Morality doesn't make sense.

[teo123]

A person who doesn't know anything about science or epistemology or even other religions could easily mistake a church for a credible source of consensus on the afterlife, trusting an authority over personal ignorance.

What do you mean "ignorance about other religions"? Is it really plausible somebody does not know there are religions that teach differently about afterlife, or deny it in the first place?

You *know* there's no consensus that prisons don't exist, and quite to the contrary that consensus of everybody everywhere is that prisons do exist.

How can I know what percentage of social scientists believe in prisons?

In terms of falseness or implausibility, I would not be so quick to judge a global conspiracy trying to make you believe in prisons when they don't exist as more plausible than another layer of as of yet unknown physics, even if the latter included a conspiracy among scientists (likely a small few numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands in particle physics) to hide such physics

Well, there is also hardness and softness of sciences here at play, not just the conspiracy, right? Afterlife, as most people seem to imagine it, contradicts the basic quantum mechanics. Most people imagine souls as something that can see but cannot be detected. But such a thing would contradict basics of quantum mechanics, that there is no such thing as a passive observer. An electron which is being observed behaves as a particle, while one which is not behaves as a wave. Afterlife, as it is commonly imagined, contradicts a very hard science.
Claim that prisons don't exist is a soft-science claim. Even if nearly all social scientists agree it's wrong (and I don't know how to test that), it is only as wrong as denying Proto-Indo-European existed (since nearly all linguists agree it existed). And I have a reason to think at lest some social scientists disbelieve in prisons: the existence of prisons seems to contradict one of the basic principles of social sciences, namely, that there is no systematic irrationality, that society as a whole behaves as if every individual was rational whenever irrationalities of individuals can cancel each other out. Prisons seem to strictly contradict that. Massacres don't contradict that strictly (you can argue the irrationality of individuals who want to commit a massacre can't be canceled out by an opposite irrationality of some individuals who want to prevent it), but prisons do.

Appeal to futility fallacy. The probability of attempting and succeeding at influencing in some way good reform is non-zero, thus your choice to make it zero by denying the existence of prisons is unethical.

When you do some activism, there is always a chance you are doing it wrongly and that the result will be the opposite of what you want to achieve.
For instance, the Humane Slaughter Association. In my opinion, they have good intentions, but what they are doing does way more harm than good. For instance, they have lobbied for killing animals with electricity being illegal in the UK, that instead they should use poisoning animals with CO2. Electrocuting animals to death is painful if something goes wrong. Poisoning animals with CO2 is painful even if everything goes right. This reminds of the anti-nuclear nonsense.
Tiananmen Square Protests fought for free speech and have probably made censorship in China even more strict.
Furthermore, what exactly should I do to make prisons in Croatia more humane? Try to overthrow the Croatian government? The chances of succeeding at that are low. Even if I do manage to do that, chances are, there will come some even more repressive government. Revolutions don't have a stellar track record of bringing less repressive governments.

It's literally a job requirement for many professions.

But obviously, programmers without diplomas do get hired.

Principally because some knowledge can lead to interest which can lead to learning more and becoming a scientist or engineer.

Or it might have the opposite effect. Mathematics being taught the wrong way makes many people hate mathematics.

[teo123]

And what are colors, actually, @Kaz1983? I don't understand it either.
As far as I understand that, it is a sense that roughly corresponds to frequencies of light, but not quite. For example, our eyes often tell us something is violet, even though there is no such thing as violet light. Blue is the light of the highest frequency our eyes can perceive. And if our eyes were made slightly differently, we would never see the purple (violet) color, but we might see some other non-actually-existent colors, right? At least, the hue of the colors corresponds roughly to the frequencies of light.
The saturation roughly corresponds to the "clearness" of the light, that is, how close the light is to having only one frequency, but that's even more eye-dependent than hue of the color is. For instance, nuances of the yellow color are nearly always perceived as being significantly less saturated than nuances of red or blue, even though there is nothing physically less saturated about the yellow light, that is just how our eyes perceive that. Green is somewhere in between.
The brightness of a color roughly corresponds to the amount of light our eye receives, but again not quite. For instance, green light with the same energy will be perceived as significantly brighter than red light with that energy. And this effect varies between individuals. Some individuals perceive the red light only slightly darker than green light, some perceive it significantly darker. And eyes of most mammals can't, as far as I understand it, detect the red light at all.

