What would be the most important thing than humans should try to achieve in priority in your opinion ?

[Phi for All]

45 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

One could even argue that if I didn't offer the advice to my son then I'm also being "lazy". That I don't value my son's wellbeing enough to invest the effort in trying to do something about it. 

I think you're beginning to see the problem with the term "lazy". Perhaps you're being lazy by only offering advice to help him physically. Your son is lazy for not exploring more solutions he's never explored before. Bunch of lazy people all over the world not bothering to deal with pandemics, mass shootings, anti-democracy extremists, poverty wages, cultural upheavals, authoritarian governments, religious extremism, and wealth disparity using the tools their parents gave them to cope. They should all get a little more exercise.

[Intoscience]

15 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I think you're beginning to see the problem with the term "lazy". Perhaps you're being lazy by only offering advice to help him physically. Your son is lazy for not exploring more solutions he's never explored before. Bunch of lazy people all over the world not bothering to deal with pandemics, mass shootings, anti-democracy extremists, poverty wages, cultural upheavals, authoritarian governments, religious extremism, and wealth disparity using the tools their parents gave them to cope. They should all get a little more exercise.

So what other term would you use?

Seems to me that people are making a bunch of excuses to not do anything about anything.

[dimreepr]

6 hours ago, Intoscience said:

So what other term would you use?

Seems to me that people are making a bunch of excuses to not do anything about anything.

Maybe it's not an excuse, there has to be a reason not to do what we did yesterday, if yesterday I successfully fed, sheltered and entertained me and mine.

That behaviour isn't good for humanity in and of itself, but neither is working hard; for instance, miner's work hard to dig out the coal that may well turn out to be humanities end.

The OP is akin to programming an AI; for instance, we tell it to look after our children, feed them, keep them warm and comfortable and etc. Then one day we forget to replenish the food cupboard and the children are hungry, the AI decides the family cat is edible, without understanding that, the kid's going hungry for a day is less valuable than the cat; so you tell it to recognise cat's and not kill them, forgetting about dogs and gerbils and the postman and etc.

 

22 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Again, one person's success could be another person's failure.

I guess success would be achieving a goal that was set out initially. Whether that goal leads to improvement etc... well that could be subjective. 

Don't say "define improvement"! Turtles all the way down.  

I didn't, I said "We should start by asking, "what's best for humanity?"; only then, can we design a human friendly future..."

Besides, I asked you to define your success, which of coarse is subjective...

Quote

 

Asimov’s laws initially entailed three guidelines for machines:

Law One – “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”

Law Two – “A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.”

Law Three – “A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”

Asimov later added the “Zeroth Law,” above all the others – “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”

 

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by dimreepr

[Intoscience]

54 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Maybe it's not an excuse, there has to be a reason not to do what we did yesterday, if yesterday I successfully fed, sheltered and entertained me and mine.

That behaviour isn't good for humanity in and of itself, but neither is working hard; for instance, miner's work hard to dig out the coal that may well turn out to be humanities end

like everything in life its a matter of balance, perspective and interpretation.

Nothing gets done unless something is done - doing too much can be as non productive as doing too less - Hardship and suffering to one may mean happiness and contentment to another. 

I didn't put the bins out for collection yesterday. Today the bins are still full because the refuse collection date was missed. I now have to take the refuse in person to the local tip or just leave the bins overflowing or maybe for someone else to deal with.

Maybe I was feeling unwell or had a mental block or, just completely unintentionally forgot, or was late for work, or the cat went missing, or the car wouldn't start, or I was late for my bus, or it was snowing, or windy, or raining, or, or, or...

Or just maybe I was too "lazy" to do the sensible thing and put the bins out for collection. Now either I or someone else has to go to the added effort of dealing with the consequences.

The world is full of people with genuine excuses, then there is just being lazy for no particular reason other than I can't be bothered. Yeah sure go ahead and look into the psychology of why I'm not bothered and you may find an underlining issue that needs addressing, fine. But in the short term the bins still need emptying.      

Edited December 7, 2022 by Intoscience

[Phi for All]

8 hours ago, Intoscience said:

So what other term would you use?

Lazy is an accusation, a label, and a judgement all rolled up into one. Ironically, we often use the term so we don't have to work harder to find out what's really wrong. Lazy is a lazy conclusion.

