General > General Technical Chat
BREXIT - what it means for small manufacturers
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: coppice on January 03, 2021, 02:58:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 02, 2021, 08:47:08 pm ---The whole concept of democracy has some serious flaws, which are being exploited mercilessly these days. (It is still probably just about the least bad of the possible political systems, but we probably need for there to be consequences for intentionally attempting to break the system for political advantage. Also, I don't think politicians lying should fall in the category of "free speech").
--- End quote ---
The idea that you might be able to ban lies in public life is predicated, consciously or unconsciously, on there being some kind of benevolent proactive God who can look down and tell humanity what is right. The need for a truly independent arbiter, which doesn't exist in the real world, is the key reason so many ideas for running a society fail. Systems that work reasonably well are the ones that have some amount of self correction inherent in them. They can still go off the rails, but less often.
Some lies are so obvious and blatant, they should be incontrovertible. However, in tribal societies people can't even agree what "woman" means any more.
--- End quote ---
To start somewhere, we could say that a statement that is provably untrue is a "lie". For example, claiming that there was cheating during an election without evidence to back it up.
coppice:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 03, 2021, 03:36:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on January 03, 2021, 02:58:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 02, 2021, 08:47:08 pm ---The whole concept of democracy has some serious flaws, which are being exploited mercilessly these days. (It is still probably just about the least bad of the possible political systems, but we probably need for there to be consequences for intentionally attempting to break the system for political advantage. Also, I don't think politicians lying should fall in the category of "free speech").
--- End quote ---
The idea that you might be able to ban lies in public life is predicated, consciously or unconsciously, on there being some kind of benevolent proactive God who can look down and tell humanity what is right. The need for a truly independent arbiter, which doesn't exist in the real world, is the key reason so many ideas for running a society fail. Systems that work reasonably well are the ones that have some amount of self correction inherent in them. They can still go off the rails, but less often.
Some lies are so obvious and blatant, they should be incontrovertible. However, in tribal societies people can't even agree what "woman" means any more.
--- End quote ---
To start somewhere, we could say that a statement that is provably untrue is a "lie". For example, claiming that there was cheating during an election without evidence to back it up.
--- End quote ---
That's an odd one to choose. There is lots of evidence, and sworn testimony. Maybe its all fake, but not investigating its veracity in a democracy is bizarre. Most of the court cases were thrown out due to a lack of standing, not because the evidence was successfully refuted.
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: coppice on January 03, 2021, 03:41:33 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 03, 2021, 03:36:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on January 03, 2021, 02:58:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 02, 2021, 08:47:08 pm ---The whole concept of democracy has some serious flaws, which are being exploited mercilessly these days. (It is still probably just about the least bad of the possible political systems, but we probably need for there to be consequences for intentionally attempting to break the system for political advantage. Also, I don't think politicians lying should fall in the category of "free speech").
--- End quote ---
The idea that you might be able to ban lies in public life is predicated, consciously or unconsciously, on there being some kind of benevolent proactive God who can look down and tell humanity what is right. The need for a truly independent arbiter, which doesn't exist in the real world, is the key reason so many ideas for running a society fail. Systems that work reasonably well are the ones that have some amount of self correction inherent in them. They can still go off the rails, but less often.
Some lies are so obvious and blatant, they should be incontrovertible. However, in tribal societies people can't even agree what "woman" means any more.
--- End quote ---
To start somewhere, we could say that a statement that is provably untrue is a "lie". For example, claiming that there was cheating during an election without evidence to back it up.
--- End quote ---
That's an odd one to choose. There is lots of evidence, and sworn testimony. Maybe its all fake, but not investigating its veracity in a democracy is bizarre. Most of the court cases were thrown out due to a lack of standing, not because the evidence was successfully refuted.
--- End quote ---
Well, I've been following this in the press and all accusations are - at best - minor irregularities like you would expect with any human activity, including the street in front of your house (do everyone drive perfectly? do they drive "good enough"?).
So, if you want to, you could pick out jaywalkers and drivers speeding by 5mph to prove that lawlessness is rife on the streets, and then run for election based on improving law and order.
At some point in my life, I understood that law enforcement is never going to be perfect... the best we can do is go after the those cases that cause harm. If you apply that standard to the evidence and testimony we have seen regarding election cheating, there really isn't anything there as far as I have seen.
Cerebus:
--- Quote from: coppice on January 03, 2021, 02:58:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on January 02, 2021, 08:47:08 pm ---The whole concept of democracy has some serious flaws, which are being exploited mercilessly these days. (It is still probably just about the least bad of the possible political systems, but we probably need for there to be consequences for intentionally attempting to break the system for political advantage. Also, I don't think politicians lying should fall in the category of "free speech").
--- End quote ---
The idea that you might be able to ban lies in public life is predicated, consciously or unconsciously, on there being some kind of benevolent proactive God who can look down and tell humanity what is right. The need for a truly independent arbiter, which doesn't exist in the real world, is the key reason so many ideas for running a society fail. Systems that work reasonably well are the ones that have some amount of self correction inherent in them. They can still go off the rails, but less often.
Some lies are so obvious and blatant, they should be incontrovertible. However, in tribal societies people can't even agree what "woman" means any more.
--- End quote ---
You're confusing opinion, for which one would need an independent arbiter if one was insistent on assigning a truth value to an opinion, with fact. Facts are verifiable, opinions are not. Whether someone has two X chromosomes and is therefore biologically female is a fact and is relatively easily proven one way or another, whether someone belongs to the gender set assigned the label "woman" is a social construct and therefore a matter of opinion or convention.
One does not actually need any fancy philosophy or to delve into the depths of epistemology to know the difference between truth and a lie. Most of us learned the difference at our mother's knee and any attempt to argue that it's difficult, with all the facts available, to distinguish a lie from an opinion or a bit of rhetoric is mere sophistry. Lying is when one deliberately presents something as the truth while knowing or believing it to be untrue, or when one presents something that is in itself strictly true while deliberately withholding information that one knows would invalidate the sense of what one is claiming or implying to be true (the lawyer's lie).
I think you were really trying to head in the direction of "doing the right thing" which is much broader than mere lying, that indeed does need an independent arbiter and in society we have assigned that rĂ´le to "the rule of law". That lies and other misbehaviour in public life are not effectively punished is one of the the most corrosive things in society today. If Dominic Cummings can be a scofflaw with impunity why should anybody else obey the rules?
coppice:
--- Quote from: Cerebus on January 03, 2021, 04:14:18 pm ---You're confusing opinion, for which one would need an independent arbiter if one was insistent on assigning a truth value to an opinion, with fact. Facts are verifiable, opinions are not. Whether someone has two X chromosomes and is therefore biologically female is a fact and is relatively easily proven one way or another, whether someone belongs to the gender set assigned the label "woman" is a social construct and therefore a matter of opinion or convention.
--- End quote ---
Some facts are easy to verify, like 2+2=4. This doesn't stop people now trying to argue that 2+2 can equal 5. Some facts are hard to verify. Few would argue that a ginger tom in someone's lounge, or a lion, is a cat. Around the periphery of what constitutes a cat the experts do argue. For example. do they have to be able to interbreed to all be cats? Maths, physics and chemistry largely have easy to verify truth claims. Most things have a socially constructed element to them, like "cat", and some concepts are 100% socially constructed. Even in physics we have socially constructed concepts, like colour, that cause endless disagreements. As soon as physics moves from a hard mathematical description to a looser textual one truth starts to get a little dodgy. People find truth claims quite difficult to agree on for most things.
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