Time for skeptics to grow up?!

[CFLarsen]

If you are a skeptic you already know how we help such people. We expose people like Sylvia Brown so that anyone willing to listen to a skeptic can learn that it is a scam.

If people continue to believe after that, it's unfortunate, but they can't say nobody told them.
There is a proverb about this: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Yes, that's true. You can't make people not believe.

But is that enough for you? If they won't see the light - the candle in the dark, so to speak - you will just let Sylvia Browne and her ilk continue to scam them?

 

[dann]

Why he hasn't moved there is anyone's guess.

You also should not forget that I already live in the happiest country in the whole wide world!!!:
This is the link to the map of happiland on CNN Go down to: Web Extras --> Map: Happiness levels of countries.

 

[dann]

Most products in a modern economy are produced by cooperation among many people. If you want to produce something all by yourself, you can do that, and you will own it. I choose to sell my time to a company in exchange for money. I do part of the processing of the products that my company produces. I am very good at one part of the process and can add more value that way than if I tried to do every step myself, including sales. The result is that I make a lot of money doing something pretty easy, Going into business for myself would be harder and probably less lucrative in my case. All the tools and space I use are provided by the company. All I have to do is learn my job and do it to the best of my ability.

Just like these guys?
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/sweatshops/ I guess that they seriously consided going into business by themselves before they decided that selling their time to a company in exchange for money was a much better road to prosperity in their case! All they have to do is do their job to the best of their ability. All the tools and space they use are provided by the gracious owners of the means of production.

 

[Slimething]

Instead of writing stupidities about my penultimate post, try keeping current. What is your definition of "poverty"?

 

[dann]

This, http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/poverty/, for instance, is poverty. Why try to explain it away with "(if you can define poverty in functional terms) to the 2.5 - 4 sigma region under a standard bell curve", as if poverty did not exist and as if it were so terribly hard to define?

 

[dann]

Let's ask Slimething to provide us with a quotation where I say that Cuba is a paradise! Just one, please!
What, he hasn't got any? This knowledgeable guy? Impossible! I cannot believe it!

 

[Slimething]

I didn't ask you how CNN defines poverty, not that you provided that either. How do you define poverty?

 

[Puppycow]

Just like these guys?
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/sweatshops/ I guess that they seriously consided going into business by themselves before they decided that selling their time to a company in exchange for money was a much better road to prosperity in their case! All they have to do is do their job to the best of their ability. All the tools and space they use are provided by the gracious owners of the means of production.

See? This is your brain working as a lawyer again. You are looking for evidence that supports your position and ignoring evidence that does not. It's confirmation bias. Yes there are sweatshops. They seem pretty bad until you consider the alternative.

Liberal economist Paul Krugman explains why sweatshops are better than the alternative
Here is another one by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn

 

[articulett]

There is a proverb about this: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

You can lead a woo to knowledge, but you can't make them think.

BTW, I agree with your position... and my position was made clear early on in this resurrected thread. Poverty may make people look for reasons to not raise children (children that may not have been born except for some missionaries proclamations against birth control)-- poverty does not make people accuse other people of being witches. However there's one little passage in the bible that does... and has been responsible for quite a bit of suffering through the ages. Superstition is the most direct cause of these childrens' abandonment. We've always had poor-- some sell their children's labor, others put them in institutions... but unless you live in a culture where it's thought that people can be witches (or possessed by demons), you don't have people labeled as such and caused to suffer because of such accusations. These kids aren't just tossed away... they may well believe that they are possessed with evil. This treatment smacks of the dark ages when religion ruled. Africa needs to experience an "age of enlightenment"-- and "age of reason". They also need to have groups that teach them actual facts about things like birth control, aids, reading, life skills, and critical thinking-- not more missionaries encouraging the breeding of more people so they can be tossed out and then raised by those who exchange care for belief in their dogma.

 

[Puppycow]

Yes, that's true. You can't make people not believe.

But is that enough for you? If they won't see the light - the candle in the dark, so to speak - you will just let Sylvia Browne and her ilk continue to scam them?

I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps she could be prosecuted under fraud laws?

If there are loopholes in the laws, maybe they need to be tightened.

But banning something isn't always the best answer. Religious freedom is one of the most cherished ideals in America. I am an atheist, and to me religions seem like a kind of scam.

In this case it is likely that most of Sylvia's victims will fight tooth and nail to protect her, just as the followers of a cult will fight for its leader. Occasionally a few will wake up, but most will go on thinking that they are getting a good deal, and I am reluctant to tell people what they can or cannot spend their own money on.

This may be similar to the prohibition of drugs. The cure could be worse than the disease. Woo-woo and drug abuse may be social diseases, but it doesn't follow that a ban is necessarily the best solution.

