Hub of Reason

Spare Oom

00:18

@Vitaly I missed the link earlier. That is useful. Thank you.

Vitaly

@SpareOom You're quite welcome.

Borror0

00:58

Canada vs Russia hockey match

Vitaly

lol

Borror0

We're ahead so far

Not surprising. Have you seen Hollywood movies? Russians always lose.

Vitaly

Did you mean to type “You” when typing “We”? :P

Not just in that match, mind you. :P

Borror0

01:17

Canada 2; Russia 0

aka booya

Vitaly

Yeah, Russia 5; Canada 2 in World Championship 2010

But I guess I could join the fun and support Canada for now: way to go, Canada! You are great at a sport noone else cares about! :PPPPP

Borror0

Curling?

Vitaly

02:28

3-2, innit

3-3

Vitaly

02:46

Russia 4 Canada 3

5-3

It's okay, @Borror0, you played well, according to Twitter.

Borror0

The first two parts were so easy that we fell asleep

That's why you were about to turn it around

Vitaly

Or we wanted to show off in the third period.

Spare Oom

03:09

Good night everyone.

Stefano Palazzo

04:36

@Borror0 I'm sure there are many Christians and Jews who've contributed to the scientific body of knowledge around the subject, whether their theist doesn't interest me, just if their science is sound

Borror0

It's not a matter of science. It's a matter of history

@StefanoPalazzo Hence the term secular, not atheist

Stefano Palazzo

Ah I messed up

edited instead of writing.

Borror0

hehe

Stefano Palazzo

@Borror0 I regard History as a science :)

Borror0

Perhaps, but the term history is far more precise

Moreover, considering how the question is written, your objection/correction makes no sense

Stefano Palazzo

04:41

Of course, but again, the 'secular consensus' doesn't make any sense to me. I don't care if the people doing the research are complete and utter Scientologists, as long as their methodology is sound

Borror0

You don't understand what secular means

Stefano Palazzo

I do

Borror0

There's a huge difference between secular and atheist

Stefano Palazzo

Something doesn't have to be non-secular to be bad-science. You see I want to explicitly mention science, whereas you want to make it implicitly clear

Borror0

Science is secular; science is not atheist.

Stefano Palazzo

04:44

again, I understand the difference

Borror0

No. Something has to be secular to be good science

If science is not secular, it presupposes stuff without evidence and THAT is bad science

Stefano Palazzo

I just want to explicitly mention science, because the 'secular consensus' is too easily confused with "the general agreement among secular people"

see what I mean?

14

A: What is the secular consensus on the identity of Jesus?

This question can, and has been taken on scientifically. There are two rather nice Wikipedia articles, Historical Jesus and Historicity of Jesus, on the subject. If you read them both, you'll find there is a lot of hypothesis and not a lot of evidence. The question of Jesus' existence has not...

here's my compromise, what do you think?

Borror0

As side note, I just realized I didn't upvote your answer. Corrected.

Stefano Palazzo

I'd really like to present some of what I'm talking about in the answer itself. But it's a complete mess :\

Borror0

@StefanoPalazzo What do you mean?

Stefano Palazzo

04:50

Luckily, the people at Wikipedia have gone through that mess and organised it. But I'm still not completely happy with me just 'mentioning' it

Borror0

It's not like you can't revise your answer. In fact, it's encouraged:

Stack Overflow Blog: The Wikipedia of Long Tail Programming Questions

Joel Spolsky

Have you ever noticed how certain questions come up again and again on Stack Overflow sites?

Oh look, my PC is freezing. Should I use SELECT *? Oh, and, how can I host a server from home?

Really, people, do you want to be answering these same questions ten years from now? How about when you’re 65? That doesn’t sound so appealing now, does it?