I'd start by acknowledging that if a person isn't doing something obvious to relieve a detrimental situation, then perhaps you don't fully understand the situation. In your son's case, putting on a few extra pounds may not be the problem. He may not understand what's bothering him, so even though he knows how to drop the weight, he may understand that it won't help the real problem, so he doesn't bother doing it. 

8 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Seems to me that people are making a bunch of excuses to not do anything about anything.

This may be a whole different problem. Your argument assumes all the problems involved are simple fixes, so if people aren't doing these simple fixes they must be lazy. The current population of the world is being bombarded daily with things nobody has EVER had to deal with before, in ways we never had available to us. We're more connected to others, but we've never been more isolated either. There is a ludicrous amount of resources being spent to confuse, obfuscate, and promote the kind of economic chaos that the extremely rich thrive on. Our kids see things daily that probably confuse the hell out of them, like politicians representing the People who vote down paid sick leave for rail workers when our supply chain problems are critical. Or that we do nothing to change our concept of masculinity despite the fact that men commit 90% of the murders worldwide. It's a bizarre, late-Capitalism, extremist era we live in, and our problems are many and diverse. Don't be lazy and simply label us all lazy. Some of us are rather flummoxed, unsure, uncentered, or we have too many problems competing for our limited time.

[raphaelh42]

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

The OP is akin to programming an AI

Hmm I meant creating a blank artificial brain to upload a human mind in it

So it wouldn't be AI right ? I think AI wouldn't be a copy of a biological mind but would be numerically created

[Phi for All]

9 hours ago, Intoscience said:

The world is full of people with genuine excuses, then there is just being lazy for no particular reason other than I can't be bothered. Yeah sure go ahead and look into the psychology of why I'm not bothered and you may find an underlining issue that needs addressing, fine. But in the short term the bins still need emptying.      

As I look into the psychology, the Puritanical origins of the term stand out. You're judged by your productivity, and righteous folks don't mind hard work, so if you're struggling you must not be very virtuous. We've been taught to blame the victim for their struggles, and it's been going on for a long time. It's the same mentality that told us we're actually helping certain people by forcing them to work because they're basically lazy and would do nothing if we didn't beat them and chain them.

[Intoscience]

14 hours ago, Phi for All said:

This may be a whole different problem. Your argument assumes all the problems involved are simple fixes, so if people aren't doing these simple fixes they must be lazy. The current population of the world is being bombarded daily with things nobody has EVER had to deal with before, in ways we never had available to us. We're more connected to others, but we've never been more isolated either. There is a ludicrous amount of resources being spent to confuse, obfuscate, and promote the kind of economic chaos that the extremely rich thrive on. Our kids see things daily that probably confuse the hell out of them, like politicians representing the People who vote down paid sick leave for rail workers when our supply chain problems are critical. Or that we do nothing to change our concept of masculinity despite the fact that men commit 90% of the murders worldwide. It's a bizarre, late-Capitalism, extremist era we live in, and our problems are many and diverse. Don't be lazy and simply label us all lazy. Some of us are rather flummoxed, unsure, uncentered, or we have too many problems competing for our limited time

Though I don't share your idea around the term lazy I do share your view on modern politics and issues and I agree that at the heart of many of the issues there is a complex set of problems, especially around mind set.  

7 hours ago, Phi for All said:

As I look into the psychology, the Puritanical origins of the term stand out. You're judged by your productivity, and righteous folks don't mind hard work, so if you're struggling you must not be very virtuous. We've been taught to blame the victim for their struggles, and it's been going on for a long time. It's the same mentality that told us we're actually helping certain people by forcing them to work because they're basically lazy and would do nothing if we didn't beat them and chain them.

I think you are being too harsh on the folk who you consider judgemental. I don't believe all people label and/or judge the same, this just isn't true. But the reality is that self help plays a major role in overcoming challenges. Some people who just role over and blame everything else for their undoing without honestly looking at themselves..

If everyone stopped doing anything and spent all their time pondering what the key issues are then we would very quickly grind to a halt. Its also not healthy both mentally and physically to just give up because life has dealt you a poor hand. I remind my son that he is a healthy, loved, cared for human being with a good education a home and family there for support. He may have issues, agreed, but compared to many he is very fortunate. You know one of the problems with social media and all this exposure to glam and glitz creates a false sense of reality to many that demoralises them into thinking that they are a failure or misfortunate. 

