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Go for it! -Duxwing

Awww, shucks. :) -Duxwing

You're an ENTJ. You want structure and rules and think logically and externally, which indicates Te, and your strong internal value system indicates Fi. Your Se would explain your love for "living in the moment," and if you have Se, then, by definition, you have Ni. QED: You're an ENTJ...

We can go one step further: we are beyond Good and Evil, as Nietzsche put so well. One cannot judge the world in any objective sense; ergo, one can, if one so chooses, simply act. All "objective" codes of morality are ultimately rationalizations of the internal or internalized impulses found...

It wasn't so much the statement itself as the underlying ethical framework. I do have the solution, though: The increased economic productivity achieved by increasing the size of the labor pool outweighs the cost of taking the money, and, if, done properly, should decrease over time. -Duxwing

Controversial? Not within the scientific community. The "controversy" results from extremely religious people attempting to refute it with as many illogical arguments as exist fundamentalists. And furthermore, the debate present in this "controversy" is really the Freudian freak show of...

If synthesizing ideas puts you into ecstasy, and the mind fascinates you, then why not double your pleasure and become a psychological or sociological researcher? Getting the Ph.D. necessary for aforementioned research position will be a pain in the keister, but given your self-description, I...

Awwww, Proxy, you're sweet, but the debate isn't over yet! :) And I haven't forgotten about our unfinished discussion, either; the delay is due in part to scheduling shenanigans and in part to the strength of your argument. The "stimulation of production through coercion" statement is a tough...

Do you prefer research or practice? -Duxwing

I think that this measuring analogy has gone off the rails. How can one average the standard of proof for a given debate? -Duxwing

But what we agree to doesn't influence what is true. :( Hehehe! :) By the way, what does ">.>" mean, exactly? -Duxwing

Could you elaborate on the Fe-rush aspect? I am a nihilist. In fact, I'm so much of a nihilist that I realized that philosophy is just a very, very fun game. The necessity of axioms means that we're ultimately just entertaining ourselves and not producing anything absolute, so feeling any...

You need to see taxation in its context: it funds the police, courts, legislature, and executive branches of the government, and without these services, contracts would be unenforceable, grievances would have no redress, and law would be impracticable. Economies cannot be not fascist...

Ha! You picked 2045 because you believe that the singularity will come in 2045! You keep mentioning how you just need to stick it out until the singularity comes, bringing immortality via mind-uploading, and even you've posted a plan for surviving the singularity. Both of these facts, while...

I also feel a certain sense of healthy growth in learning to recognize fallacies by intuition alone. Yet what of knowledge? If we cannot prove or justify any statement, then how can we learn, if learning is but the accumulation of knowledge, which, in turn is justified, true belief? I...

Just agreeing on a fact doesn't make it true. But what proves that the yardstick is consistent? You're just taking its consistency on faith. Indeed, and the lack of such a predicate is most frustrating. I guess if you had video of a past event, and you could show it wasn't...

How do you determine that the given system is consistent? Indeed, they do not. Adversarial debate is but one application of the overarching idea that systems cannot be proven consistent from within themselves. -Duxwing

Right, right, dialectics. But what happens when the debate concerns a matter of fact? -Duxwing

Would you please go into more detail? -Duxwing

I've had much the same experience with becoming a masochist for truth, except that I had (foolishly) intended to proverbially pick the pieces back up and create a philosophy for the ages from whatever was left. But since emotions are ultimately alogical reactions to thoughts, you must have...

Cum hoc, ergo propter hoc is not a valid line of reasoning: how exactly did the Vietnam War create this "permanent underclass"? Have you ever studied the boom and bust cycle? Even a free, perfectly efficient market will oscillate as it responds to exogenous shocks, and modern economics has...

The burden of proof is on you to prove that a feature of an organism is irreducibly complex, not upon us to do the opposite. -Duxwing

Fukyo WookieeB *dodges bricks, but a few hit nonetheless* Owch! Owch! *waves white flag* I already conceded that point! :) -Duxwing

You've somehow taken the agony and despair out of fundamental epistemeological questions, and for me, someone for whom these questions cut like knives upon the emotions, reading your descriptions of them is as refreshing as drinking a tall, cold glass of water after being in an oven. How did...

Dear Forum, After a long and difficult debate, I had a horrifying realization: how can we decide when a debate is won or lost if, as Godel proved, no logical system can be proven to be consistent without assuming that another logical system is consistent in order to test the first system...