[brimstoneSalad]

A person who doesn't know anything about science or epistemology or even other religions could easily mistake a church for a credible source of consensus on the afterlife, trusting an authority over personal ignorance.

What do you mean "ignorance about other religions"? Is it really plausible somebody does not know there are religions that teach differently about afterlife, or deny it in the first place?

Yes, extremely. The similarity between world religions is a common theme in low level apologetics.
More importantly, they're probably only aware of apologetics that they believe apply only to their beliefs, other beliefs being wrong because they are not aware that other beliefs make the same category of claim in reverse. Being familiar with Christian and Islamic apologetics makes it less forgivable to think religion is a conclusion of reason -- however, even so people believe this and have convinced themselves their apologia makes sense while others do not.

You *know* there's no consensus that prisons don't exist, and quite to the contrary that consensus of everybody everywhere is that prisons do exist.

How can I know what percentage of social scientists believe in prisons?

Ordinary people have the ability to determine something that simple, so you don't need to find a sociologist. The problem is you're a conspiracy theorist so you'll just say people who work at or have been imprisoned are lying, along with everybody in politics, etc.

However, if you wanted to you could ask a few of them. I would be astonished if one in a thousand agreed with you.

In terms of falseness or implausibility, I would not be so quick to judge a global conspiracy trying to make you believe in prisons when they don't exist as more plausible than another layer of as of yet unknown physics, even if the latter included a conspiracy among scientists (likely a small few numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands in particle physics) to hide such physics

Well, there is also hardness and softness of sciences here at play, not just the conspiracy, right? Afterlife, as most people seem to imagine it, contradicts the basic quantum mechanics. Most people imagine souls as something that can see but cannot be detected. But such a thing would contradict basics of quantum mechanics, that there is no such thing as a passive observer. An electron which is being observed behaves as a particle, while one which is not behaves as a wave. Afterlife, as it is commonly imagined, contradicts a very hard science.

Yet again you are confused. A soul is not claimed to be omniscient and omnipresent. Also it would have to be able to otherwise affect reality for that to be an issue.

Claim that prisons don't exist is a soft-science claim.

No, it's a hard empirical claim. Physics answers the question as to what exists in certain locations, like a certain number of people in a building. This is just so incredibly easy to verify with a simple visual inspection we don't need a fancy apparatus for it, but if you believed these people to be a hologram or something physics could verify that they're physically there.

Even if nearly all social scientists agree it's wrong (and I don't know how to test that), it is only as wrong as denying Proto-Indo-European existed (since nearly all linguists agree it existed).

No. It's as wrong as denying underwear exist and that people wear them. Something you can easily look at and test so trivially despite the fact that people are wearing pants. You could randomly survey people to prove the presence of underwear and that it's not a conspiracy.

And I have a reason to think at lest some social scientists disbelieve in prisons:

No, you do not. You would have said before that at least some physicists must disbelieve in bombs.

When your conclusion is so obviously wrong, then you should deduce that your premise or reasoning must be wrong. Determining how your premise is wrong, or where your reasoning is wrong, becomes the task at hand -- not blindly accepting an obviously false conclusion and then further concluding there exist a series of elaborate global conspiracies involving hundreds of millions of people.

the existence of prisons seems to contradict one of the basic principles of social sciences, namely, that there is no systematic irrationality,

Mass hysteria is pretty well established, same with irrational group think and people rationalizing and selectively accepting evidence to reinforce their politics. That's basically what the war on drugs was, which is largely responsible for the prison-industrial complex (FYI it's not irrational for the corporations that own these prisons to maximize profit by maximizing prisoners and spending huge sums of money getting politicians into office that are "tough on crime" to accomplish that -- it's an inherent and recognized problem in political science with campaign based democratic systems requiring interest group money).

that society as a whole behaves as if every individual was rational whenever irrationalities of individuals can cancel each other out.

When one irrational group out-spends another because it aligns with an industry the effect is not to cancel each other out. Capitalists have money, anti-capitalist anarchists don't have money.

Prisons seem to strictly contradict that.

Oh really?
Did you spend five seconds thinking about it before you gave up and decided it was a contradiction?
You definitely didn't bother to do any research into the prison industrial system and how it came to be.

Massacres don't contradict that strictly (you can argue the irrationality of individuals who want to commit a massacre can't be canceled out by an opposite irrationality of some individuals who want to prevent it), but prisons do.