 

[Puppycow]

You can lead a woo to knowledge, but you can't make them think.

BTW, I agree with your position... and my position was made clear early on in this resurrected thread. Poverty may make people look for reasons to not raise children (children that may not have been born except for some missionaries proclamations against birth control)-- poverty does not make people accuse other people of being witches. However there's one little passage in the bible that does... and has been responsible for quite a bit of suffering through the ages. Superstition is the most direct cause of these childrens' abandonment. We've always had poor-- some sell their children's labor, others put them in institutions... but unless you live in a culture where it's thought that people can be witches (or possessed by demons), you don't have people labeled as such and caused to suffer because of such accusations. These kids aren't just tossed away... they may well believe that they are possessed with evil. This treatment smacks of the dark ages when religion ruled. Africa needs to experience an "age of enlightenment"-- and "age of reason". They also need to have groups that teach them actual facts about things like birth control, aids, reading, life skills, and critical thinking-- not more missionaries encouraging the breeding of more people so they can be tossed out and then raised by those who exchange care for belief in their dogma.

Great points. Developed countries have lower birth rates. If people didn't have children they can't afford to provide for, then maybe if dann's theory is right, children would no longer be accused as witches. They could use help in the family-planning area. If missionaries distributed condoms instead of preaching against birth control, it would help a lot.

 

[Puppycow]

Here is another way in which superstition can lead to (literal) poverty

 

[dann]

BTW, I agree with your (= Poppycow's) position... and my position was made clear early on in this resurrected thread.

You should go back and read her clarifications from the beginning, Poppycow. They are hilarious!

 

[Slimething]

I don't understand your reluctance to define what you mean by poverty. (Actually, yes I do but I'm being disingenuous to show you up.) It's at the very crux of your argument. One might even conclude that you have no idea what you're talking about. That you are merely whining because you want attention! FSM forfend!

 

[dann]

See? This is your brain working as a lawyer again. You are looking for evidence that supports your position and ignoring evidence that does not. It's confirmation bias. Yes there are sweatshops. They seem pretty bad until you consider the alternative.

Liberal economist Paul Krugman explains why sweatshops are better than the alternative
Here is another one by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn

This is your brain!
This is your brain on Liberalism:

Krugman: Two Cheers for Sweatshops
They're dirty and dangerous. They're also a major reason Asia is back on track.

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn: In Praise of Cheap Labor
Bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all.

So Asia is on track. I guess that Asian kids working in sweatshops are too then – according to Liberalism!
Now let's take a look at Poppycock's first painting of Liberalism, shall we?

I choose (!) to sell my time to a company in exchange for money. I do part of the processing of the products that my company produces. I am very good at one part of the process and can add more value that way than if I tried to do every step myself, including sales. The result is that I make a lot (!) of money doing something pretty easy (!), Going into business for myself would be harder and probably less lucrative in my case. All the tools and space I use are provided (!) by the company. All (!) I have to do is learn my job and do it to the best of my ability. (My (!), dann)

Now that's Liberalism for you! Isn't it a blessing?!
I think that I prefer the alternative to Liberalism!

 

[dann]

No internet but, otherwise, a paradise or so he says.

I fully understand Slimething's reluctance to prove his lies. If he cannot, he cannot! Come on, Slimething, just a single quotation?!

 

[Puppycow]

Now let's take a look at Poppycock's first painting of Liberalism, shall we?

Isn't it ironic that in a thread called 'Time for skeptics to grow up?!' that the starter of thread is now resorting to the grade-school tactic of name-calling?

 

[dann]

The alternative to Poppy's sweatshops:

Everyone needs work — many people don’t find any. You would find yourself in good company if you took that for a social problem, imagining that an “Alliance for Jobs”* would be a suitable solution, with government job-creation measures and a reduction in labor costs, with an abatement of the asset tax and a redistribution of the “scarce good” work by shorter working hours, and the like. All of these “solutions,” though, ignore a certain absurdity: if there is really no longer so much to do, if it really takes fewer people less time to produce necessities — then why does everybody really need work, and especially so many fully crammed working hours, to be able to live? Why doesn’t the equation, less work means spared pains, work out?

http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/workandwealth/0-contents.html

 

[Puppycow]

The alternative to Poppy's sweatshops:

http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/workandwealth/0-contents.html

Dann: If you will read the Krugman and Kristof articles without prejudice, I will try to read this article without prejudice, although it is very long. I think it might take me several days. I don't promise to agree with it, but I will try to read it. OK? The Krugman and Kristof articles combined I think are much shorter, so this is a fair deal, no?

 

[dann]

Already did!