Dennis Hackethal
@dennis-hackethal·Member since June 2024
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“The random selection helps keep all citizens equal.” (Source)
#3303·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month ago“If we make it a profession, we'll still have elites judging commoners and commoners unable to get justice.” (Source)
Why would it automatically be an elite profession? Just adjust your selection process accordingly.
“If we make it a profession, we'll still have elites judging commoners and commoners unable to get justice.” (Source)
#3301·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month ago“If we only take volunteers, we'll be perpetually lacking jurors or we'll have jurors that don't represent the general populace.” (Source)
No, again (#3300), if you make it worth their while, plenty of people will show up voluntarily.
“If we only take volunteers, we'll be perpetually lacking jurors or we'll have jurors that don't represent the general populace.” (Source)
#3299·Dennis HackethalOP, about 1 month agoWe need jury duty because without it, “we can't guarantee the accused their right to trial by a jury of their peers if we don't have peers available to serve on juries.”
If you make it worth their while, you will have plenty of people signing up voluntarily.
We need jury duty because without it, “we can't guarantee the accused their right to trial by a jury of their peers if we don't have peers available to serve on juries.”
A duty is an unchosen obligation. It’s an expression of mysticism. Immanuel Kant is responsible for spreading this anti-concept.
@zelalem-mekonnen shared in my Twitter space that he has been ‘summoned’ for jury duty. It seems strange and incompatible with freedom that the courts can just ‘command’ you to perform a service for them.
#3278·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “through the population”? Doesn’t this presuppose a replicator needs to exist within a population to do what it does? The first replicator spread with no population to spread into.
A population of 1 is still a population.
#3278·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “through the population”? Doesn’t this presuppose a replicator needs to exist within a population to do what it does? The first replicator spread with no population to spread into.
Accounts of the origin of replicators (such as RNA World) involve proto-replicators. By the time the first ‘full-fledged’ replicator came on the scene, it was already part of a larger population of proto-replicators.
#3278·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “through the population”? Doesn’t this presuppose a replicator needs to exist within a population to do what it does? The first replicator spread with no population to spread into.
I suppose it’s theoretically possible for the very first replicator to exist in isolation until it replicates for the first time. But that’s what it does right away anyway.
#3279·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “at the expense of its rivals”? Isn’t the concern to spread at all, regardless of the outcome of rivals?
I’m using standard neo-Darwinian phrasing. Compare, for example, BoI chapter 4:
The most general way of stating the central assertion of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is that a population of replicators subject to variation (for instance by imperfect copying) will be taken over by those variants that are better than their rivals at causing themselves to be replicated.
And, same chapter:
[T]he knowledge embodied in genes is knowledge of how to get themselves replicated at the expense of their rivals.
See also several instances in chapter 15 in the context of meme evolution.
Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene has a ton on rivals (alleles), too, for example (chapter 2):
Ways of increasing stability and of decreasing rivals’ stability became more elaborate and more efficient. Some of them may even have ‘discovered’ how to break up molecules of rival varieties chemically, and to use the building blocks so released for making their own copies.
#3279·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “at the expense of its rivals”? Isn’t the concern to spread at all, regardless of the outcome of rivals?
Rivalry means competition, win/lose outcomes. If one replicator spreads, it will be at the expense of its rivals (if any), eg taking up niches that rivals would otherwise have taken up.
#3289·Benjamin Davies revised about 1 month agoMy charitable interpretation:
“Less and less possible” is a loose way of saying something like “more and more difficult to achieve”, or “occurs less and less often in the multiverse”.
That’s fine if you want to interpret it charitably, but that isn’t a criticism. Maybe you’re implying that I’m not being as charitable as I should be. That would be a criticism, but it should be made explicit.
#3285·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month ago“([T]hey say)” presumably means he is paraphrasing people who get it wrong.
I realize that. I don’t see how that’s a criticism.
#3261·Dennis Hackethal revised about 1 month agoWhat happens when you fail to commit to these values?
I think forgiveness could be another core value. Something like 'when I make mistakes, I will pick myself up at the earliest possible time and keep going.'
Based on what you write in #3270, it sounds like you’re talking specifically about forgiving oneself, not forgiveness in general.