We predicted this problem, even before we launched Stack Overflow. Why? Because the same thing happened on Usenet, where:

What happened next depended on the newsgroup. …

Stefano Palazzo

It's very hard to do all the due diligence when you present work on the historicity of Jesus, because there's such a lot of it, and consequently there's such a lot of nonsense that seems scientifically sound

Making a mistake would almost be worse than not addressing it at all

Borror0

History is such an underestimated kind of social science

Perhaps the most important, even

Stefano Palazzo

Yeah. And because it's all man-made, you're being tricked constantly

by people who tried to make sure that history would be in their favour.

Borror0

And then there's pop culture getting in the way

List of common misconceptions

This list of common or popular misconceptions describes documented ideas and beliefs which are fallacious, misleading, or otherwise flawed; however, these ideas have been repeated as though they are true. History The Americas *Christopher Columbus's efforts to obtain support for his voyages were not hampered by a European belief in a flat Earth. In fact, sailors and navigators of the time knew that the Earth is spherical, but (correctly) disagreed with Columbus' estimate of the distance to India, which was approximately 1/6th of the actual distance. If the Americas did not exist, and ha...

Easily one of the most awesome Wikipedia page ever

Stefano Palazzo

04:56

Indeed. I've followed this one for years

Borror0

I think there could be a whole page just on misconceptions about Reagen

How come that I know more about him, as a Canadian in his early 20s, than a Republican politician?!

Stefano Palazzo

I completely understand

I work an a field that the vast majority of people have never even heard of :)

Borror0

What is it? I like learning new things.

Stefano Palazzo

though I can usually hook them with the travelling salesman problem. That's a post-body for the complete field

If you're interested in history, and you want to learn something about computer science, read up on Alan Turing

Borror0

That's like saying "If you want to learn about Nazi Germany, read about Adolf Hitler."

I'm aiming for even more frustration than you. Unless of a change of heart, I'll start political science next year. Even though people know of us, people will ignore us and believe something else no matter how many times we say it's wrong.

Stefano Palazzo

05:05

Politics is hard

Borror0

If it was easy, we would be in a much different world

Stefano Palazzo

that is, Implementing a political system that encourages people to make the correct decision while preserving their complete freedom is hard

Borror0

One of the things I would really like to see are mandatory classes on cognitive biases

Stefano Palazzo

Say, I always wondered, if Britain has a state church; does the same apply for Canada?

Borror0

I think that would help a lot

No. We don't have a state church:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_state_religions.svg

Stefano Palazzo

05:09

I see, that's good to know

Borror0

We're only united with the UK in name only, really

Stefano Palazzo

But the queen is the head of state, right?

Borror0

Yes

Stefano Palazzo

Makes sense now.

Borror0

I wouldn't mind an elected head of state like in Germany though. It's close to what we have anyway. The represent of the Queen in Canada, the Governor General, is appointed every 4-5 years and fills the head of state's role while the Queen is away.

Stefano Palazzo

05:13

Well the head of state here is elected by a process that is bordering on being undemocratic

Borror0

I never said we'd copy your process, just the idea of an elected head of state

Why is it bordering on undemocratic?

Stefano Palazzo

The president is elected by the parliament plus delegates from the federal states (which may or may not be members of the federal state parliaments, often they're just public figures, like Boris Becker)

Borror0

And what is bad about that?

Stefano Palazzo

The public has, practically speaking, no say in it

Borror0

You elect the electors?

Stefano Palazzo

05:17

(they have theoretically, through the process of delegation, but in practice, you've no indication as to the choice of presidential candidates

Borror0

well, bed time for me

Have a nice day

Stefano Palazzo

ha, it's 6 in the morning and I just got up :P

thanks, you too :) Bye

Borror0

I know what time it is over there

I have a few friends in Spain, France, and the UK

anyway, cioa

Stefano Palazzo

I have friends in america and canada, but I always forget anyway :)

Evan Carroll

06:02

0

Q: What is the most efficient way to separate egg whites?

This has been a reoccurring question I've had. I've never found a good answer to it.. So I challenge physics.SE to solve this for me, since I presume it is in some way shape or form governed by the laws of physics. I have 4 dozen eggs. Each one of my dozens consists of exactly 12 eggs: thus,...

let see if physics can answer that!!!

