rkbabang

so, are you saying people getting hit by lightning aren't actually cursed? No they are not cursed, that's absurd. People get struck by lightning because they angered Zeus.

Sort of like asking who is better Hitler or Stalin? Hitler is the better, obviously. If you like Stalin you have to like vodka and we can't have drunks walking around the streets. We should all be Nazis because Hitler was a teetotaler. What's to stop you from being a drunk if you are not a member of the NSDAP? Hitler is my pick as well for three reason. 1) I'm not a huge fan of Vodka. 2) Stalin killed more people. and 3) I'm not Jewish so I'd be safer under Hitler, Stalin killed just anyone.

Sort of like asking who is better Hitler or Stalin?

Yes I have read Dawkins. I think he's be apopletic if he knew how you were using his work. I think you have your argument basically backwards. We have evolved to occasionally connive, cheat, steal, etc. to propagate our genes. Men often lie to women and women to men for this reason. (See Robert Wright.) But, through culture, we overcome that various ways. Shame being a big one. While you might argue "why bother trying to overcome it?" -- again, because it doesn't work. It creates net misery. We don't need to lie and manipulate to propagate our genes. There are also good evolutionary reasons for cooperation, honesty, altruism...you know, basic good morality. As "lschmidt" said, there is good work out there on this subject. And "rkbabang" makes an excellent point which I can predict you will try to refute by saying "Yeah, but I mean only cheating when you can get away with it" -- to which I respond as I did above. You're setting up a false ideal and destroying it. The world doesn't work that way. Cheating has all kinds of ill effects, even if you temporarily have more wealth. And those who practice it eventually tend to get what they deserve, often creating major problems for the rest of us in the time being. And to add what you said. Yes, some people will lie, cheat, and steal, and get away with it, and benefit from doing so. But they are taking a huge risk by doing so. This is true in primitive societies as well as our own. Human beings can't live (very well) by themselves alone in the wilderness. They need others. Doing something that has the possibility of loosing the trust and support of your fellow man is a very real danger. In primitive societies it could mean expulsion to almost certain death. In our society it can mean a "criminal record" which will make many aspects of survival in life more difficult for you. Humans make these calculations all of the time. Yes it is tempting to take something that is just sitting there when no one is looking, but at what cost? Most of the time the possible harm far outweighs the potential gain. The people who ignore this calculation and always do what seems beneficial in the short term are likely not going to be very successful in life and will be among the poorest in society. Even those who are very good at theft (Bernie Madoff comes to mind) are living under a constant threat of being found out and having their lives destroyed. The stress alone is reason enough not to engage in such activities.

I'm just going to address this horseshit since no one else is calling you on it. That is not anyone's worldview but yours. Repeating it a bunch of times is not going to make it true. There are morals independent of a belief in deity. I don't go around murdering people and kittens senselessly because that is not the sort of behavior conducive of a world I want to live in. And If I don't want to live in that world, why would I propagate it? That would be strange and illogical. It's that simple. There is no E=mc2 reasoning needed. Morally, we act in a way that we'd like to see others act. Immanuel Kant addressed this 250 years ago. Same reason I don't cheat people, lie to get ahead, or beat children. It would lead to misery for the people I care about. I think an action that creates "net misery" is an evil one. And to head off your "if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it" argument about cheating on your spouse: Yes, the tree makes a noise. Anyone with any judgment realizes that cheating eventually leads to martial trouble about 99% of the time, no matter what false hypothetical you choose to set up. If you want to invoke Nassim Taleb, let's invoke what he calls the "Platonism." You're setting up this imaginary ideal world where people's actions don't have consequences, and trying to "trap" the non-believers based on it. Well, I don't live in that world and neither do you. I think morals are absolutely, 100% above all, practical. It's not useless academic blathering. Remember, Ben Franklin said "honesty is the best policy" not "honesty is the most moral policy." Honesty works. As do other obviously sound morals. Have you read any of Dawkins' books? He readily admits to my above sentence. You are genetically programmed to think "evil" exists but it doesn't. In a somewhat similar vein, you are also genetically programed to think you should have as much fat and sugar as you can. We know that isn't the best for your material well being (fitness). My argument is that, if God doesn't exist, lying and cheating, selectively, can also be a big benefit toward gaining material wealth. We just need to overcome the evolutionary instincts to do so. But by doing so you are putting your life at risk as others try to defend themselves from you and refuse to deal with you in any peaceful way. I think that you will find it wouldn't be a very good survival strategy for an individual nor a species. Try starting a business where you selectively lie to and cheat your customers. It won't be morality that puts you out of business it will be your (former) customers and your lack of new ones.

