EPTMen are not what they used to be... - Page 4
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KaasZerg
Netherlands927 Posts
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Mooga
United States575 Posts
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On September 05 2008 06:55 nA.Inky wrote: + Show Spoiler + Jibba and Klackon, I'll concede that it's a matter of degree, and I've been too hasty and sloppy in my statement on citations. In other words, true, we all refer to other work and other ideas. I'm not arguing that we throw out all information and act based only on our personal experience. At the same time, I think I would advocate treating non-personal experience (most information) as something other than truth..... I would treat such information in a framework beyond truth/falsehood. I would work with such information within a purely political framework, as in "what are the political implications of these ideas IN EXPERIENCE." This is not a justification for my particular statement about testosterone and cocks (Jibba, I think I was reading about the study you mentioned - I think I got confused and that it is that testosterone is even among gay/straight folks and that adding more doesn't change sexual orientation), but I will say that when I made that statement, I was less interested in the "absolute truth" of the statement and more interested in its political implication to the argument (I was dishonest though, I could have and should have stated that in the same post - this is where I was hasty and sloppy - in retrospect, I wish I had put it in question form, and then mentioned that I had read something that mentioned such an idea). In short, I concede - Jibba, Klackon, you are right about my specific statement. I should have provided a citation or softened my words. What happened is I jumped on Jibba's comment as an excuse to talk about my concerns about technocracy - and I absolutely stand by my words on that matter, and think that whole argument stands. I could have been less sloppy about it. It's good that you guys are critical of me here. But it is too easy (I'm not complaining); I'm not a credentialed expert, and I don't pretend to be. Any strong statement by me stands out like a sore thumb. How many people apply the same time to critical thought/activity when a credentialed expert makes a statement or quotes previous work? SOME undoubtedly do, particularly if you are an expert in the same field, and wish to look into other research. But I would contend that MOST do not. There are many Dawkins fans here. How many follow his endnotes/citations to the original source to verify Dawkin's claims about biology? Probably a very, very small percentage. Why? Because Dawkins is a known name, people take him seriously, he's an expert, and because research he mentions is probably technical, difficult, and boring. My whole point in a nutshell is that people take experts too seriously, and this is dangerous. Nick  And @ Travis: Relax, this is not a fight of any kind, I just cleared the mess up because it had gone a bit out of control which is obvious when you see such large disparities in views between the first post and the last. If you want to fight then post your own views on your own blog, do not humiliate yourself trying to defend someone who broke his own logic. | ||
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On September 05 2008 10:22 Mooga wrote: travis uses the same logic as a typical creationist. At first I thought travis was just another troll, but after reading some of his many posts... I'm starting to see a pattern of logic failure. EPIC logic FAILURE. Actually, I use plenty of logic. Where's yours? | ||
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On September 05 2008 05:14 travis wrote: + Show Spoiler + On September 05 2008 04:41 Klockan3 wrote: However, I understand the work of the scientists since I am one myself... And I can say to you that citations are not there to prove a fact wrong or right, but to show the basis on what grounds you argue and what your theories are based on. Facts is only what you can feel with your own senses, science is built upon facts but it do not proclaim that theories are facts. Instead science is all about making theories to describe how an event will happen based on observed facts in the past, this is what leads us forward, but nowhere do theories supercede facts in science. If you say that gay penises are larger you got to have read a study about it or done one yourself. Since the chances that you have done a study about penis sizes are so close to 0% that we can take it for a fact that you haven't, then you must have read about it. Now since you posted that as a pure fact you obviously believed in it and as such you are a hypocrite if you say that citations are useless since you yourself use such facts in your argumentations no matter if you put the citation in or not. you are hardly the only scientist here. I don't think any part of his argument was riding on whether or not his statement that gay penises are larger(or whatever he said) is correct. That is completely beside the point, and I doubt he cared about it at all. These are not the words by someone who doubts the results of scientific studies, instead this are the words done by someone who neglects the basis of the study and just tries to convince people that he has more proof than he can show. No, these are the words of someone trying to illustrate a point, a concept. There are any number of varying statements he could have made to illustrate this concept. The accuracy of his statement has very little to do with the concept he was trying to convey. This is even the biggest hypocrisy of them all! You yourself attack others for making assumptions when you refuse to prove that what you say is anything but assumptions. Maybe if you did not hold such double standards people would listen to you more. 1.) He attacked no one. 2.) Clearly he was stating his interpretation, one I agreed with. 3.) Innocent until proven guilty. If someone wants to know if one of his statements are true or false, shouldn't they do, say, 2 minutes of research on google and find out for theirselves? Where is the double standard? How are statements of opinion comparable to statements of fact? Now, I will conclude with the words that I believe that all this blabbering about "Science is probably corrupt" is more to save your face than an ideology you live by. wtf are you talking about Ok, I will do this anyway... The thing is that I did not attack the logic of his first post or the logic of his last post. I attacked the crystal clear lack of coherence in his thoughts about science because it were causing a ton of unnecessary arguing since he obviously did not argue on his own terms either at first or he were going to extreme with his later posts. Any of those being true would both clear up this mess. I do not say that the first post or the last post is wrong, just that he himself should be a bit more careful with his extremes. | ||