Borror0

10:18

anyone remember any of the particularly bad arguments Dawkins makes in the God Delusion? I'm trying to think some up but it's been so long since I read it/about it

Borror0

10:30

Does he answer the "what if I'm wrong?" question in his book?

That was always his weakest argument because it's such a non-sequitur

►

Vitaly

11:06

frabjous, Amherst, MA

101 2

We are not getting answers from people who could answer (and that guy looks like one of them).

We in the Russian Internet have a Q&A website where it's possible to invite a specific user to answer a question.

I wish it were possible here.

Borror0

@Vitaly Answer to?

Vitaly

Philosophy- and logic-related questions

mfg

14:05

@Vitaly i think you can do a summons to a question that a user hasn't commented on yet by typing @ with their full user name, not just the first 3 letters

Vitaly

Really? That would be nice

mfg

did you get that ping just now on meta?

Vitaly

No, not yet.

mfg

ok, maybe not then

Borror0

You can't.

It's the same reason you can't @ someone who has not visited the chat room once

I could troll @CesarGon or @RodgerCooley by @ing them here

I wouldn't do that though, but I could

But you can't @ someone who has not entered the chat once before

mfg

14:14

@Borror0 yeah cuz yoer a trolll

yeah, i knew the obverse of that @ relationship, where you only need the first 3 letters fo the username for an @

is

2

Q: What are the major issues that divide the atheist community today?

Within any community there will be divisions that form along contentious issues. One such example would be the approach towards the religious with regards to finding allies in issues that atheists and theists might find common ground(e.g. science education and evolution). One example of such a d...

debate-points community

a dupe of

6

Q: Are there any standard, or well known, belief system issues, which Atheists do not, as a whole, agree on?

If there were an Atheist themed conference or weekend get-together, which theism related issues are likely to be the most hotly debated and/or to cause the most heated arguments?

philosophy semantics

Borror0

It only works for people in chat and only if there is no competition. Imagine the confusion if @Bor sent a signal to @Boromir, @Borror0 and @Boredom at once

@mfg And both should be closed.

@Vitaly Is it just me or is the "sort by popularity" function is broke on LW?

mfg

whats LW btw

Borror0

LessWrong

mfg

i know it as [Leather-working] in wow. are you making some dragonscale bracers?

Borror0

lesswrong.com

mfg

14:22

ohhhh

did not know the acronym

that whole singularity stuff creeps me out

Borror0

Really worthwhile site, if you never heard of it

mfg

so do nano-bots and rfids

im not skeptic im just paranoid

Borror0

I read it for the non-singularity stuff

@mfg You should be. Yudkowsky has made very persuasive arguments about how we could all be easily dominated by a transhuman AI that talks with us through a text chat

mfg

yeah, thats why i was talking about re-engineering time metrics (BC, AD; CE, BCE) to account for units of information

Borror0

?

mfg

14:25

i see the singularity as an inevitability i guess. probably not a good one.

Ustice

I'm seeing CE/BCE a lot more lately, but that may just be because I am more aware of it.

Borror0

His AI-box experiment is creepy, if we accept the results: yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox

mfg

@ust or youre reading more scholarly work?

Ustice

On documentaries and the like.

mfg

the LW snippet for "Rationality Quotes: January 2011" is hilarious, because it looks like the rules for posting are the quotes

ie. rational quote #3: "Do not quote yourself."

Borror0

14:28

@mfg I'm pretty sure that was necessary

mfg

i just mean in the truncated feed, on the front page, the appearance is funny

Borror0

I thought you just found it funny (which it is)

mfg

oh yeah how about this:

-2

Q: Do atheists need to do good behavior for humanism and support morality?

