for belief without evidence, which is what faith is; faith forms the basis of religion.

On the contrary: the principle that natural laws will be the same in the future as they have been in the past, or that they are the same in one place as they are in some other faraway place, must be accepted without evidence as a premise of the scientific method.

There is evidence for that however. Like that the emission lines from distant stars and galaxies are the same ones as in our own solar system and here on earth (but red shifted). If the laws were not the same everywhere, you must introduce a god that make it look that way, or otherwise explain how it can appear like the laws are the same everywhere without actually being so.

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#257

Post by abalashov »

burgerbrain wrote: post #5

" "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" " That is a brilliant point.

No, it's a demagogical argument, but it makes for great press, and PG's making it displays keen awareness of that fact. I applaud him on that! :-)

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#258

Post by wnight »

philwelch wrote: post #255
wnight wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [OWS is] literally an expression of incoherent rage. You're clueless, likely intentionally so. Many Occupy members are very coherent. If you haven't looked far enough to find one you must be getting your news from a TV. And rage doesn't motivate Food not Bombs, or most other OWS participants and participating organizations. But Occupy, like Anonymous, is a non-trademarked non-organization. Anyone can go, for any re…

When you add together thousands of coherent, but differing signals, the aggregate becomes incoherent. This is a good summary of OWS. I will pretend I didn't read that remark about members of the armed forces.

So, if I can find ten people who claim to believe what you do but really say other random things, does it mean you no-longer have a message or merely that I've managed to distract from it? And who have I distracted, you? Unlikely. Just myself and whoever listens to me.

Similarly, only you and the Fox news crowd are confused about what OWS is.

And yes, there's a lot you pretend you didn't read. Like anything you can't counter. The truth hurts.

Re: Paul Graham: SOPA Supporting Companies No Longer Allowed At YC Demo Day

#260

Post by wnight »

xenophanes wrote: post #229
bermanoid wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being religious doesn't require one to be "clueless about rationality" Absolutely correct. You don't have to be clueless about rationality to be religious; you can also explicitly reject rationality, even though you understand it. But if you don't reject it, then it's quite difficult to accept any of the Big Three religions and simultaneously convince yourself that you're embracing an evidence-based worldview. That's…

Your religion-hate is false, and consequently your original argument too. Rationality, correctly understood, values tradition. The correct attitude for progress is piecemeal reform. That need not start with religion. It should start wherever people's most pressing problems are. If someone's religion isn't ruining his life, but he has other stuff to deal with (a failing marriage, a startup, a scientific discovery he w…

It's rational to recognize tradition - it's a huge millstone around the necks of those who engage in it and changing their minds will be much harder because of it.

But tradition itself is only valuable to cult leaders.

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