Chicken Little says December 21st 2012 is the end of time as man knows it

[Sailor Steve]

Okay, here's an alternate take.

Originally Posted by Skybird

a disgrace.

Okay, no disgrace, but a declaration of bancrupcty of intellectual, reasonable thinking.

too absurd

simply idiocy

fantasy

When it doesn't fit you're narrow view of the world, call it names. That's good sound judgement.

Scepticism is good, I am a basic sceptic myself.

No, you're not. You're a firm believer. A believer in your own innate rightness and superiority.

When I was homeless I spent a lot of time in our huge city library, reading everything I could. Among the things I read were so-called 'Sceptic' magazines. Some of the finest minds in the world contributed to them, and they have some fine articles. They're basically devoted to debunking everything in sight, and they make very convincing articles. The problem is more than half of those articles are devoted to debunking all things religious, which is also fine, except I began to see that these people were, to a man, absolutely convinced. There was no scepticism aimed at themselves, which means they weren't sceptics at all, but devout atheists.

And you firmly believe, and even preach, that you are right. There is no question, no room for even the slightest doubts. This is why I have so much trouble discussing anything with you. You don't have room for even the slightest chance you may be wrong.

I don't think for a second that the world is going to end a year from now. I just admit that I don't know it for a fact, which is why I voted the way I did, and found some humor in it. You seem unable to admit that there's anything you don't know, and everything that disagrees becomes a subject of derision for you. You are a true believer, and have your own religion. It's just not one people normally look for.

Yes, I have problems with my judgement and my sanity. How's yours?

[Armistead]

I say yes,

I generally hate people and humanity in general, so be nice to see us all wiped out.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Armistead

I say yes,

I generally hate people and humanity in general, so be nice to see us all wiped out.

We do a pretty good job of that without outside help tbh. The whole resource wars and food and water shortages of the future will help a lot in reducing populations though, that's for certain...

[Herr-Berbunch]

I've said before that there are too many people and we could do with a good cull one way or another - that's life!

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Armistead

I say yes,

I generally hate people and humanity in general, so be nice to see us all wiped out.

The sooner the failed species called human dies off, the better the earth will be.

The world cannot end in December 2012 since I have a credit card that does not expire until January 2013 and the banks would never lie to us...

Not intending offence to Geetrue, I didn't vote since I consider the premise behind the poll absurd.

[the_tyrant]

Originally Posted by Randomizer

The world cannot end in December 2012 since I have a credit card that does not expire until January 2013 and the banks would never lie to us...

Not intending offence to Geetrue, I didn't vote since I consider the premise behind the poll absurd.

Even if the world has ended, the banks would come into hell to collect their money

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Okay, here's an alternate take. <-- (...) --> with my judgement and my sanity. How's yours?

If there is a man who is not only healthy but has fully functional legs and trained splendid muscles, and who chooses to roll around in a wheelchair voluntarily, than he mocks himself, and his behaviour is a disgrace for himself and even an offence to those sitting in a wheelchair and having no choice.

And if God has given you a brain and sanity and ratio and logic and you refuse to make use of it, instead get fixiated on absurd constructions that in the end just mean that you claim that any fantasy one could imagine should be given as a possible glimpse of an existing reality just not discovered so far - then this is a disgrace, too. Not to use your brain when you have one, is a sin, one could put it in other terms. I know the Black Swan Fallacy and all that - but the extremes you push it too is not what Black Swan Fallacies are about. where it is reasonable to remind yourself that just because you never saw a black swan there are no black swans (since you know some things about genetics and mutations and albonos and natural diversiofcations etc etc), it is idiotic to claim the same for just any fairytale, fantasy or hallucination the human mind can produce. The Black Swan Fallacy is not to arbitrarily or randomly declare just any random fantasy a possible reality. That is no tolerant thing to do,m that is no thing of freedom or open mindedness - that is simply pathologic and if people practice it too excessively it indeed can bring them into psychiatry. It then is called a delusional disorder or a pathologic loss of sense of reality. And that is hell for the human mind.

You get too fiddly too easily, and too often, and mikstake that with a defence of "principles", while reality passes you by. Its exactly the mechanism that made us banging heads repeatedly before. And that really kills my nerves. Not to mention that it gets nobody anywhere. Not you, not me, and nobody around.

However, with that I move on from here. I am not buying into Mayan mysticism.

If there is a man who is not only healthy and has fully functional legs and trained splendid muscles, but who choses to roll aorpund in a wheelchair volu7ntarily, than he mcoks hiomself and his behaviour is a disgrace for himself and an offence to those sitting in a wheel chair and having no choice.

So to take that to the brain analogy, if someone speaks a load of crap , invents ludicrous facts and after being shown to be undeniably making up stuff and talking out of their rear end on numerous occasions that person repeatedly insist that their lunatic fantasies and invented facts are still real then that behavior is a disgrace and/or the person may be insane.
hmmmmm global consipacies secret cabals and quoted legislation written in invisible ink which no one else can see....Sky just self diagnosed himself as a disgrace

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

If there is a man and blah blah blah...