So in reply to the OP, the best thing we can do is ban exposure to false realities, stop ramming down peoples throats fairy tales that just aren't reality.   

Edited December 8, 2022 by Intoscience

[Intoscience]

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

As I look into the psychology, the Puritanical origins of the term stand out. You're judged by your productivity, and righteous folks don't mind hard work, so if you're struggling you must not be very virtuous. We've been taught to blame the victim for their struggles, and it's been going on for a long time. It's the same mentality that told us we're actually helping certain people by forcing them to work because they're basically lazy and would do nothing if we didn't beat them and chain them.

Would you like to split this off from this thread and create a new discussion around this? I'm happy to participate especially since I have strong objection against the current "woke" culture that seems to be infesting society in many countries across the globe. 

[Phi for All]

6 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Would you like to split this off from this thread and create a new discussion around this? I'm happy to participate especially since I have strong objection against the current "woke" culture that seems to be infesting society in many countries across the globe. 

I thought removing colonial thinking was one of the most important things that humans should try to achieve, but you obviously disagree. By all means, start a thread on woke culture and tell us your take on it, I'll be sure to participate. I've been trying to wake up for 20 years.

[iNow]

6 hours ago, Intoscience said:

I have strong objection against the current "woke" culture that seems to be infesting society

In a recent court case, a judge asked a lawyer for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to define "woke" since they kept using it in their comments.

The lawyer, for one of the fiercest "where woke goes to die!!" culture warriors known to any of us, answered thusly:

"The belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."

 

Why do you so strongly object to that? Why is the word "infesting" the right one to use, or do you perhaps have an entirely different definition of "woke" than Ron DeSantis himself?

[Phi for All]

4 minutes ago, iNow said:

Why do you so strongly object to that? Why is the word "infesting" the right one to use, or do you perhaps have an entirely different definition of "woke" than Ron DeSantis himself?

They may be using the same dictionary that defines "liberal" as "anti-American".

[iNow]

Just now, Phi for All said:

They may be using the same dictionary that defines "liberal" as "anti-American".

Or "left" as "evil socialist communist baby fornicator"

[Phi for All]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

Or "left" as "evil socialist communist baby fornicator"

To be fair, I define "anti-woke" as "blissfully ignorant".

The arguments, to me at least, all sound like "You can't force me to see reality. If I want to drive with my eyes closed, that's my right!"

[Moontanman]

I define "woke" as having  empathy for others. 

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, Moontanman said:

I define "woke" as having  empathy for others. 

To me, to be woke means you realize you've been doing things without question just because it's the typical way. When you question the status quo, you find there's all these solutions that are better for the majority. You wake up to the fact you're being skillfully manipulated by people who can afford what that takes.

[Arete]

I've spent 7 years as a faculty member at a minority serving institution and have a few insights that might be worthwhile into the whole concept of "woke" culture. 

1. It's important to recognize that the fact that 70% of the student body comes from minority backgrounds and only 20% of the professors do. There are systemic reasons for that gap, reasons that should be thoroughly explored, identified and ameliorated so that there are no longer inherent biases in who gets to succeed and who doesn't. Evidence show the biases run deep - school districting, mortgage lending, access to medical care, etc and so on all affect opportunity. Contrary to DeSantis's lawyer's asinine comment, it's important to recognize that the playing field is not level and that race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability status etc all impact the opportunities an individual has to achieve 

2. This can lead to a toxic environment (looking at you academic twitter) where fingers are pointed at people based on their identities as being undeserving or otherwise representative of a social injustice simply by existing. There have been multiple examples of extremely vindictive campaigns aimed at ending the careers and destroying the lives of privileged individuals for what amount to fairly innocuous statements or actions. Using "wokeness" simply to enact revenge on people that one deems to not deserve their position of privilege is counter-productive, I know first hand that what it does is push the privileged - who you need at the table to enact change that addresses inequity, out of the room. They delete their twitter accounts, stop coming to the EDI meetings and stop caring. 

3. At the same time, the DeSanitses of the world can't deny the very observable, measurable, fact that systemic bias exists. You can't say that a poor, Hispanic, child with a single parent who has PTSD has the same pathway to becoming governor as a white, wealthy child with a stable home life because we all know that it's just not true. Pretending that they do because acknowledging your privileges played a role in your success/or lack thereof in spite of them makes you uncomfortable, or contests your flawed "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" philosophy is just fallacious and leads us back to point 2. 

