Soft Sciences Vs. Hard Sciences

[NonZeroSum]

Also, this depends on how we define the truth. Do you believe in the utilitarian theory of the truth? If so, how is jails existing the truth? Believing that just makes you feel you bad, and you can't do anything about that.

Utilitarians aren’t in contention over the definition of truth, some hedonic utils just think there’s more pleasure to be had for the individual happening to not learn about and be burdened with knowledge of utilitarianism and so the best way to act in every situation. I’m an existential virtue ethicist, but I’m sure all flavours of utilitarians would have a refutation of the above, like the ease with which you can make small differences in people’s lives with expertise in large disciplines of facts about the world, so you being able to share in the pleasure of working towards a pleasurable global calculus. Essentially the bliss any one person thinks they’re achieving through staying ignorant is gained at the expense of harming others more (including ignorant people) with your erratic actions because you’re not realising your full potential, like this tiresome conversation.

Your bastardisation of truth is just bizarre in that you see it as good to trick yourself into not believing in reality anymore as you did with prisons and then argue about it with people endlessly even though you acknowledge you don’t want to know what is fact.

But, if you don't believe in capitalism, why do you call yourself "NonZeroSum"? Anarcho-capitalists often say stuff like "Capitalism is not a zero-sum game, as rich become richer, the poor get richer even faster.", and that's the only time I hear the phrase "non-zero-sum game".

Good for you, I think socialism is an evolution past capitalism. If an individual became materially wealthy through their own efforts and intends to carry on putting in that level of labour under a syndicalist system of industry, then that individual and society as a whole will become even more materially prosperous. Due to a more efficient workplace organisation and people being able to lead a fulfilling life outside of work so one knows what they would like to work on in life, producing a greater non zero sum outcome.

Please don’t ask me anymore questions about myself as I don’t wish to get sucked into talking to you anymore, just ask open ended questions about the way you think and see if anyone else will bite, though I can’t relate to your feelings/reasons for why you would want to at this point.

[teo123]

And, @brimstoneSlad, you said I am terrible as an objective observer. What do you think, how can I get better at being an objective observer?

[teo123]

Slightly related to the topic, what do you think about Goodhart's law and Campbell's law being used as arguments against evidence-based policies?

[brimstoneSalad]

You probably can't get better at being an objective observer on any given subject. You might be able to learn to recognize subjects you have a bias on and avoid them, though.

You'd have to avoid any popular subject that has a fringe opposition, because you're biased to those fringe positions. You'd have to only tackle subjects where the two or three competing theories are of roughly comparable popularity. You'd also have to avoid any subjects to do with the things your personal life experience has created strong biases for, like prison/government and mental illness/psychiatry.

If you avoid all of those things, you may be able to be a more objective observer on subjects you aren't biased in. However, those also may be subjects you aren't very interested in, so it could be challenging.

You could also avoid anything remotely soft in the sciences and stick with mathematics and the very hardest of sciences like physics and chemistry where biases don't have much or any influence and measurements are aided by devices with numerical readouts, and interpretation plays very minimal role.
It's hard to observe incorrectly a number on a screen despite biases.

It's possible that as you get older and mature and overcome your personal issues by developing new stable personal relationships you may get over your biases, but it's not something you can really force. Most people grow out of political extremism as they age.

[teo123]

You'd also have to avoid any subjects to do with the things your personal life experience has created strong biases for, like prison

My life experience, if anything, created a strong bias towards believing the prisons are real. But my reason tells me they can't be real.

You could also avoid anything remotely soft in the sciences and stick with mathematics and the very hardest of sciences

To me it seems like that more I try to stick with harder sciences, more wrong I become. Even if my alternative interpretation of the names of places in Croatia is wrong, it's not nearly as wrong as I was when claiming that airplanes contradict the Torricelli's law or that bombs contradict the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Trying to apply your knowledge of hard sciences onto as many issues as possible appears to be a fundamentally flawed method of critical thinking.

[brimstoneSalad]

You'd also have to avoid any subjects to do with the things your personal life experience has created strong biases for, like prison

My life experience, if anything, created a strong bias towards believing the prisons are real. But my reason tells me they can't be real.

You mentioned not wanting to believe your mother was in jail. Anyway, I can't help you there. That's off the deep end insane, crazier than flat-Earth because it's so much easier to confirm and would require and even lager conspiracy.
If it took going in an airplane to convince you airplanes are real then go to a prison. Or don't, I don't care. Don't talk about it here, though, nobody wants to discuss this and you'll just annoy people.

You could also avoid anything remotely soft in the sciences and stick with mathematics and the very hardest of sciences

To me it seems like that more I try to stick with harder sciences, more wrong I become. Even if my alternative interpretation of the names of places in Croatia is wrong, it's not nearly as wrong as I was when claiming that airplanes contradict the Torricelli's law or that bombs contradict the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Trying to apply your knowledge of hard sciences onto as many issues as possible appears to be a fundamentally flawed method of critical thinking.

You profoundly misunderstood these things, first graduate with at least undergrad level.

[teo123]

You profoundly misunderstood these things, first graduate with at least undergrad level.

Well, not everybody can do graduate with an undergrad level. And it seems to me more and more that I am one of those people who can't. Does that mean most of the people can't think critically? I managed to score 71% on the statistics test, however, I am struggling a lot with calculus. The integration by parts was already hard to grasp for me (I don't get it even now, but I managed to pass the Mathematics 2 test), but now there are Laplace transformations and such things (in the Signals and Systems course), I don't think I can do that. I think it's at least partly because I am a lot less motivated now. I used to believe knowing a little mathematics and physics makes me a lot better at reasoning. However, it seems to me now knowing a little physics arguably makes one worse at reasoning. I used to believe computer science and what programmers need for work is closely tied. It seems to me more and more this is not so. What does advanced mathematics have to say that's useful for programmers? The only things I can think of is that there is an insanely simple algorithm (I've implemented it here) for computing sine and cosine if you are stuck working in a language with no mathematics library (which is rather unlikely to happen) and the Discrete Fourier Transformation useful for things such as tone dialing (again, it's extremely unlikely you'll find yourself implementing stuff like that).
I've also failed a few programming courses, Digital Electronics (basically, the VHDL programming language) and Object-Oriented Programming (in C#). Well, if somebody who can make a compiler from scratch fails a programming test, maybe there is something wrong with the test, right? Maybe the success on those tests isn't correlated with actual programming ability, and, as such, they are worse than useless.

[Red]

The integration by parts was already hard to grasp for me

Integration by parts is like one of the easiest parts of Calc 2 lmao

[teo123]

The integration by parts was already hard to grasp for me

Integration by parts is like one of the easiest parts of Calc 2 lmao

What did you learn in Mathematics 2? I hear that, in the FER university in Zagreb, in Mathematics 2, they also teach Laplace Transformations and similar stuff. Here at the FERIT university in Osijek, we didn't go that far in Mathematics 2 and we are learning about Laplace Transformations in Signals and Systems. Which university do you go to and how is it there?

[Red]

Which university do you go to and how is it there?

I am currently attending Bob Jones University for my undergrad in Baraminology and Flood Geology.