I find Pascal's wager is of the same nature as Aquinas' Five Ways to prove God, or accelerationists about the inevitability of a Singularity: believing that your own rational argument can be the basis to prove a fact about reality merely because it feels internally consistent.
Needless to say, I don’t find them at all convincing. This 'nothing' is much better than catching unconvincing unneeded supernatural entities.
The Wager doesn't attempt to prove God, it merely states that you might as well worship, because the cost is small and the potential payoff is huge.
It falls apart because, based on what's actually known, there's no reason to think worshipping might be the thing that condemns you to hell, and not doing so gets you into heaven, rather than the other way around.
Not to mention that "the cost is small" is in the eye of the beholder. I've known people who spend a significant part of their week on religious activities, and that's a huge opportunity cost.
Granted, if your belief is based on Pascal's Wager, and is only to hedge your bets, presumably you wouldn't spend much time on religion. But that also raises the question of whether that style of "belief" would be good enough for whatever god might exist.
Granted^2, spending half of your life devoted to a religion could be deemed a small cost when weighed against the eternity afterward. But then you have to think about the idea that you'll have wasted half of your one and only life if the afterlife turns out not to be real.
At any rate, Pascal seems to have failed to consider that there are thousands of religions to choose from, and that a hypothetical god(s) might punish you for choosing to believe in the wrong one. And might even prefer that you believe in nothing, rather than the wrong one!
That’s the fun thing about the Wager. If the reward is infinite then any finite cost is worth it for any finite probability of obtaining it.
Pascal did actually consider other religions. He just concluded that they were definitely wrong. In his view, either (his brand of) Christianity was correct, or god doesn’t exist.
Yes, my point is that those three arguments may be compelling but they assume that reality is correlated to the shape of their thoughts. What they have in common is that they all miss the insight that you need to actually test your assumptions to improve your certainties, and that's not feasible for theoretical all powerful entities that can bend reality.
The funny thing is this, let's say that an entity is outside of time, an entity that maps 1:1 in every practical way to the theists God.
Putting aside the bidirectional issues of non-interaction, what if mankind, or the universes collection of agents (if there are others and we interact with them) at some future point manages to create a supercomputer or entity in a substrate that exists outside of our time in the causal sense.
As long as we don't apocalypse ourselves or self destruct or get distracted from self preservation and miss the asteroid that ends us - we end up bringing this thing in our imagination to reality, just like all the other stuff we imagined and subsequently made.
Maybe God is real we just haven't made it yet.
This is all imagination of course, a fun thought about possibilities, humans tend to make the things they imagine and desire if it's actually possible.
You can choose whether you want to share the location or not when selecting photos in iOS. You'll see at the bottom a label that says "Location is included", and you can click the three dots to remove location:
I know which one works better for us. Which works better for grandma?
(Of course, Google's move shouldn't have been altruistic, it would have been pragmatic as mentioned elsewhere.)
If I got paid a nickel every time someone talked about protecting children online and I reinvested it into technology accessibility for seniors, it'd be fully funded! :)
I just checked in iMessage. When you add an attachment and select photos, you get the same picker that the rest of the OS uses, it's just in a collapsed state. If you swipe up, it'll expand to fill the screen and that same "Location is included" label and configuration menu is available.
I would suggest looking for local charities whose mission you are care about. Then just finding out what issues they have. I ended up building a simple system based on Airtable for a local charity. Although pretty unsophisticated it was transformative for them.
Yes. And if you can get it to 102F your body will produce heat shock proteins. Which are good for a whole bunch of reasons, but also can be very bad if you have any tumors, as it makes damaged cells more resistant to apoptosis.
It does indeed increase internal temperature. Perhaps an artificial fever is part of it but I believe the science currently around heat shock proteins.
I'm thinking more like, when I run with a sweater and heavier sweatpants, but the time I'm at the 5km mark I'm seriously sweating. So, not just higher heart rate. I'm talking "feels like a fever" heat, for 20 minutes, a few times a week.
But I run with my heart rate low, I don't like exceeding 150 on these runs.