And disenfranchised prisoners who can't even vote, who are also overwhelmingly marginalized minorities with families who probably don't vote because politicians make sure there are no polling places they can access and ensure they'll be fired if they leave work to vote on election day, can't cancel out rich white Christians who have the luxury of voting at polling places politicians put next door to them and want to be "tough on crime" because it's the closest they can come to the public stonings the Bible dictates as punishment for minor infractions (selectively ignoring the whole Jesus thing), nor can they (without organization) cancel out the massive amounts of corporate money that is required to get politicians into office which comes from the pro-prison lobby.

Furthermore, what exactly should I do to make prisons in Croatia more humane?

It's hard to make them more humane, it's not so hard to limit their scope.

Work to limit the crimes that result in imprisonment so there are fewer people in those situations, and the only ones who are are truly irredeemable rather than prisons serving as factories to make criminals. You can elect better District Attorneys in particular and write your legislators.
Change the way parole works so it's not so strict in sending people back to prison. Make use of more house arrest now that the technology is affordable.
Encourage acceptance of ex-cons so they can gain lawful employment and reintegrate into society.

Try to overthrow the Croatian government?

You always jump to absurd extremes.

Revolutions don't have a stellar track record of bringing less repressive governments.

Obviously. Better to reform what's already there to gradually make it better.

It's literally a job requirement for many professions.

But obviously, programmers without diplomas do get hired.

Did I say all professions? No.
There are some very high demand professions like programmers where it's also very easy to demonstrate proficiency without a piece of paper by showing programs you've made.

Or it might have the opposite effect. Mathematics being taught the wrong way makes many people hate mathematics.

I wasn't aware there was an anti-math movement sweeping the globe starting riots and destroying calculators, and executing people in the street who believe 2+2=4.

People do not hate math, they may hate doing math, but none the less they appreciate that it exists. No math education has made people hostile to the existence of other people who do mathematics to help society.
It ranges from nearly useless and a waste of time to productive. It's for educators to figure out how to achieve the latter.

[teo123]

Yes, extremely.

Do you really think most people do not know that some religions teach about reincarcnation, while others do not?

The similarity between world religions is a common theme in low level apologetics.

In our religion classes in primary school and high school, we were taught about different religions and why they are wrong, while Catholic Christianity is right. For instance, we were taught that Buddhism is arrogant for teaching we do not need a revelation from God to know about the other world. Though, to me, Buddhism makes way more sense than Christianity. At the very least, it does not suffer from the Omnipotence Paradox.

Ordinary people have the ability to determine something that simple, so you don't need to find a sociologist.

Maybe. But the opinions of those who have published social science papers certainly counts for much more than the opinions of people not educated in social sciences.

A soul is not claimed to be omniscient and omnipresent.

I am not sure what you mean. Quantum mechanics says it is impossible for a thing to see while being undetectable, right?

Also it would have to be able to otherwise affect reality for that to be an issue.

Sure, you can circumvent that problem with Leibniz'es Monadism (spiritual and physical world only appearing to interact, without actually interacting), but I don't think most people in Leibniz'es Monadism.

Physics answers the question as to what exists in certain locations, like a certain number of people in a building.

What do you mean by "physics"? We must be using different definitions of it. Physics is a science that studies how mathematics can be used to describe and predict properties of material bodies, relationships between them and energy. It tells us timeless truths, not truths which depend on time and place. A prison which potentially exists today has not always existed, nor will it exist indefinitely, so physics does not study it. Astronomy studies particular stars, astrophysics (a part of physics) studies how stars in general behave. There are some exceptions, laws of meteorology (a part of physics) only apply for as long as the Earth's climate is remotely like it is today (it won't be 100 million years from now), but nothing like a part of physics having to say something about the existence of prisons.

No. It's as wrong as denying underwear exist and that people wear them.

And how is claiming that more wrong than claiming Proto-Indo-European existed?

You would have said before that at least some physicists must disbelieve in bombs.

I don't think it is the same thing. I have not published any peer-reviewed papers about physics. On the other hand, I have published multiple peer-reviewed papers about social sciences. When I was talking that about physics, I had no qualifications. When talking about social sciences, I have some qualifications.