4. So wokeness with compassion is an important pathway to a more just and equal society. It's a term that's abused and corrupted by both sides of the argument, but if the way it is implemented is respectful, compassionate and empathetic itleads to a better place for everyone.   

Edited December 8, 2022 by Arete

[CharonY]

One factor is that similarly to other hot topics like immigration, politics likes to seize on such rather complex questions in order to gain cheap points. Rather quickly these issues then become rallying points and are not discussed in sufficient depth anymore.

It is also funny to me that some folks argue that all that wokeness is finally causing backlash- whereas in fact the term is in itself a backlash to a status quo where systemic injustice was considered the norm and justified. The blame for inequality was then squarely placed on certain, typically powerless groups. 

I mean, in this thread there are a couple of important steps such as "hey hold on, how do we define woke in the first place?". Even such simple things are often not addressed in what passes as public discourse nowadays.

Edit: I feel like I should start embracing old man attitude and hypocritically blame social media for all failings of modern society. While writing a post on social media.

[Intoscience]

17 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I thought removing colonial thinking was one of the most important things that humans should try to achieve, but you obviously disagree. By all means, start a thread on woke culture and tell us your take on it, I'll be sure to participate. I've been trying to wake up for 20 years.

It seems I don't need to now, I was just making the suggestion so as not to derail this thread. 

12 hours ago, Arete said:

4. So wokeness with compassion is an important pathway to a more just and equal society. It's a term that's abused and corrupted by both sides of the argument, but if the way it is implemented is respectful, compassionate and empathetic itleads to a better place for everyone. 

Agreed, this is my view. But since I didn't make this clear when I stated I object to the infestation of the woke culture. It appears I have been categorised already as been, old fashioned, ignorant and hypocritical. 

So I'll make it very clear - I'm opposed to the corruption when abused that the woke culture brings. I'm opposed to the far left and the right, but this current wave of "wokeness" culture is infesting society in a way that is not productive and also in a way that was I'm sure was not intended by the original outset of ideas. I believe that people are now being forced into taking either side rather than finding a middle ground that is sensible and positive for society. I don't think that all this confusion is healthy for the younger generation, and yes extreme one way or the other creates either "snowflakes" (assuming I'm using the term correctly being an old man and all) and or (in Phi's words) stronger colonial thinking.  

Lesson learnt 

11 hours ago, CharonY said:

Edit: I feel like I should start embracing old man attitude and hypocritically blame social media for all failings of modern society. While writing a post on social media.

You know full well that I was aiming at the "image culture" that is rammed down people's throats through using social media as the platform. My social networking is spent on forums like this one, for topical discussion. Not posting photos of my egotistical image, there is a difference.    

Edited December 9, 2022 by Intoscience

[dimreepr]

On 12/7/2022 at 4:31 PM, raphaelh42 said:

Hmm I meant creating a blank artificial brain to upload a human mind in it

So it wouldn't be AI right ? I think AI wouldn't be a copy of a biological mind but would be numerically created

My point is, programming an AI is just as difficult as predicting what is best for humanity; a trite answer might be, we work together to achieve a common goal, the reality is, the common goal is culturally dependent.

[Genady]

In my opinion, this "importance" function does not have a global maximum.

[dimreepr]

On 12/7/2022 at 1:26 PM, Intoscience said:

like everything in life its a matter of balance, perspective and interpretation.

Nothing gets done unless something is done - doing too much can be as non productive as doing too less - Hardship and suffering to one may mean happiness and contentment to another. 

I didn't put the bins out for collection yesterday. Today the bins are still full because the refuse collection date was missed. I now have to take the refuse in person to the local tip or just leave the bins overflowing or maybe for someone else to deal with.

Maybe I was feeling unwell or had a mental block or, just completely unintentionally forgot, or was late for work, or the cat went missing, or the car wouldn't start, or I was late for my bus, or it was snowing, or windy, or raining, or, or, or...

Or just maybe I was too "lazy" to do the sensible thing and put the bins out for collection. Now either I or someone else has to go to the added effort of dealing with the consequences.