It's a meaningless, feel-good rule. Every country has countless carve-outs. To give you a trivial example: in the US, you can't get a passport if you owe more than $2,500 in child support.
Whilst I agree, to be fair, a passport is usually only needed when entering a country, not leaving one, right? Under the cited rule, the US needs to allow you to leave, not help you in entering some other country.
That's mostly because transport companies have to pay to ship you back if you get turned away at the border, so they will want to see your permission to enter your destination country before you leave. I've traveled internationally a fair bit and I've never had to show my passport to government officials when leaving the US.
Would they do that for an international departure? They know where you’re flying, and I’d think they’d just tell you to stop being an idiot and show them the passport you obviously must have. But policies can be weird, so maybe not.
Yes, that's what I said above. The US government doesn't give a toss, but the airline has to fly you back if you're refused entry at your destination, so they will do their best to ensure you have the documents you need.
Ok, fair enough, but if I were German - I don't really think I would asylum anywhere on the basis of Germany maybe intending to conscript me in the future.
You generally do present your passport when leaving. Most places you get an exit stamp (which matches your entry stamp). They usually confirm things such as not overstaying a visa.
ex:
overstaying in Thailand results in a on-the-spot fine
China lately has exit checks when traveling to SEA (they try to intercept people traveling to scam centers)
And "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person." Military service also serves the purpose to defend that right when the country is attacked. Rights aren't absolute, they have to be traded off against each other.
It's about time to finally grok that all world's military is only there to wage wars at the whim of the 0.001% under the guise of being defence-only, and that constitutions worth less than toilet paper these days.
Kill the royal couples, no problem. There is an argument to be made that those that start wars should be sentenced to death for doing so. Particularly frivolous ones of aggression.
If the civilian populous has access to arms and armories they can make it a worthless proposition to invade them. Its not like the world is entirely composed of large countries with strong militaries already. An insurgency can last decades under fire from a superior force, an organized military won't. So if you can't match the organized military might of potential enemies, its probably mostly a waste to try.
Defense doesn't mean not to start a war. Think about how Vietnam justified their invasion of Cambodia in 1978, or how China started the war with Vietnam the following year, or how Turkey entered Syria, how Pakistan fought the Taliban recently, and of course what Russia did in Ukraine, 2014 and 2022.
Wars are messy and have always been. Military actions are to be decided by the governments. Those who have resources are more willingly to use it, west or east.
Rather: the "victorious" countries of the Second World war were afraid of a re-militarization of Germany. On the other hand, they wanted to re-militarize the Western part of Germany just a little bit so that West Germany could become part of the NATO.
Quite the contrary; up until the end of the Cold War both German states were highly militarized. They were quite happy to be able to roll back a lot of it after the reunification though.
That is basically redefining the word defense, though.
I can’t be like “it was self defense” if I beat somebody up because they are getting too big at the gym and they could beat me up later if I don’t beat them up first.
That doesn’t mean such a thing is never ever justified, in international relations, it just ain’t “defense”.
Well that depends. Are they saying this because they have a problem with me specifically? Or is it because they have a problem with my asshole friend who I for some reason support financially?
If it’s the latter (like it is in reality, AFAICT), I would first do some serious reflection about my friend.
In the analogy, if you are financially supporting guy A who is harassing guy B and his family constantly over years, and as a kicker guy A acts like he’s done nothing wrong, it is human nature for guy B to be pissed not only at guy A but also at YOU who financially supports guy A even while you know what he is doing.
If you stop financially supporting guy A and sincerely apologize to guy B, and guy B continues to be pissed at you, THEN you can act like he is unreasonable and take steps to protect yourself, even if those steps hurt guy B.
You can’t pretend guy A is blameless and act confused why guy B is pissed at you, which is what is happening in real life.
Of course you are free to support abusive behavior but especially with friends and family it would probably be useful for your own sake not to do so, and it is factually correct to view (and treat) you as enabler if you continue to do so despite knowing about the abuse.
I don’t care how things started. If someone wants to chop my head off and has shown evidence of chopping the heads off of people of my tribe, I will try to beat them first
But you do you.