I have an … unconscious preference for removing rough/uneven parts of my nails as soon as possible …
This preference is not unconscious. You are aware of it, otherwise you could not have written about it. Maybe you meant to say that you sometimes enact this preference automatically/uncritically/mindlessly? (I think those three words basically all have the same meaning.)
I have an … inexplicit/unconscious preference for removing rough/uneven parts of my nails as soon as possible …
This preference is neither inexplicit nor unconscious, at least at this point. You have made it explicit, and you are aware of it, otherwise you could not have written about it. Maybe you meant to say that you sometimes enact this preference automatically/uncritically/mindlessly? (I think those three words basically all have the same meaning.)
#3183·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month agoI am a life-long nail-biter. I am thinking a habit like nail-biting can be thought of as an addiction in this way.
I have an explicit preference for letting my nails grow normally, and an inexplicit/unconscious preference for removing rough/uneven parts of my nails as soon as possible (this part seems entrenched).
…this part seems entrenched…
Well, both preferences are entrenched as a result of the conflict between them being entrenched.
We could just as well say that the other preference, the one for letting your nails grow normally, is entrenched.
I’m sensing a bias in favor of explicit preferences and against (what you think are) inexplicit/unconscious preferences.
#3183·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month agoI am a life-long nail-biter. I am thinking a habit like nail-biting can be thought of as an addiction in this way.
I have an explicit preference for letting my nails grow normally, and an inexplicit/unconscious preference for removing rough/uneven parts of my nails as soon as possible (this part seems entrenched).
If you carried a nail clipper or nail file with you at all times, would you use them instead of your teeth?
#3183·Benjamin Davies, about 1 month agoI am a life-long nail-biter. I am thinking a habit like nail-biting can be thought of as an addiction in this way.
I have an explicit preference for letting my nails grow normally, and an inexplicit/unconscious preference for removing rough/uneven parts of my nails as soon as possible (this part seems entrenched).
I have an … unconscious preference for removing rough/uneven parts of my nails as soon as possible …
This preference is not unconscious. You are aware of it, otherwise you could not have written about it. Maybe you meant to say that you sometimes enact this preference automatically/uncritically/mindlessly? (I think those three words basically all have the same meaning.)
#3168·Benjamin DaviesOP, about 1 month agoSome quotes relating to your idea:
Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues... [It] means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action.
— Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, ch. 1and
Since these virtues are expressions of rationality, they are logically interconnected... None can be validated in isolation... nor can a man practice any one of them consistently while defaulting on the others.
— Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, ch. 8
Nice, thanks.
Thinking about it some more, I wonder if honesty is more fundamental than some of the other virtues. As I’ve written elsewhere, honesty includes the refusal to ignore certain criticisms. That’s a prerequisite of rationality. Whereas justice, for example, seems downstream of rationality.
#3261·Dennis Hackethal revised about 1 month agoWhat happens when you fail to commit to these values?
I think forgiveness could be another core value. Something like 'when I make mistakes, I will pick myself up at the earliest possible time and keep going.'
I think forgiveness could be another core value. Something like 'when I make mistakes, I will pick myself up at the earliest possible time and keep going.'
This sound like it’s meant to be an example of forgiveness, but I’m not sure it is. It sounds more like an example of resilience.
What do you think forgiveness means, @zelalem-mekonnen?
Simplify language
What happens if and when you fails at the commitment to these values?
I think forgiveness could be another core value. Something like 'when I make mistakes, I will pick myself up at the earliest possible time and keep going. '
What happens when you fail to commit to these values?
I think forgiveness could be another core value. Something like 'when I make mistakes, I will pick myself up at the earliest possible time and keep going.'
#3169·Benjamin DaviesOP revised about 1 month agoFor something to be a core virtue, it needs to be a virtue that should always be applied in any situation where it can be applied. Forgiveness is not something that should be applied in relevant all situations, so I don’t believe it is a core virtue.
At best it would be an applied virtue, as an expression of Justice.
I actually think people are too forgiving in some ways.
I’ll think about adding it to the applied virtues list.
… in relevant all situations …
Typo/grammar