I look at that as confirming your bias. You don't want to believe or else you'd read things that would challenge your convictions. I've read both a ton of atheistic and theistic material -to find the best explanation. While I can't say that I'm 100% in the theistic camp, to me at least, it seems to make more sense out of the world. As far as miracles go, how do you define that? I'd guess that many atheists would agree that us being here is a miracle (as in an incredibly, incredibly low probability of an event). I've heard that the chances of us being here and the fine-tuning of the universe is something like 1 in something more than a trillion. In order to get around that the fine tuning we have the multiverse. The universe only "looks" fine tuned because we happen to be in the one, out of the trillions, that set up for life. Granted, there isn't next to no evidence for that either. That's really the point. We don't know the answers to these questions. It is the religious who pretend that they do. Look at this from a primitive-man historical point of view. Primitive peoples frequently made up stories to "explain" things they didn't understand, especially those things they were afraid of (like death, floods, or thunderstorms). Also religion can be a methodology for some people to control others. There are many reasons that religion would be invented by humans over the years, but still no proof of its validity. Of all the possible answers to the "big questions": "god did it" is to me the least satisfying. I much prefer "I don't know". Why do I prefer "I don't know", because I don't. And neither do you.

Not really a trick. In my example above, for instance, any being that would punish someone for not taking something on faith really is an asshole. Why would you worship such a being? The common answer is that he is all powerful, but do you really simply worship power? I don't care how powerful it is if it's an ass. rkabang, Your willingness to stand with your convictions will be what saves your soul. There is not much room in heaven, so an elaborate test has been set up to see who has true courage of conviction. You pass. Those who worship out of fear will be judged as cowards, as sycophants, and thus fail the test. It's entirely possible. Maybe, maybe not. Nobody really knows. That would be ironic. I'll certainly have a good laugh if I end up in some Heaven/Paradise/Hashamaim/Shamayim/Nirvana/Jannah/etc after spending my life telling people that god(s) probably don't exist and there is likely nothing after this life, while all the "good", "god fearing" people end up in some purgatory. Funny, but I doubt it. Until I see convincing evidence to the contrary I think dead is likely dead.

Not really a trick. In my example above, for instance, any being that would punish someone for not taking something on faith really is an asshole. Why would you worship such a being? The common answer is that he is all powerful, but do you really simply worship power? I don't care how powerful it is if it's an ass.

My typical response is: If you are correct then your god knows where I live and he's welcome to come over anytime to introduce himself. If he doesn't I'll just assume he either doesn't want me to believe in him, or he can't pay me a visit because he doesn't exist. If he does exist and wants me to worship him (and will punish me if I don't) without any hard evidence of his existence, then he's a @$$hole and I wan't nothing to do with him. Even if it could be proven that he does exist, he'd have to also prove to me that he is worthy to be worshiped. I don't take lightly to threats. I'm not going to worship something just because this creature is threatening to punish me if I don't.

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Yes. Would humans have made it out of the stone age and still be around today if we all thought that it was good to murder fellow humans whenever we got the chance? What we call "morality" is simply instincts that are hardwired into our brains through an evolutionary process which has helped our species survive. Maybe there were groups of humans without "morals", but those no longer exist. Of course through random genome variability there are constantly being born humans without those "moral" instincts and the rest of us need to try to figure out how best to deal with them and protect ourselves from them.

I dream of a day when everyone is wealthy enough that they no longer need to watch reality TV. I dream of a day when everyone is wealthy enough that they can make to-do lists for themselves. Obviously I said many of the habits, not all. So your cherry picking hasn't achieved much. But by all means, keep doing everything you can to preserve your needlessly black and white ideology. I'm going to do something more productive with my time. Hey, I think there's a Pawn Stars marathon on. And you can keep closing your eyes to the point I was trying to make. The point being that you were cherry picking yourself. The items you were talking about where the least likely to have an effect on a person's success in life and therefore the least relevant to the discussion. There is some value, I think, to discussing how people who spend hours watching TV rather than reading; listening to music rather than audio books; and failing to think about the future rather than carefully planning and setting explicit goals for themselves are less successful in life and what to do about it. You focus instead on what people are eating. I agree that it is odd those things are even in the 'study'. But yes, feel free to cherry pick the things that don't matter to give yourself an excuse to avoid thinking about things that do. And then accuse me of being black and white about things. No study or survey is perfect. Rather than focusing on what doesn't matter and throwing out the baby with the bath water, is it not useful to look and see if there are any nuggets of truth in there?