Do atheists need to do good behavior for humanism and support morality? If yes, why?

morality humanism

my edit got him some re-open votes, then he rolled it back with no explanation

Borror0

Some people are bad at the internets

mfg

> @ "my edit" * i think, with correlation not equaling causation and all that jazz

i think his kitty must have rolled over the rollback button on his keyboard.

oh, i take that back, he did kind of take the edits and use them, @ust is right, he does seem to be a non-speaker

Borror0

14:33

I'm reading about dating abbreviations in French and I just read that once the abbreviation av. NSJC (avant Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ | before Our Lord Jesus Christ) was used for "BC". Yikes.

mfg

including the 'av.' ; then would the later epoch be 'du' ?

Borror0

@mfg Say ESL. Shorter and syntactically correct.

mfg

ha

@Borror0 true that. i was going to go to south korea to teach that and pay off my student loans.

then i realized how grossly unqualified i was

Borror0

@mfg I would bet it would be ap. (for après)

mfg

ah

Vitaly

14:38

ESL teachers are generally unqualified, by the way

they mostly use native English speakers as people with whom the students could practice spoken language

mfg

@Borror0 i guess that would have been devant (du* - de), for some reason i thought time would be demarcated by the relational/positional preposition rather than time

FSL, FML

Borror0

It's one of the nice things of being in Québec though, because we have tons of bilingual English/French people

mfg

@Vitaly true. but thats due to the market forces that create the incentive to become one; note my reasoning, paying off student loans

Borror0

For one, if you want a job in Ottawa, you better be binlingual

:294737 /whisper You can actually edit your comments. Yrue story.

mfg

@Borror0 it's too early for editing

Borror0

14:42

@mfg Pffft! Man up.

mfg

i need a Cubano, anybody else want something from the coffee shop down the street?

Borror0

I want Tim Hortons but I don't think you got that over there

mfg

actually, i'm in ohio so we get some trickledown canada goodies

but the closest one is three miles from here

aside from that though we have an abiding interest in hockey (generally curious), enough to go to a game but only on par with soccer. the ppl that support teams/clubs are few and far but as avid as anywhere else

actually, you a fan of toronto fc?

(football)

Borror0

14:57

I'm from Québec. Having any loyalty toward Ontario would be seen as treason by my peers.

But I don't care at all for football (spectator sports in general, but football even less)

mfg

fair enough. i just like that when they come to columbus they have a great big terrence and phillip banner

Borror0

LOL

Canada rocks

mfg

yeah. many of us were saddened when ol' Condy Rice said we needed passports to visit the casinos

Borror0

We really didn't like that one

Just you want until we diversify our economy

mfg

yeah, talk about crappy. i mean, terrorists and not letting mexicans cross the border i understand their whole rationale, but what a shitty application (even if one did agree with the policy)

Borror0

15:05

To be fair, our Conservative Party is just as dense

mfg

policy-wise you mean for canadian politicking?

Borror0

The United Arab Emirates lent us, free of charge, a military base on their soil (ie ally soil) from which we could organize to our military presence in the Middle East. After many years of saving millions thanks to their generosity, they ask us a favor: granting greater traffic to their airlines over Canada.

From an economic perspective, the answer is an obvious yes: there will be little short term consequences and there will be tangible long term benefits. It's a law of physics that greater traffic always result in more wealth generation so having more visitors from the UAE would be benef…

What does the Conservative Party do? They say no.

The consequences?

1. We've been chased out of our military base in the UAE and we've had to relocate in Germany at a cost of $300. Needless to say, operating from Germany will also be more expensive.
2. We have created resent, rather than appreciation, in the Middle East.
3. Canadian has to pay more for a visa in the UAE (up to $1000).

Even from their own ideological point of view, they should have said yes. Hello, free market?

@mfg Have I answered your question? :P

Josiah

15:21

There are a couple of sane people that are actually for free markets here, but I don't think it's enough to make a difference.

Ustice

They should have just played for some time with ramping up, and if they are worried about something silly like security, then that too.

mfg

@Borror0 oh i see what you meant, yeah

@Josiah much of the time there is a difficulty balancing the idea of fair market to the american (justified) paranoia of an oligarchy

especially when it comes to movements like fixcongressfirst.org

Borror0

@Josiah Although it's not related to my previous point, my problem with free market ideologists is that deregulation isn't an efficient system. For it to work, it requires people investing too much time to activities other than their job and their family. Regulation makes for a more efficient system because each problem has to be looked at only once by experts on the topic, after that it's solved to decades to follow so the average person can use his time more effectively

(That's if we grant all its premises. If we don't, we can find other problems but that's another conversation.)

