On 1/14/2011 10:21 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:49:42 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Well, the reason both sides make the argument is that its correct. If
>> you don't enforce absolute moral codes
>
> The world is shades of grey, not just black and white.
>
> Jim
I know this, you know this, they... often make the accusations like 
"moral relativism", which is *literally* the statement that, "You treat 
the world as shades of gray, but in *fact* its black and white!" If you 
deal with the world based on trying to comprehend why things work, you 
end up with a case of moral relativism, and uncertainty, where the 
answer cannot always be known, or even suspected, merely because you 
find the behavior questionable, but it fails to fit neatly into some 
preexisting box.

In fact, in reference to an example already included, even the ones that 
do, often turn out to have negative consequences only *because of* the 
conditions they where tried in. I would argue, for example, that the 
consequence for some girl playing naughty with her dog today might 
*maybe* be having the dog taken away, and jail time. A few hundred years 
ago they had the girl and dog burned to ash, and the ashes scattered, 
to, "prevent anyone even thinking of such a thing ever again". Its even 
a bit iffy as to whether or not something that can rip your throat out, 
if angered, can't "consent", which is the core argument for even 
requiring jail time, or removal of the animal.

But that is an example that "most" people still find objectionable 
enough to demand it remain illegal. There are thousands of others, from 
showing ankles, or marrying between "races" that we reject as invalid 
things to disdain now. Why? Because a) the arguments against them where 
invalid to start with, and based solely on either "ick", prejudice, 
tradition, or religion, and b) every single imagine consequence of them 
proved to be wrong. And.. While we get different hypothesis, based on 
completely different sets of imaginary threats, both from the far left 
and right, I would argue that, for the more "reality based" community in 
the middle, the far lefts kind of crazy is *way* less accepted than the 
right's. Why? Because the right's is religious, traditional, caters to 
existing prejudice, perceptions of "ick" already in place, etc., while 
the other side's is often foreign, if it is traditional some place, not 
common place, or flat pulled out of their asses yesterday, not out of 
someone else's 1,000 years ago or more.

This is why some crazy seems crazier than others, even when both are 
supported *only* by rhetoric, wild hypothesis about consequences, 
appeals to authority, and denial of contrary data and evidence.

In short, what you already believe is more likely to be true *seems* 
more true, even when supported by the same level of complete absence of 
actual facts, and even if confronted with those that directly imply that 
it is wrong, flawed, or too generalized, in some fundamental way.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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