The world is full of people with genuine excuses, then there is just being lazy for no particular reason other than I can't be bothered. Yeah sure go ahead and look into the psychology of why I'm not bothered and you may find an underlining issue that needs addressing, fine. But in the short term the bins still need emptying.      

You don't seem to understand the difference between an excuse and a reason, what you define as a genuine excuse is what I define as a reason.

I'm very lazy, if I can get away with not doing something I will, it's not an excuse it's the reason I chose not to do a thing, that you think I should do.

If I'm happy to live in a house full of shit, who are you to judge?

Sure, if you live next door and my action results in your house being infested by rats, then you have a reason to be angry and judgmental; but if you don't, then it's just an excuse to bitch about something you don't like.

16 minutes ago, Genady said:

In my opinion, this "importance" function does not have a global maximum.

Interesting statement, can you clarify please, I don't understand it's relevance to this thread.

[Arete]

10 hours ago, Intoscience said:

So I'll make it very clear - I'm opposed to the corruption when abused that the woke culture brings. I'm opposed to the far left and the right, but this current wave of "wokeness" culture is infesting society in a way that is not productive and also in a way that was I'm sure was not intended by the original outset of ideas. I believe that people are now being forced into taking either side rather than finding a middle ground that is sensible and positive for society. I don't think that all this confusion is healthy for the younger generation, and yes extreme one way or the other creates either "snowflakes" (assuming I'm using the term correctly being an old man and all) and or (in Phi's words) stronger colonial thinking.  

Unfortunately, this is not clear, at least to me. What corruption are you talking about? You'd need to be much more specific. 

Also, was iNow points out, the most prominent "anti-woke" spokespeople define woke culture as the acknowledgement of systemic bias. Empirically measurable systemic bias exists. There's not really a middle ground to take. You either accept that systemic bias is real and are therefore "woke", or you deny reality.

An analogy might be climate change - you can't really take a middle ground on being woke to climate change - you're either "woke" about it, or you're objectively wrong. 

[Phi for All]

11 hours ago, Intoscience said:

So I'll make it very clear - I'm opposed to the corruption when abused that the woke culture brings. I'm opposed to the far left and the right, but this current wave of "wokeness" culture is infesting society in a way that is not productive and also in a way that was I'm sure was not intended by the original outset of ideas. I believe that people are now being forced into taking either side rather than finding a middle ground that is sensible and positive for society. I don't think that all this confusion is healthy for the younger generation, and yes extreme one way or the other creates either "snowflakes" (assuming I'm using the term correctly being an old man and all) and or (in Phi's words) stronger colonial thinking.   

Ah, so you're against corruption and abuse, and somebody somewhere tied the those two things together with "woke culture" in your mind (and a LOT of other people's minds). You now view attempts to correct the inequalities in the system as suspect. You have made the decision about being "woke" that many far-right personalities wanted you to make. And don't kid yourself, people like DeSantis represent the extreme right (the ones you say you're opposed to) in this country, people who don't give af about what minorities continue to experience in a system slanted against them. 

[TheVat]

It is a bit scary how much one extreme band on the political spectrum seems to take every concept of social progress and infuse it with pejorative meaning.  Instead of having a real conversation about what there could be to awaken to, the woke person is put on the defensive to counter the repressive Maoist caricature being painted over them.  And I'm sure there are conservatives of integrity and conscience who get into similar defensive mode when they get painted as part of some monolithic cadre of racist misogynist plutocrats warming their fat hands over book bonfires.   

All the while we could be having real conversations about actual policy philosophies - when is small government useful, when is it a copout on necessary pooling of community resources?  What's the difference between a natural right and a privilege?  Who should determine what children are taught in school?  What is the legitimate function of a national military defense?  What are the pluses and minuses of a global economy with globe-spanning supply chains?  How should state regulatory power be levied on a free market?  How should freedom of religion apply to businesses that serve the public?  Can quotas or targeted goals remedy historical systemic racism and if so how?   And a hundred other questions.  

And one discussion we especially need in the US regarding systemic racism is to examine the difference between being responsible for a systemic problem and taking responsibility for it.  I might not be personally responsible for something, but it could be that because of my advantages and privileges I should go ahead and take responsibility.  If I see an old man fallen on some ice, I might stop and help him up and call for medical help if needed, even though I didn't personally cause the ice to be there.