So while many of the reasons are questionable (understatement of the year), let’s focus on the last one. After America lost the war in Vietnam, what happened to those neighboring nations? Did they suffer from Vietnamese communists? The only Vietnamese intervention was in Cambodia, and hardly anyone thinks that wasn’t the right thing to do.
The OP probably thought of defense in the narrow sense as "the action of defending against or resisting an attack", and not in the broader sense defined as "we’re going to travel halfway around the world to kill a million people because that’s who we are". A common mistake.
Not because “that’s who we are.” That’s a ret*rded retort. You go halfway around the world because you want to protect your friends and your nation’s interest.
Wouldn’t you do that to protect your family and your home, now and into generations? I think I know the answer.
That depends greatly on which interests you allow to be defined as "American". The vast majority of American people would have preferred not to be involved in most of our foreign adventures. The rich and powerful thought differently. Is our citizenship determined by the size of our bank accounts?
This is factually incorrect. Here are the estimates for the rates of support for each conflict at the beginning of the conflict:
- Iraq (Gulf War): 75-80%
- Iraq (2003): 65-76%
- Syria: 35-50%
- Vietnam: 65-75%
- Iran: 42%
Alexander Hamilton wrote that governance should involve people with “wisdom to discern” and “virtue to pursue the common good”. The US is not a direct democracy; it is a constitutional republic. The definition of what constitutes American interests is literally whatever the United States federal government says it is.
I'm probably going to get flagged for this, but here goes anyway.
Russia absolutely has reason to not want Ukraine to join NATO. I'm not condoning the invasion, but I say it absolutely makes sense for Russia to carry it out. Not a reason to commit war crimes, or to cause any more suffering than necessary, but from a national security perspective it makes sense to want to disrupt the process of Ukraine joining NATO.
Only if you accept the hidden assumption that Russia is an antagonist toward the rest of Europe. Otherwise the common "national security" justifications make no sense, because Russia benefits immensely from other NATO members investing resources into the development of institutions in newer member states.
A former Russian foreign minister has labeled NATO "free-of-charge security" for Russia, because NATO membership requirements turn a country into a stable and predictable place. The best neighbors Russia has are in NATO, and much of that stability is directly attributable to their membership.
Yeah, by such definitions any country is justified to wage a war and always find a way to claim it’s for self-defense (which is indeed how most causus belli have worked throughout the history – they always claim to have the moral high ground when launching the war). This is also how essentially in every country it’s called the Department of Defense (unless you’re Trump) but that means nothing as they start wars all the same. Not a trace of any rules, accountability or restraints still remains under such a framing.
Germany participated in the NATO military campaign/occupation of Afghanistan, including ground forces, naval activities and special operations units. Its seems a total of 150,000 German soldiers (and police officers?) were deployed overall (not at the same time of course); of them, 62 were killed and 249 wounded:
Rights are morally absolute, and the cynical insistence that they must be traded off is both fallacious and intellectually hypocritical. You want certain weaker rights, then just admit it, don't be disingenuous about it.
The constitution made it impossible to make a less sexist law, because it says that women cannot be forced to military service. It is an old document, and it is based on old role models. Modernizing the constitution would require 2/3 majority, and the government was already struggling with making a law at all.
> The constitution made it impossible to make a less sexist law
with the right level of public exposure citizens would surely have been able to put enough pressure on the government to make this happen. But instead zelensky kept repeating the talking points that we should not be concerned about the war because the risk had not changed since 2014. Near-zero effort was made to evacuate ukrainians living near the russian border or those who would be in the way of russian troops. The intelligence had been there for at least six months before the war began
> and the government was already struggling with making a law at all
Only if you ignore free will. Feels unlikely that women will suddenly abandon monogamy and forced procreation à la the draft is probably very unpopular especially given that women would be a majority. Not that they’re wrong to disagree, but there are more conditions here than the biology of procreation.
