Soft Sciences Vs. Hard Sciences

[Rararapu10]

@teo123 zašto poričeš našu ljubav Teo? Boli me tako : (

I honestly don't know who you are. Vanessa? Melanie? They speak Croatian with such a weird grammar ("Boli me tako." sounds, well, weird, if not ungrammatical, it should be "Tako me boli.") because their native language is German. Both of them I haven't met for years.

Don't be dense Teo. :/ and Melanie??!!

[teo123]

@teo123 zašto poričeš našu ljubav Teo? Boli me tako : (

I honestly don't know who you are. Vanessa? Melanie? They speak Croatian with such a weird grammar ("Boli me tako." sounds, well, weird, if not ungrammatical, it should be "Tako me boli.") because their native language is German. Both of them I haven't met for years.

Don't be dense Teo. :/ and Melanie??!!

So you are Vanessa? Well, I am glad to meet you again. What inspired you to go vegan?

[teo123]

Anyway, regarding anarchism... In our psychology classes, they taught us that the way to think critically about something is to ask yourself two questions: "Does this make sense to me?" and "Are there some experts about that topic? What do they think?". Well, if you go by that, it seems even more clear that you should accept anarchism than that you should accept atheism.
Take, for instance, the issue whether or not jails exist or should exist. Well, it doesn't make much sense to me to think jails really exist, for about the same reason it doesn't make sense to me to suppose hell is real. If jails exist, that means there are some remotely reasonable people who think jails should exist. But how could there be?
Similarly with hell. If hell is real, then God thinks hell should exist. But how could God, as an omniscient being, possibly think that? For one thing, God being omniscient means there can be no free will, so "punishing" people is even more meaningless. Sure, many people have seen jails, or think they have even been in one. But also many people have seen hell in near-death experiences, that doesn't really prove it's real.
And of the question whether jails should exist, the answer seems even more obvious: how could putting a mentally ill person (and one who murders is almost certainly mentally ill) in jail, a place from which they will return with even more psychological problems, do any good? It doesn't make sense to me (and I guess to most of the people who have actually thought about it) to suppose jails should exist.
And about the question of whether there are some experts in the field, this is why it's easier to determine it's unreasonable to believe in jails than to determine it's unreasonable to believe in hell. For hell, on the first sight, there would seem to be some experts in the field, they are called theologians. However, they aren't actually experts in the field, because whether or not the Bible is telling the truth is not their field of study, theology presupposes it's (at least mostly) telling the truth. And who would be the experts in the field of whether or not jails exist or should exist? Can you think of somebody who could reasonably be called an expert in that field? I can't. Therefore, the answer to the second question about critical thinking is clearly no.
Therefore, it's not reasonable to believe jails do or should exist.

Also, @brimstoneSalad, you say celestially themed names are common. If so, do you think the mainstream etymology of the name of the river Sunja (that it means "the river of the sun", in the sense "southern border") is plausible? It seems to me it's much more plausible that it's related to the river names such as Sava and Sutla.

[NonZeroSum]

Who would be the experts in the field of whether or not jails exist or should exist? Can you think of somebody who could reasonably be called an expert in that field? I can't. Therefore, the answer to the second question about critical thinking is clearly no.
Therefore, it's not reasonable to believe jails do or should exist.

To be an expert at something requires that it’s an especially high level of difficulty to study, like the years it might take to get a PhD. Whether or not there are jails is primary school level, it’s like asking if public parks exist, you can go on Wikipedia, find the addresses of every jail, visit the prisoners inside and talk to the guards, sit in the public gallery of a courthouse, follow the defendant to and from jail depending on how the court case goes, study what philosophical legal defences they’re drawing on to prove innocence or reduced culpability to get less time in jail.

But yeah the main academic field you’re looking for is a mix of psychology, philosophy and political science called ‘criminology’, including the origins of criminal law. Like the history of prisons.