I dream of a day when everyone is wealthy enough that they no longer need to watch reality TV. I dream of a day when everyone is wealthy enough that they can make to-do lists for themselves. How about the day when everyone has two married parents who can show them that a little bit of planning and a lot of hard work can get them wherever they want to go? It's remarkable how many inner-city youth are born out of wedlock (over 70% for blacks, not sure about others but it's bound to be similar). Irresponsibility breeds irresponsibility. Uncle Sam needs to stop subsidizing single motherhood for that to even begin to happen.

I dream of a day when everyone is wealthy enough that they no longer need to watch reality TV. I dream of a day when everyone is wealthy enough that they can make to-do lists for themselves.

Could depend in the interpretation of habits. Is it not possible that when a someone with lower income hears "bad habit" they think of biting their nails while a rich person thinks of something more related to success like beating themselves up for mistakes? It seems totally reasonable that if each has a different bar for what is considered a bad habit that you would get wide discrepancies. You are also talking about the poorest of the poor. Income <$30K with < $5k in assets. I wonder if there would be much of a difference between the middle class (say $75K - $200K income with $200K-$1M in assets) vs. the billionaires? My habits are much closer to the billionaires in this graphic, yet I'm no billionaire. The poor are often poor for a reason, that isn't much of a surprise, but I don't think daily reading and setting goals for oneself is a surefire way to make you a billionaire. It hasn't happened to me anyway. (although I do read much less than 500 pages/day). EDIT: I just noticed that they define 'wealthy' as $160K/yr, $3.2M assets, not what I think of as wealthy and not necessarily billionaires, but my point still stands, the lower middle class probably has habits much closer to those in the "wealthy" category. This could just as easily be a chart of the difference between the habits of the poor and everyone else.

I think it's somewhat impressive a kid that age knows who they are. Buffett looks like he's digesting a satisfying meal right there ................... or he's regretting that last meal. 8) These kids live in Omaha, I have to think that most people in Omaha must know who Warren Buffett is. There aren't that many celebrities living in Omaha, they all must know what their local celebrity looks like. I wonder if the kids knew who McCartney was at the time they were taking the photo?

Yes, but unfortunately for us alive today, cultural evolution can move pretty slowly. Look how long it is taking religion to die. I think religion will be dead and buried once and for all long before the state even starts to decline. I think it's the other way around. Chance of religion dying within 100 years is 0 while the demise of the nation state model might start within the 100 years. I hope you are correct, as currently the state does more harm. I don't mind religion as much as long as it is doesn't get organised and powerful again.

Yes, but unfortunately for us alive today, cultural evolution can move pretty slowly. Look how long it is taking religion to die. I think religion will be dead and buried once and for all long before the state even starts to decline.

+1 Thanks, yeah, Feedly is almost unusable by default, just a bunch of pictures and all your feeds crammed together. My current settings are as follows: How would your feeds ideally be organized? I like how I have feedly set up now (see above settings) I start with the index view where I have all my feeds in their proper categories and I pick one feed to view. I then go back to the index if I want to pick another feed to view. I don't like the feedly views that mix items from all of your feeds together.

Yeah, you're right. Sorry. That wasn't a fair way to characterize you at all. My mental model of why someone becomes right wing and why someone becomes left wing has been in flux for the past few months. As a side-effect of that, I used an incorrect heuristic. Sorry. No problem.