Vitaly

Josiah

@Borror0, I don't think that's necessarily true. It would, however, require someone specialize in private regulation.

You're assuming there is no benefit to having or following guidelines, which I don't think is reasonable.

Borror0

15:35

You lost me

Josiah

If you're a restaurant do you really want to kill customers?

Do you think that the airlines would be doing a worse job protecting their airplanes than the TSA is already?

Borror0

@Josiah I remember a case recently where a grocery where selling milk that was not suitable for human consumption. I think there was an absurdly high risk of disease, though I can't remember what it was exactly.

Josiah

edit it, and I'll kill ya

Milk for human conception is my kind of milk.

And so? There are real, physical laws that were broken there.

Assault comes to mind.

You bastard.

Borror0

:)

Josiah

I object to the sort of criminal protections companies get.

If you poison someone at home, it's a crime. If you go to work and do it though, here's a fine and maybe a lawsuit.

I would still, as the consumer, rather have the recourse of suing them for endangering my life than some regulatory organization fining them.

Borror0

15:41

It was not deliberate and there currently are official guidelines. If there's no established guidelines, so how would they know it's unhealthy?

Josiah

Oh, so you're giving an example of how the government guidelines fail?

Yes, I agree completely then.

Borror0

@Josiah The two are not mutually exclusive

Josiah

The government does fuck things up. Next?

I still think the grocery store is responsible, btw.

They might be able to get out of it, legally, because they were following the guidelines.

But that's bullshit. It should be their responsibility and theirs only.

Borror0

@Josiah That doesn't follow. I'm saying that, right now, there's a guidelines to protect us and there still are problems. How much worse would it get if there was no guidelines? Don't say "the gov't isn't perfect so it's pointless" because that's a nirvana fallacy.

Josiah

That isn't what I was saying so much as, now there's no recourse.

The grocery store has it in its best interest to sell safe food, that's how.

Why do you have morals, borror0, let me guess, without laws you would go around raping and murdering women, right?

Borror0

15:45

@Josiah Of course they are! The ability to sue or jail them is completely separate from the existence of regulation. In fact, the presence of regulation should increase the likelihood of a lawsuit if all other things are equal

Josiah

But with the guidelines it slips through because the grocery store had done everything they were required to to verify the food.

They don't have to do anything else.

The regulations don't make it less likely a crook will rip people off, but it certainly puts a cap on how you have to test.

I honestly think people would exceed the guidelines more often without the regulations.

Borror0

@Josiah Regulations do not only protect you against the immoral companies, they protect you from the ignorant ones and they protect the ignorant from making a mistake even when dealing with a moral corporation.

Josiah

@Borror0, Apparently not.

But it's pointless to argue.

We don't get to see the other side, the unregulated side, here.

Borror0

@Josiah Apparently? Based on what?

Josiah

So you're just speculating and so am I.

Based on your milk dear.

brb, smoke

Borror0

15:49

That's a nirvana fallacy.

Vitaly

I have an English question. If a girl says, “I used to have tits in Wisconsin,” how do you know if she refers to the birds?

Borror0

Context

Or by asking

@Josiah We can compare the more regulated with the less regulated. It's been done. Canada has stricter regulations and there's less such problems. Obviously, it's not perfect but it's a good indicator.

Josiah

I tend to think canadians are generally less insane than americans.

I actually think you're the one with an idealized concept of regulation, but hey, whatever works. You pointed out one poor outcome with regulation, I could go on and list a whole lot more.

But none of those actually matter.

Borror0

Again, that's a nirvana fallacy: simply because a solution is not flawless does not mean it is not the best one available.

Josiah

That's my point.

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