Once again you launch into a major diatribe out of fear of admitting that you don't know everything. I have no problem with you feeling as you do. As I always say and you always ignore, you're probably right. That doesn't excuse your wave of insults and name calling. Telling someone you disagree with him is an act of honesty. Telling him he's a fool (and worse) for admitting he doesn't know everything is the act of arrogance.

[Skybird]

If you do not know the difference between a fantasy or a fairy tale or a mysticistic imagination, and an event with extreme low probability that nevertheless maybe could turn out to be true, than I call you a fool. Fiction and Black Swan events (events of extremely low probability) are two totally different things.

He who has healthy legs but behaves like a cripple, is a disgrace. He who has a brain but refuses to use it, is a disgrace, too.

And stop telling me at every opportunity how many things you do not know, and stop posing as if you think that is an enobling pose, of some sort. I wonder how you would get along in your life if you were indeed not knowing anything as you claim. If you cannot get together such basic acts like above or the issues we banged heads earlier about, than I cannot help to just grin from my left to my right ear, sorry. To me, taking serious the belief that the world will end because some Mayan calender says so, is an insult of human intelligence. I deliberately reject to give that the same status of respectability like an empirical conclusion, a scientific theory, a guess based on earlier experience, a hint-founded speculation. When I do not accept religious fairy tales and miracle-beliefs the same respectability and credibility like ratio and reason, empiry and experience, observation and trial & error - why should I now make an exception: just because the Mayans? The Mayans were so clever to overstretch their society's size until they could not feed it anymore, and so they fell apart as a culture, moved, starved and now nothing is left. They sacrificed prisoners to please their gods because they believed they need to please them that way, and they waged wars for the mere purpose of catching said prisoners; and the moon covering the sun they interpreted as a heavenly battle between divine entities. Granted, they made some suprisingly precise astronomical observations for the tools available in their time and place - but I refuse to overrate that or to ignore the many things that they got hopelessly wrong, too.

But their calender running out of numbers and thus oracling the end of the world - that I now should take serious as a possible scenario that could manifestate in reality, yes? Really? Because that is what this rumble started about - that I called it an offence of intelligent thinking, a disgrace, that reasonable, logically thinking, modern, educated people of the present enlightened culture and time could be so insure about the absurdity of the claim that they rate it as "I don't know." You all are modern educated people of the 21st century - by the hottest inner circle of hell, you should know that it is absurd for damn sure...! Like you also should know that Santa is not for real, babies are not brought by the storch, and the world was not created in six days. Giving respectability to such claims is not tolerant, polite, or noble. It is a disgrace, it is idiotic, it is an offence of all potential in humans that is positive and good and looking towards the future, distancing itself from the darkness of the past. Little children you can fool with stories like that as long as they are young. But how old are you?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

If you do not know the difference between a fantasy or a fairy tale or a mysticistic imagination, and an event with low probability that nevertheless maybe turns out to be true, than I call you a fool.

And there's the crux of the situation: Not that the world will end or won't end, but that you started your first post with insults, and several of them. I'll bet that, like myself, those of us who voted "I don't know" didn't do so because we think that there's the slightest chance the world will end next year, but partly because we thought it was funny and partly because we're honest enough to admit that there is a chance, no matter how tiny, that we might be wrong. Those are two things you seem to be incapable of doing - getting the joke and recognizing that you might possibly be wrong.

And stop telling me at every opportunity how many things you do not know, and stop posing as if you think that is an enobling of some sort.

I don't consider it enobling at all. That's you completely misreading me again. I just recognize that every piece of knowledge I claim to possess comes to me second hand. I'm taking somebody else's word for it. Did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor seventy years ago tomorrow? I've read the books and I've seen the pictures and films, and I accept it for the simple reason that I have no reason to doubt it, and the evidence is pretty overwhelming. I speak and act as though it's a fact, because to not do so would be counterproductive. That said, I wasn't there, so I don't "know" it for an absolute. That's all I've been trying to say, and you can't see the difference. And you call yourself a "philosopher".

Like you also spould know that santa is not for real, babaies are not brought by the storch, and the world was not created in six days.

And you "know" this how? I was there when my daughters were born, so I know about babies. Eyewitness, as they say. Santa I safely dismiss, and the world in six days I doubt, as both go against all evidence, but to claim to "know" is, again, arrogance. I see no evidence for the existence of a God, but I believe it is foolish to dismiss the possibility out of hand.

Giving respectability to such claims is not tolerant, polite, or noble. It is a disgrace, it is idiotic. Little children you can fool with stories like that as long as they are young. But how old are you?

I don't give respectibility to the claims we're discussing. I don't really believe any of them. On the other hand, unlike yourself, I'm honest enough to admit that none of my disbelief is 100%, hence, I don't know.

As always, in your haste to see what you think I'm saying rather than what I'm really saying, you rush to condemn, and you become incapable of even discussing it, choosing rather to talk down to people and call them names. You call yourself a philosopher, but you don't even try to understand anything further than what you already believe. Shout otherwise all you want, but you march in lockstep with what you already believe, and you'll never see anything outside your own narrow viewpoint.