The modern answer would be immigration, and that’s gender-agnostic.
that argument is uninformed, check the birth rate in ukraine
also check who are these refugees abroad: mostly women and children. How many will return? No one knows. Also what’s the incentive for women to return knowing there are far less options to marry?
who will be working hard jobs where men are prevalent?
what about the current generation? Who will be rebuilding the country from ruins? I’ve never seen women working in construction in ukraine
also this is cynical, your position assumes it’s either men or women, not sharing the military service duty
go learn the history and then come here to comment on the matter
> that argument is uninformed, check the birth rate in ukraine
This has long been the argument for a male-only draft.
One woman can make 1-2 babies every 9 months on average. It is difficult and expensive to speed that up; you can implant quadruplets and induce labor at six months, but that introduces all sorts of other problems. Sperm is much easier to obtain.
> who will be working hard jobs where men are prevalent?
Women, if too many men die in the war.
> I’ve never seen women working in construction in ukraine
This was also the case for the US in the 1940s. Women entered the workforce in large numbers for the first time. Plenty of predecent for this sort of shift.
> go learn the history and then come here to comment on the matter
As you can see from the above, this is perhaps advice you should follow first before yelling at others.
> This has long been the argument for a male-only draft. One woman can make 1-2 babies every 9 months on average.
It is difficult and expensive to speed that up; you can
implant quadruplets and induce labor at six months, but
that introduces all sorts of other problems. Sperm is
much easier to obtain.
this argument is detached from ukrainian realities. Can ≠ will. Also have you checked the birth rate? Do you expect it to grow in a post-war context?
> Women, if too many men die in the war
so who will then raise these 1-2 babies every 9 months on average? If women need to replace men in the workforce, first they need to go through education and training. Along with having children, it’s incredibly hard to accomplish
> Women entered the workforce in large numbers for
the first time. Plenty of precedent for this sort
of shift
in the same sentence you say ‘for the first time’ and then ‘Plenty of precedent’. You either have no idea what ‘plenty’ means or you contradict yourself
the states weren’t ruined like europe was. The large numbers you are talking about are only large compared to normal historical numbers and female population percentage
also you completely ignore the cultural context, ukraine is not the states. The story of your country, which seems the only one you know, isn‘t as relevant as, for example, the history of ussr. We didn’t have a boomer generation. There are way too many differences for me to continue, so surely you are uneducated on the ussr history
> yelling at others.
yelling? Not a single exclamation point but still yelling? You have a rich imagination for sure
> Also have you checked the birth rate? Do you expect it to grow in a post-war context?
Yes, birth rates tend to go up when wars end.
> in the same sentence you say ‘for the first time’ and then ‘Plenty of precedent’. You either have no idea what ‘plenty’ means or you contradict yourself
This is baffling.
Women entering the workforce in the 1940s due to the war is the precedent. It happened throughout the developed world. We are now eighty years past that demonstration.
> The story of your country, which seems the only one you know, isn‘t as relevant as, for example, the history of ussr. We didn’t have a boomer generation.
There was indeed a birth rate spike in the 1940s in Russia.
Hard to feel the same sympathy for Russian men to be honest, I've seen many gallivanting abroad, whilst majority of Ukrainian men are stuck either in hiding in their own country or have been sent to the front lines. Only a few got out early or by paying bribes.
honestly i am happy for the russian and ukranian young men and women i meet here in NL each day. Glad for them they can dodge the draft. most simply drove out, some had more hastle than others.
war is shit on all sides and thinking one or the other suffers less because you dont like their colours is very short sighted.... i think we had enough time by now to realise it.
and dont call it cowardice if someone doesnt want to fight for a bunch of 'rich pricks' playin with their money while normal people get to die in the streets. It has never been good or normal and should never be.
It's objectively worse on the Ukrainian side. Imagine you haven't been able to leave your house in 4 years for fear you'll be grabbed by a draft officer. Russians do not know this fear.
To boot, many Russian men have been paid handsomely for their participation in the SMO and get to live nice lives abroad.
Did you just forget about the mobilization drive Russia had in 2022, where they grabbed young men off streets and from their houses?