The last one doesn't follow from the other two, although each statement is true*. I agree that being militant about any point is annoying. Also, what is ESC? -Duxwing *At the risk of committing the No True Scotsman Fallacy: Ideally, scientists wouldn't do so.

*walks up to Cooleydudey with open arms* *hugs Cooleydudey, his soft pajamas gently rustling in the chilly evening air* *smiles* Feel that? *pulls away from the embrace, his head tilted to one side* Let yourself be moved by and give unto others not only these displays of warmth, tenderness, and...

Scientists don't do that: they start with data and extrapolate theory. They don't start with a vision and then try to justify it, as the scientists "pursuing" a theistic explanation did. Furthermore, your worry about trusting experts in all cases isn't applicable in the case of irreducable...

Ah, OK. :) -Duxwing

Did you intend to mention me? -Duxwing

It's OK. *hug* All is forgiven. :) -Duxwing

Welcome! :) -Duxwing

This, as TV Tropes puts it, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Wow. Point made! I never thought about it that way. Agreed on both points. -Duxwing

No big deal. It's not your fault. It's just that seeing that makes me think "Oh great, they're starving themselves to death". I ought to stop assuming that. -Duxwing

Let's say a circumference of <7cm. -Duxwing

I got 9.68 seconds on my first try, 6.13 seconds on my second, and 12.76 on my third. -Duxwing

Aww, thanks! :) Heeheehee. :D Indeed. We have a paradox! -Duxwing

Wow. Most informative! :) Are you saying that they are right to do so, or wrong? Perhaps with age comes wisdom. Allow me to rephrase: I worry that those who are so gaunt that I could wrap my hand around their ankle have an eating disorder; admittedly, waxing poetic about it didn't...

Eh? Theists make an empirical claim: "God exists". Unexamined? Hardly. I know that the MBTI is approximate, but I don't understand anything else well enough (and thanks for pointing me to those other books! :) ) to use it in the moment. Who said that I did? I want (and perhaps I'm...

Wow. Can you show us the study? Human nature? When did I ever say that MBTI describes human nature? The way that I use it (which I want to make the focus of this discussion, just to be clear) never involves any such thing. I only use it to categorize people and how I should respond to...

But he never used a quote, so I thought that those were his words. Nevertheless, Gah! Sorry Cooleydudey! -Duxwing

Really? You're using "understanding by emotion and intuition" as a euphemism for "justification by faith and willful ignorance", Duxwing. Then what does this mean? -Duxwing

Indeed, we should be precise in our indictment. I hope that my laughing at this subject with you isn't offensive... BWAHAHA! I can just imagine them now: "Be a real bloke, mate!" "I can run like a kangaroo and have a dong like a didgeridoo!". You know what I'd say to people like that...

So is wanting to be like Lara Croft, but apparently girls compare themselves to her. Nevertheless, I can understand that flat-chested women might see themselves as unattractive, but, as one might expect, a fetish exists for almost every set of proportions. Ergo, large breasts, small breasts...

But would a reasonable person not assume that they are being addressed when their words are quoted without mention of using them as an example of a classic error? I understand what you mean now, but for future reference, please do make clear what you intend when quoting someone. -Duxwing

*poke* Uh... Cavalier... I agreed with that men do so in my last post. But not showing it would also be classic male foolishness, so I agree with that, too. I have hair and a brain, but few muscles, yet I know that he works harder than I'm willing to in order to achieve said results; ergo...

Far from waging a secret psychological war, the US Army is quite open about its recruitment efforts: it even has its own recruitment video game called "America's Army," and openly describes it as such. -Duxwing

Wow, I never knew that. I concede the point in light of this new data. I don't see as much nastiness anymore. Fights are rare, and boys wear pink all the time. Awww, thanks! :) If we're talking about sexual objectification, then multiply the base objectification value by the observer's...

Hmmm, true, selection pressure could play into this bizarre tick. To the contrary, my sexual fantasies are exactly what I'd want in real life: a pretty girl with me in bed, a variety of sexual positions, and climax for both of us. Can you elaborate on this? Objectify how, exactly? If so...

And I entirely agree with the above. Insecurity is a powerful thing. Indeed, why do women compare their beauty to that found in the products of others' imaginations? I rarely, if ever, see boys complaining that they aren't as strong as Superman or as smart as Tony Stark, but by your...