Ok, this argument isn't even in the realm of making sense. The form of your argument is, "to survive, you must eat. Therefore, eating anything (cyanide, stop signs, airplanes, babies) is generally a good idea". The thing that amuses me the most is that you're one of the more right-wing people on the board, but this really sounds like an argument the pigs would make in "Animal Farm". I also disagree with the premise that there's no way to get what you want without hard work. It sounds like a very bleak life. I think maybe you want very different things that me. I think we are completely talking past one another here, so I'll end it. I do want to clear up one thing though since you accused me of being something I detest. I am not even close to being a right winger at all, never mind the one of the "more right-wing people on the board". I don't believe in borders, I'm not religious, I'm not racists, nor homophobic. I think all drugs should be legal and sold over the counter, and I agree with Rosie O'Donnel when she said soldiers are murderers and terrorists. I'd love to see G.W. Bush and Obama convicted as mass murderers. There aren't many things I would find insulting, but being called a right winger is one of them. I agree with all those things above and I would still prefer to be called a right winger over a left winger every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Also make sure you realize left and right (besides being one-dimensional and therefore highly inadequate to quality the complicated political landscape) is highly context specific. What is left in one place is right in the other. Finally I'll confess to being a Libertarian. Everyone in my country would call that extreme right. ;) I don't particularly like "left wing" either, but I guess I prefer it to right wing. I like libertarian, but I find most libertarians are still statists, so that doesn't quite fit me either. Maybe "extreme libertarian", Anarcho-capitalist, or just anti-state. I find that libertarians are only labeled right-wing by leftists, but are usually labeled left-wing by conservatives.

Ok, this argument isn't even in the realm of making sense. The form of your argument is, "to survive, you must eat. Therefore, eating anything (cyanide, stop signs, airplanes, babies) is generally a good idea". The thing that amuses me the most is that you're one of the more right-wing people on the board, but this really sounds like an argument the pigs would make in "Animal Farm". I also disagree with the premise that there's no way to get what you want without hard work. It sounds like a very bleak life. I think maybe you want very different things that me. I think we are completely talking past one another here, so I'll end it. I do want to clear up one thing though since you accused me of being something I detest. I am not even close to being a right winger at all, never mind the one of the "more right-wing people on the board". I don't believe in borders, I'm not religious, I'm not racists, nor homophobic. I think all drugs should be legal and sold over the counter, and I agree with Rosie O'Donnel when she said soldiers are murderers and terrorists. I'd love to see G.W. Bush and Obama convicted as mass murderers. There aren't many things I would find insulting, but being called a right winger is one of them.

+1 Thanks, yeah, Feedly is almost unusable by default, just a bunch of pictures and all your feeds crammed together. My current settings are as follows: General Start Page Which page would you like feedly to load when you start feedly ? Tips: You can also bookmark any feedly page and jump back to that page directly. Index Default View Change the view setting of all category and feed pages at once. Magazine Featured Showcase the 3 most engaging posts at the top of each page. No Hide Read Posts Should feedly hide articles once you have read them? Yes Categories With No Updates Use this knob to hide the categories with no updates in the left navigation panel. Hide Display Density How dense should the list view be? Compact (densest) Source Index Should the magazine view include a list of the feeds in that category? No Index Link Should feedly include the index link in the left navigation bar? Yes

Whether it be your employment, your property, your hobbies, your money, or your family, there is usually no way to get what you want in life without hard work. So contrary to your theory that raising children is not in a person's best interest simply because it entails effort, as every successful person knows intuitively, hard work usually is in your best interest.

Yes, but raising kids is a lot of work. One could equally make the argument "surely helping people build their retirements comes with an ROI - the happiness of seeing your customers having a financially-secure retirement where they have the assets to realize their retirement dreams". Really, if you start looking at things from "intrinsic reward" incentives, then you've basically conceded rkbabang's argument anyway. You could say that many politicians govern well because of the intrinsic rewards of improving their country and the well-being of their fellow citizens, which I think rkbabang wouldn't agree with at all. Rkbabang, I think understand your position. Parenting is a counterexample that refutes your rule, so you'll pretend that you and your kids are one entity instead of modifying your world view. That said, I understand it. If you concede that parents can act against their own best interests on behalf of their kids, then it's possible that other people might sometimes act against their own best interests as well. (FWIW, I think you are mostly right that people usually act in their own best interests. I just recoil against black and white world views.) It isn't black and white, nothing ever is. There are 99.99999% of politicians and then there is Ron Paul, there are parents who give away or even kill their kids, and yes, there are probably good financial advisers who put their clients' interests before their own. But you are refusing to accept that sometimes there are general rules that apply almost universally. Also, I don't think the parenting thing was a cop out. There has not been millions of years of evolution to make human beings want to help others with their retirement savings.