[teo123]

To be an expert at something requires that it’s an especially high level of difficulty to study, like the years it might take to get a PhD. Whether or not there are jails is primary school level

Well, I don't think it requires that. Whether or not the Earth is round can also be said to be primary school level, yet there are experts in that: they are called astronomers and geologists.

it’s like asking if public parks exist

I don't think it is. One of the main reasons why it's not reasonable to believe in jails is that the existence of jails presupposes that reasonable people (those on power) think jails should exist, which is hard to accept. It's not at all hard to accept reasonable people believe public parks should exist.

you can go on Wikipedia, find the addresses of every jail

Well, according to that Wikipedia page you linked to, there is a jail in Osijek. But I live in Osijek and I don't know about that. How is that possible if there really is a jail in Osijek. Don't you think it's at least slightly more likely that Wikipedia got it wrong than that there is a jail in the town I live in which I haven't heard about?

But yeah the main academic field you’re looking for is a mix of psychology, philosophy and political science called ‘criminology’,

I must admit I've never heard of criminology. What methods does it use? How does it qualify as science?

[NonZeroSum]

according to that Wikipedia page you linked to, there is a jail in Osijek. But I live in Osijek and I don't know about that.

Zatvor u Osijeku

Ul. Kardinala Alojzija Stepinca 8A, 31000, Osijek, Croatia

Report to the Croatian Government on the visit to Croatia - Council of Europe

Located in the centre of the town next to the premises of the local County Court, consisted of a two-storey building which was accommodating 136 inmates for a capacity of 110: 41 sentenced, 84 on remand detention (including one female) and 11 misdemeanour offenders.

Information Pack for British Prisoners in Croatia. Author. British Embassy

You’ve also got Remetinec prison in Zagreb:

The prison's capacity is 560 inmates, making it the largest prison in Croatia.[1][2] In July 2012 it housed 904 prisoners and detainees,[3] up from 850 in March 2009.[1] The prison's overcrowding problem is also a major problem of the Croatian prison system in general.[4][5] Poor living conditions led to a prisoners' hunger strike in May 2008.[6] A planned expansion that will add 340 beds is financed by the Council of Europe Development Bank, and was in documentation stage as of June 2010.[7]

Notable prisoners include Dinko Šakić, commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp, who died in the prison's hospital in 2008,[8] and Ivo Sanader, former Prime Minister of Croatia, who was sentenced for corruption in 2012.[9]

Was all that just one big conspiracy? Too difficult to do material research on, on the level of hallucinations of outer body experiences?

Also are you aware of any changes in your life where you start to buy into these conspiracies more often than before? Or is it just an endless case of wanting to believe in the next interesting fiction? Maybe reading and writing sci-fi might help for that creative energy.

[brimstoneSalad]

Also are you aware of any changes in your life where you start to buy into these conspiracies more often than before? Or is it just an endless case of wanting to believe in the next interesting fiction? Maybe reading and writing sci-fi might help for that creative energy.

It's just baffling how unending it is.

Also, why would politicians be reasonable? So many bad assumptions. Politicians pander to their bases and however unreasonable they are, or they're slaves to political party ideology which is usually not based on evidence (see how both sides seem to randomly get things right or wrong).

Yes @teo123 jails are probably a bad idea in many ways, and like animal agriculture will be looked back upon as one of the greatest evils in human history.

Some countries do it right with minimum security rehabilitation facilities that are essentially vocational schools full of therapists and other good influences. I'm sure the harm of the prison-industrial complex isn't controversial here. Some jurisdictions are also moving more toward house arrest that allow people to work and return home using modern technology rather than locking people up among other troubled people and removing them from the stabilizing forces in their communities and families.

It's very rare that people are so violent that they need to be institutionalized, and in those cases we have to ask if they can be treated for something. In those cases they can't there are good questions as to what to do with them (the 1% of 1% of people who are psychopathic sadists and will no stop killing and for whom there's no apparent treatment), execution is probably more humane than indefinite imprisonment with other psychopathic sadists though.

[teo123]

Ul. Kardinala Alojzija Stepinca 8A, 31000, Osijek, Croatia

Well, then that's somewhere near the post-office in which I have been quite a few times. Quite hard to explain how come I didn't know there was a jail very near it, right?
Anyway, what do you think, how can it be scientifically tested there are really prisoners in there?