It was very unpopular, lead to people fleeing the country, and was pushed out of the public eye as soon as they figured out how to forcefully volunteer people instead.
Nobody grabbed anyone. It was an unusual, but otherwise a normal bureaucratic process. Got handed a paper, signed, have to appear. Many probably didn't have plans to go voluntarily, but felt it unmanly to dodge. I was at one of such sites and saw a man who got there too drunk and was handed over to the police; he was very disappointed he is not allowed go with the fellas.
It wasn't hard to dodge; you could just refuse to take the papers pretending it's not you or get sick the very day or something like that. The system had a number and once it was reached (very quickly) no further action was necessary. The only change so far us that the employers started to follow their military tracking procedure to the letter; before that it was required but not really enforced, but now all the paperwork gets done by the book.
Some people indeed left the country but those are the kind you don't want to have your back anyway.
Forceful volunteering is pure imagination. At most it's intensive persuasion or a new way to get out of jail, but if you don't want to go, nobody will force you.
It's not like it's zero-sum though; the world outside Russia and as Ukraine isn't going to become so full that there's no room for more or them to leave to dodge fighting in a war, so the parent commenter can easily be happy for any of them regardless of their country of origin.
The men I know try not to go unless it's absolutely necessary. The women generally prance to Russia and back all the time. (Exceptions exist, of course.)
But the UN DHR doesn’t seem to have been written as law. It was written as a declaration, in line with our own Declaration of Independence. It lists our ideals that need to be spelled into law. That lets it be airy and vague in a way laws cannot.
It isn’t “every law.” It’s not written to be directly operationalised. You’re comparing a declaration of values to operational law; they’re words in different ways and contexts.
> Is a "declaration of values" more than words if there is no power that is willing to enforce it?
Yes. Nobody directly enforces the policy papers or the Declaration of Independence. That doesn’t mean they don’t have corporeal value. In part, due to being translated into laws.
Almost everything about societies except cities is just pretty words. Countries and most borders are just an abstraction. We fight for them because someone convinces us with words to do so. We could do the same for the UN and it would be a much nobler cause in most cases.
That doesn't turn it into a physical reality like a stone or a stream of water that exists regardless of what animals think about it. Territories exist because they are defended. They are not obvious unless one deals with the means employed to defend it.
The need to defend might be a necessity for survival, but the desire to defend additional territory and resources has existed ever since humans have acquired the power to achieve more than the means of mere survival. Similar to food preferences, which become peculiar if there is plentitude, basic if tight, and sub-par in emergencies: during famines, sometimes people resort to eat grass to sate their feeling of hunger even though digesting it is an energetic net negative.
> Countries and most borders are just an abstraction.
Not true. Patriotism is very real. It's an affection for a group of people and for the ideals of those people. To some lesser extent it's also love for the geography of your land. But patriotism is rarer in the west than it once was. Also, if a country's territory is invaded by an enemy, at least some of its people will go to fight to protect their families from the oncoming enemies.
First of all you don't need it. Secondly, the regulation even states that the right is granted automatically anyway. Technically, the rule had been in place for the past 45+ years anyway - even when there was mandatory military service! - so it doesn't make any practical difference.
> Apparently it is bureaucracy without purpose after all?
No it's not without purpose at all. The purpose is to know who could be drafted in a timely manner should the need arise. There's currently 2 major wars - sorry "special military operations" - happening, one of which in Europe.
A certain government involved in one of these simultaneously calls for allies to assist while at the same time openly questioning half a century of military alliances. So maybe this helps to understand why regulations like this make sense - even for people who never lived through a time when there was mandatory military service and take their own security for granted.
At the moment, the law has no teeth since they cannot stop anyone from just leaving without return ticket, and nothing happens when you return. Of course it would be very easy to change that, and that's the reason why it exists.
I can see both sides of it though. The old rule made more sense when companies ipo’d at small valuations. It could be argued it’s wrong to keep one the top five market cap companies off the sp500 for a year.
The last question God might be for you If you’re super rational and are really into technology.
Belief in God is like a supermarket. Once you decide to enter you’re probably going to find something that works for you.
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