When your conclusion is so obviously wrong

It's obvious that the Earth is flat, way more obvious than the stuff you proclaim "obvious". Yet, even that is false.

then you should deduce that your premise or reasoning must be wrong

Or it could be incredibly correct, a conclusion most people are unwilling to accept but it's nevertheless correct. Most people in the early 20th century were unwilling to accept time and space being relative and the speed of light being constant, even though it pretty much logically follows from the Galileo's relativity principle and the speed of light being finite.
OK, there is probably some truth to the saying "You can usually get further by trying to consistently not be stupid than by trying to sometimes end up very intelligent" by Charlie Munger, but the key word there is "usually".

it's not irrational for the corporations that own these prisons to maximize profit by maximizing prisoners and spending huge sums of money getting politicians into office that are "tough on crime" to accomplish that

That's... not even potentially an explanation for prisons existing in Croatia, since prisons are not privately owned here.

it's an inherent and recognized problem in political science with campaign based democratic systems requiring interest group money

It seems to me evidence does not support that. In Australia, 18% of prisoners are in private prisons. In the USA, only 8% are. If private prisons caused higher incarceration rates, we would expect Australia to have a higher incarceration rate, right? Yet, the incarceration rate is significantly higher in the USA than in Australia. OK, I have not studied it that much, but it does not seem to me as a viable explanation based on the few facts about it I happen to know.

Did you spend five seconds thinking about it before you gave up and decided it was a contradiction?

I think overthinking apparent contradictions is likely to lead you down a wrong path. Ships disappearing bottom first even when there are no waves appears to contradict the notion that the Earth is flat. Thinking about that further (trying to rationalize it) will likely just lead you down a wrong path.

Work to limit the crimes that result in imprisonment so there are fewer people in those situations

You need to study law for that, something I don't have time for because university is killing me. And, again, what are the chances of succeeding? My guess is that they are very thin.

People do not hate math, they may hate doing math, but none the less they appreciate that it exists.

I don't think most people have such complicated feelings about mathematics. I think they think about mathematicians the same they think about slaughterhouse workers: as some weird people who do an important job most people could not do.

[brimstoneSalad]

Yes, extremely.

Do you really think most people do not know that some religions teach about reincarcnation, while others do not?

Yes, but it's not exactly true that there's no heaven in Buddhism.

In our religion classes in primary school and high school,

Most people are not taught apologetics. That's unusual.

Maybe. But the opinions of those who have published social science papers certainly counts for much more than the opinions of people not educated in social sciences.

If you want to survey some and figure out how many believe prisons don't exist, be my guest.

A soul is not claimed to be omniscient and omnipresent.

I am not sure what you mean. Quantum mechanics says it is impossible for a thing to see while being undetectable, right?

Eh, not quite. I get what you're saying, but you're off a little.

A soul could either:

1. Not witness quantum events that would contradict what we see as wave-phenomena (which would seem reasonable)
2. Witness them, BUT be incapable of influencing our reality thus not cause collapse (based on a generous model that allows anything we don't know for sure to be impossible).

So you can see how this is a problem with a god, but not a soul in the afterlife of otherwise floating around. People assert that said god is omniscient (1 may not be an option) but also acts in the world (so 2 is not an option).

I didn't have time to read the rest, I'll try to later.

[brimstoneSalad]

Physics answers the question as to what exists in certain locations, like a certain number of people in a building.

What do you mean by "physics"? We must be using different definitions of it. Physics is a science that studies how mathematics can be used to describe and predict properties of material bodies, relationships between them and energy. It tells us timeless truths, not truths which depend on time and place.

Most physicists do not work in academics or on bleeding edge research into the laws of physics. Rather, a physicist would be able to inform the design of an apparatus or experiment to tell us about the here and now. Many work in software development for things like imaging, which is very relevant to something like this. To determine if the prisoners are some kind of hologram or robot vs. real human beings would be within the purview of physics. It would also be within the purview of biology or medicine, but in terms of the latter you might argue that the robot has been designed to fool extant apparatus.

Anyway, pretty much any field would be qualified to demonstrate you wrong is the point. You've actually gotten worse in your conspiratorial views since being a flat Earther if you sincerely believe this and aren't just being contrary for sake of argument.

No. It's as wrong as denying underwear exist and that people wear them.

And how is claiming that more wrong than claiming Proto-Indo-European existed?

What the hell are you talking about?
Are you denying the existence of underwear now?

I don't care about proto-indo-european. That other people may believe stupid things does not vindicate your belief in stupid things. You also have less of an excuse because you should have learned better by now.

You would have said before that at least some physicists must disbelieve in bombs.