You’ve also got Remetinec prison in Zagreb

A part of the city, where the prison is, is called "that which disrupts" ("remetiti" means "to disrupt" in Serbo-Croatian)? Why would a part of the city be called "that which disrupts"? Doesn't that sound like a detail from a made-up story?

Too difficult to do material research on, on the level of hallucinations of outer body experiences?

Well, I don't see how that can be studied using the scientific method.

Or is it just an endless case of wanting to believe in the next interesting fiction?

First of all, I want to be happy. And how can I be happy if I believe my mother was actually in jail, that all those things actually happened? Second, I don't want to be brainwashed. And accepting what everyone else believes (or claims to believe), even though it doesn't make sense to me nor does there appear to be some expert in the field, is being brainwashed.

Also, why would politicians be reasonable?

Well, they need to be at least somewhat reasonable to understand how to, for instance, become a mayor of a city or a president of some country. I have no idea how to become a mayor of a city, yet alone the president of some country. Obviously, they aren't perfectly reasonable (they have access to the same facts, yet they disagree with one another), but that's because they are dealing with insanely complicated problems (climate change...).

like animal agriculture

I don't think it's remotely comparable. For animal agriculture, I can see how a somewhat reasonable person can think it's a good thing: farmed animals appear to give us food (even though, today, they are mostly taking resources away from us, since very little meat comes from grass-fed animals), it's easy to get misinformed into thinking we need to eat meat to be healthy...

Some countries do it right with minimum security rehabilitation facilities that are essentially vocational schools full of therapists and other good influences.

Well, assuming psychiatry does more good than harm, that could very well be a good thing. But I am not remotely convinced that's the case. Up until around 1850s, most medicine was worse than useless. Psychiatry probably is even today. I mean, it's basically a bunch of treatments that appear to alleviate symptoms sometimes, but they don't always do, and we have no scientific explanation for how they might. Doesn't that sound a bit like bloodletting? It wasn't based on science, it alleviated symptoms sometimes (if the illness caused high blood pressure), it never cured the cause of the disease, and many times it was worse than useless. So too is there some evidence that psychiatric treatments are often worse than useless, many people commit suicide soon after they start taking the anti-depression therapy.

[Not The Real JReg]

"jail isnt real," i assure myself as i close my eyes and ram the hallmark gift shop with my shitty bronco

[NonZeroSum]

Ul. Kardinala Alojzija Stepinca 8A, 31000, Osijek, Croatia

Well, then that's somewhere near the post-office in which I have been quite a few times. Quite hard to explain how come I didn't know there was a jail very near it, right?
Anyway, what do you think, how can it be scientifically tested there are really prisoners in there?

No, you used to believe planes didn’t exist and the Earth was flat, you just never cared to research or never payed attention to every aspect of your city.



Question: Do prisons exist?

Background research: Satellite footage and pictures of thousands of specialised prison architecture, 1000s of hours of footage inside prisons you can cross reference with pictures to know where it was taken.

Hypothesis: Prisons exist.

Test: Show up at the prison at visitor time:

The second and fourth Sundays of the month - 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Collect visual evidence of staff employed their to do a job, family visiting inmates that aren’t allowed out, collect first person testimony. Walk over to the courthouse nextdoor and sit in the gallery of a random trail, collect visual evidence of lawyers trying to prevent the defendant going to jail, the judge deciding what is admissible and what is not based on the countries laws, collect first person testimonies.

Procedure working: Already been done by other people, so yes.

Analyse data and draw conclusion: Occam’s razor, you’d have to believe everyone you met was a really skilled payed actor for it all to be a complex deception, which would be a really dumb idea for the complex explanations needed to even hypothesise why would someone want to do that, etc.

Results align with hypothesis.

Result: Prisons exist.

This is done 1000s of times over everyday to a reasonable burden of proof. The reasonable burden for outer body experiences like a soul, although propounded by lots of deluded people, hasn’t once been proven. People have put signs in operating rooms face up to the ceiling to know if anyone can read them, no one has ever done so.