How do I know that? I don't.

[kiwi_2005]

If this is about the Mayan Calender all it means is its the change to a new harvest end of the old harvest not in those exact words but that's what ive heard from a documentary on it I watched couple of yrs back. No end of the world. New Havest new beginning.

[nikimcbee]

Can't be the end of the World, but that event could be triggered by:

Cubs winning a world series
Vikings winning the super bowl.

President HRC.
Jim stops posting.
Steed posts his mug.

SH6-DC2

Neal gets re-married and wife says "no more subsim."

Skybird converts Christianity [insert faith here]

Mookie declares Reagan as his personal economic "Lord and Savio(u)r."

Fav-ray QBs for da bearz and Texans in the same season.

Dowly gives up booze.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

And there's the crux of the situation: Not that the world will end or won't end, but that you started your first post with insults, and several of them. I'll bet that, like myself, those of us who voted "I don't know" didn't do so because we think that there's the slightest chance the world will end next year, but partly because we thought it was funny and partly because we're honest enough to admit that there is a chance, no matter how tiny, that we might be wrong. Those are two things you seem to be incapable of doing - getting the joke and recognizing that you might possibly be wrong.


I don't consider it enobling at all. That's you completely misreading me again. I just recognize that every piece of knowledge I claim to possess comes to me second hand. I'm taking somebody else's word for it. Did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor seventy years ago tomorrow? I've read the books and I've seen the pictures and films, and I accept it for the simple reason that I have no reason to doubt it, and the evidence is pretty overwhelming. I speak and act as though it's a fact, because to not do so would be counterproductive. That said, I wasn't there, so I don't "know" it for an absolute. That's all I've been trying to say, and you can't see the difference. And you call yourself a "philosopher".


And you "know" this how? I was there when my daughters were born, so I know about babies. Eyewitness, as they say. Santa I safely dismiss, and the world in six days I doubt, as both go against all evidence, but to claim to "know" is, again, arrogance. I see no evidence for the existence of a God, but I believe it is foolish to dismiss the possibility out of hand.


I don't give respectibility to the claims we're discussing. I don't really believe any of them. On the other hand, unlike yourself, I'm honest enough to admit that none of my disbelief is 100%, hence, I don't know.

As always, in your haste to see what you think I'm saying rather than what I'm really saying, you rush to condemn, and you become incapable of even discussing it, choosing rather to talk down to people and call them names. You call yourself a philosopher, but you don't even try to understand anything further than what you already believe. Shout otherwise all you want, but you march in lockstep with what you already believe, and you'll never see anything outside your own narrow viewpoint.

How do I know that? I don't.

Obviously I am more willing than you to take a position and to draw consequences, even when any of these two mean that I provide somebody with a target (=my view). But you constantly claim that you do not know, that you cannot know, and by that often give an image of being totally diffuse, vague, non-concrete, unable and/or unwilling to give any form, any substantial obligation to stand for anything you say. You just keep saying "I do not know", and "I cannot know", and so "I must not say, do anything", and that leaves you in the comfortable position to be able to pick up or ignore any idea you want without needing to give reasons for that, and to criticise others who make a solid stand on something without needing to accept any respnsibility for your own psotion - becasue you refuse to take any position. What'S more, you think that is a sign of tolerance and human freindliness towards others. I call it a diffuse lack of substance and repeatedly now I saw it leading you into dead ends - may it be over your idea of all or nothing at all-concepts of freedom, may it be about unlimited tolerance, or may it be about you misconception or false claim now that I went out and offended people - I labelled a certain intellectual weakness or self-uncertainty over a hillarious claim as what it is - the rejection of the gift of being able top use your intellect. I criticised an attitude, a flawed way of thinking or arguing. In just my last reply above, I explained why I do.

You simplify it and summarise it as "Skybird offends peoples", and you give the impression that that was the original motivation or idea behind it. But if it were like that, I would not need to weait for an opportunity. I could any time run into the moderators and start a thread and say "This is to let everybody know that you all are just braindead zombies making the world feel sick." I would not need to be provided with a target first to do so (hm: seems I discovered a new favourite English phrase... )

On that issue of yours, your hobby so tpo speak, to not accept that you know anything at all, I leave you alone. That is too abstract, too unpragmtaic, to unfit to deal with my,mlife, with sciences and empiry, with almost everything I could think of. Like before with your idea of freedom and tolerance, you get trapped or lost in you hunger for abstract unlimitedness of terms. You say that is your freedom. I say it is getting lost in a void.

I am a sceptic, that means I take little for granted or untouchable, and I am open to possibilities for which the probability that they turn our true may be extremely low, but nevertheless is an option, no matter how unlikely it is. And I differ these low-probability events (black swan events) from events that are the prodczut of mere fiction and imagination. These latter classes of ideas I reject to give the same status in intellectual discourse, like a theory, a black swan event, contradictory witness observations that need to be decided upon, or whatever.

And I am quite aware of the implications of radical constructivism, believe me - I am very familiar with those concepts.

Fiction is fiction. Not one bit more than this. Just fiction.