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SiegeTanksandBlueGoo
China685 Posts
It's been widely reported and studied that the estrogen that women use in birth control pills etc. tend to either get poured down the drain or otherwise removed down the drain by bodily processes. Our water treatment plants in the USA are not prepared to treat this at all, so especially if you get your groundwater underwater, you are getting higher doses of estrogen than normal (especially if you get water from a stream or something, a lot of waste just gets treated and dumped back into the water.) It's been shown that this is what's causing a lot of amphibians to become mostly female with very few males. Just gonna throw some science in there. | ||
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nA.Inky
United States794 Posts
But yes, I'm very concerned about this sort of thing too. Antibiotics and other meds are an issue as well - not just hormones from bc and such. Our societies are incredibly foolish. | ||
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ahrara_
Afghanistan1715 Posts
Any strong statement by me stands out like a sore thumb. How many people apply the same time to critical thought/activity when a credentialed expert makes a statement or quotes previous work? SOME undoubtedly do, particularly if you are an expert in the same field, and wish to look into other research. But I would contend that MOST do not. There are many Dawkins fans here. How many follow his endnotes/citations to the original source to verify Dawkin's claims about biology? Probably a very, very small Most people would not question the expert, it's true. But anyone who does and who isn't familiar with the field is an idiot. For example, if someone were to write a textbook on how it's possible to create an infinite source of energy, and he has no credentials in physics, I would skim the book at laugh his face. If Albert Einstein did the same, I would give it serious consideration. We should leave the debating up to the experts. If we disagree with an idea strongly, we should study the field and come to our own conclusions. I will concede that I agree with inky on the fallibility of experts. But I don't agree that "thinking for ourselves" will create a better world. Groupthink and outside influence is just as likely if not more likely with new schools of thought. I've noticed that in "alternative" media outlets, whether they're regarding politics or health, tend to be philosophically similar. Scientists, on the other hand, tend to often disagree with each other on substantial issues. As an (angry and very annoyed) aside, I find it ironic that travis, who used citation after citation in his 9/11 blog and lambasted others when they couldn't come up with counter-citation and counter-citation, is now agreeing with inky. This is an unbelievable double standard. Somehow the arguments of groupthink don't apply to his own field of experts. And frankly, I hate arguing with this guy, because he is just a brick wall that doesn't give. He has never demonstrated anything more than a shallow understanding of anything he argues. I don't know what the hell he majored in, but it isn't philosophy or engineering. In this thread he consistently posts claim after claim, rarely bothering to make any warrants. Which works to his advantage because it is impossible to respond well to all his arguments. He seems to work under the belief that if you poke one hole in someone else's case, everything falls apart. In the realm of science and inductive logic, that is not true. I would just like it if he would try to substantiate his arguments. As it stands, all he does is point out the possibility of error, without making the case for error. | ||
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ahrara_
Afghanistan1715 Posts
i meant to say here: If we disagree with an idea strongly, we should study the field and come to our own conclusions. that we should study the field and become *experts* ourselves. too many people glance over the literature and develop incorrect conclusions from a shallow understanding of the field. | ||
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nA.Inky
United States794 Posts
This problem extends far back in time. Plato was a technocrat and argued for a highly technocratic society. Jump far forward and we have the Comte's who think that people are something like machines, or planetary bodies, that can be understood and controlled for the benefit of society. We have people like Edward Bernays and Walt Lippman, who think that people are insane and need to be guided by experts. We have the communist experiments in extreme social engineering. And we have a strong technocratic societies today. Here in America, the vast majority of decisions regarding production, policy, etc, have nothing to do with the individual, but the decisions are made by experts, and all this is justified by media and teachers and churches.... And I reject that. I don't want to be tested, graded, certified, assigned, judged, etc. I'll make my own decisions. I realize that we may be talking about separate situations - you are talking about the simple situation of scientific debate, and I'm talking about a society that places faith in experts. I think the two are connected, but I'm emphasizing different. | ||
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On September 06 2008 00:37 nA.Inky wrote: We have people like Edward Bernays and Walt Lippman, who think that people are insane and need to be guided by experts. People are always following something, at least in my opinion it is better that they follow an expert than a fool. Individuals might be smart, but group dynamics makes every mass of people extremely gullible. Edward Bernays more or less proved that people are easily controlled with the invention of PR. The difference between him and the Nazis was that Bernays control led to stability and prosperity while the Nazis went insane and started WW2, otherwise they used exactly the same methods and those methods are still used in every country today in order to keep the stability/gain votes/build prosperity and in some rare cases to promote war. Anyway, someone has to lead the people. If not the experts, then who should do it? They can't lead themselves, people in general have no sense in what is good for them or their country instead their opinions are shaped by the media which yet again is a group of experts ruling the masses. On September 06 2008 00:37 nA.Inky wrote:And I reject that. I don't want to be tested, graded, certified, assigned, judged, etc. I'll make my own decisions. You know that today you have way more freedom than people have had in any other age? And you still complain? Technocracy gives a ton of freedom to the individuals which they never had before, if you are pro individualism then you are also pro technocracy. Or maybe I have misunderstood you? In what way do you want society to change, from the position we are in today? You want people to trust educated persons less, then who should they put their trust in instead? The problem is that the masses are always easy to manipulate, thats a fact you can not ignore. The thing is that the masses do not even notice that they are manipulated but instead thinks that its their own free will to want to do the things they do while in fact they are just a part of the changed probability distributions created by manipulating the way the world is shown to them. | ||
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Fontong
United States6454 Posts
On September 05 2008 04:19 CapO wrote: does your definition of being a man include a dirty smelly guy wearing shitty clothes with unshaved hair everywhere? that shit is old, and most men are no longer like that. now days, there has been an increase in men's desire to look better by getting facial skin cares, wearing nice designer clothes (cheap clothes don't properly fit most people), shaving certain areas, putting on nice colognes, working out to get in shape, and becoming more feminine when it comes to being stylish and clean. simply, being metro sexual is the new era. i think this is the definition of a man, who knows how to take care of himself. This post especially applies to asian men, as far as my experience goes. At the high school I recently graduated from male fashion, esp. in the somewhat more fobby circles could really be defined as going more in a 'pretty' direction than in a 'manly' direction. They really don't get shit from anyone for it and it isn't like they are all feminine. Seriously, some of the Korean fobs from my school, even though a lot of them are really 'pretty boy' looking, just spend the entire lunch pushing each other around and punching each other. Same trend goes for asians in asia(as opposed to US). I was recently visiting some relatives in Hong Kong and they was a lot of the same thing going on. Most stores I went into were selling at least a few pink/purple shirts for guys. I bought some shirts while I was there and even though they weren't pink they were still quite tight-fitting, even though I'm really thin. I say male femininity, at least in fashion, is just a trend. Lol...visual kei. I have to agree with the OP though, when men act feminine it really gets on my nerves. Despite people talking about how it's bad to stereotype that men should be 'manly' in a tradition sense, I really don't want to be in a world where men act like women. Although men and women should be equal in legal and social terms, that really doesn't mean that they should be the same. There should be a difference between men and women besides just looks. It just makes me crazy when I meet a completely wishy-washy guy who is completely indecisive and can't say yes or no. Even worse is guys are are all into anime and want to act 'cute' all the time and speak in 'cute' voices. Seriously, there is not such a thing as a woman born in a man's body. If your born a man just accept it. | ||
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Dark.Carnival
United States5095 Posts
On September 04 2008 13:31 Ancestral wrote: I think people can make weird life decisions, but the idea of being "born the wrong sex" is completely ridiculous, I agree. I however, like hygiene (shave dark areas with hair) and it helps mentally with bicycle racing (you think you're faster when your legs are shaved). But I still act "like a man" I guess. Fairy men can be entertaining sometimes though. Chemical imbalance? Is that the auto-write off for anything someone doesn't understand? I realize it's hard to comprehend something you will never go through, so to have empathy for them is beyond your capabilities, but to simply say 'you have a chemical imbalance let me fix you" is really ignorant and insensitive to that person. How do you know what they are feeling? Is it so hard to understand that someone doesn't feel comfortable in the body they were born with? As for men not being 'men' anymore, that's a load of crap. There are still masculine men and feminine women, but there are also masculine woman and feminine males. As society has grown and become less attached to older notions of what makes a man a man and a woman a woman, the social contraints that held people from being what they want have slowly lifted, which allows for more diversity. We're starting to become less attached to 'well you should act this way' to 'be who you are' and that is a much healthier approach at things. | ||
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Brett
Australia3820 Posts
On September 05 2008 09:43 KaasZerg wrote: Those men are Emo's. Not to be confused with gay homo or Emu's. It's is a genetical mutation, the spiritual balls don't drop down from their soul. Empty man-shell. hahahahah That post and ancestral's made this thread worth my time. | ||
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SiegeTanksandBlueGoo
China685 Posts
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