I don't think it is the same thing. I have not published any peer-reviewed papers about physics. On the other hand, I have published multiple peer-reviewed papers about social sciences. When I was talking that about physics, I had no qualifications. When talking about social sciences, I have some qualifications.

Teo, do you need another ban? You having published something in linguistics doesn't give you any credibility on the existence of prisons, or anything in other social sciences (even if some field of social sciences did have more credibility on the existence of prisons).
Only hard sciences have the kinds of interconnected relationships that bestow marginally increased credibility from branch to branch (though only on closely related ones) because of the very close relationship in methodology and mechanics (physics -> chemistry -> biochemistry -> biology).
A biologist wouldn't really be expected to have any increased knowledge of astrophysics or vice versa, since they're more distant.

When your conclusion is so obviously wrong

It's obvious that the Earth is flat, way more obvious than the stuff you proclaim "obvious". Yet, even that is false.

I have explained many times to you how it is not obvious that the Earth is flat.
The point about flat earth and prison denialism, though, is the belief that must be supported by conspiracy theories.

then you should deduce that your premise or reasoning must be wrong

Or it could be incredibly correct, a conclusion most people are unwilling to accept but it's nevertheless correct. Most people in the early 20th century were unwilling to accept time and space being relative and the speed of light being constant, even though it pretty much logically follows from the Galileo's relativity principle and the speed of light being finite.

That did not require a grand conspiracy theory for people to be mistaken.

OK, there is probably some truth to the saying "You can usually get further by trying to consistently not be stupid than by trying to sometimes end up very intelligent" by Charlie Munger, but the key word there is "usually".

The fact that you think you've gotten further here is just more evidence that you can't trust your own judgement.

it's not irrational for the corporations that own these prisons to maximize profit by maximizing prisoners and spending huge sums of money getting politicians into office that are "tough on crime" to accomplish that

That's... not even potentially an explanation for prisons existing in Croatia, since prisons are not privately owned here.

It's not just privately owned prisons, governments contract out quite a bit with prisons. This mentions some of the industries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2 ... al_complex

If that's not the case in Croatia specifically, then it's entirely plausible that the people behind these policies are just stupid and following the example of other countries where it is the case.
I've talked before about how most politics is not evidence based, but based on political dogma and assumptions that the base supports. "Tough on crime" even without any private funding behind it can be a popular campaign strategy. That's only just now starting to change in some places with DAs being elected based on promises not to prosecute certain non-violent crimes and imprison fewer people.

it's an inherent and recognized problem in political science with campaign based democratic systems requiring interest group money

It seems to me evidence does not support that. In Australia, 18% of prisoners are in private prisons. In the USA, only 8% are. If private prisons caused higher incarceration rates, we would expect Australia to have a higher incarceration rate, right? Yet, the incarceration rate is significantly higher in the USA than in Australia. OK, I have not studied it that much, but it does not seem to me as a viable explanation based on the few facts about it I happen to know.

It's an issue in Australia too, but they also have compulsory voting (which reduces the effect of political ads to get people to the polls) and public funding for political campaigns to reduce reliance on private money. They also have somewhere around half the poverty per capita, which you'd expect to be reflected in prison populations due to a smaller population of marginalized people to take advantage of.

Also, as I said, it's not just prisons themselves. Difference in regulation and the way bids are handled can also play a very large role in reducing lobbying power. There are too many variables at hand to look at simple comparisons like that.

Did you spend five seconds thinking about it before you gave up and decided it was a contradiction?

I think overthinking apparent contradictions is likely to lead you down a wrong path. Ships disappearing bottom first even when there are no waves appears to contradict the notion that the Earth is flat. Thinking about that further (trying to rationalize it) will likely just lead you down a wrong path.

Is that what led you down the wrong path of deciding prisons don't exist?

Work to limit the crimes that result in imprisonment so there are fewer people in those situations

You need to study law for that, something I don't have time for because university is killing me. And, again, what are the chances of succeeding? My guess is that they are very thin.

If success is measured by making things better, they aren't thin at all. You could help thousands of families or more with very small changes. You would not be alone in working on that.

The point is that denial of the existence of an evil is in itself an evil. You do wrong by denying the existence of prisons for your own pleasure.

[teo123]

Not witness quantum events that would contradict what we see as wave-phenomena (which would seem reasonable)

I am not sure what you mean.

Rather, a physicist would be able to inform the design of an apparatus or experiment to tell us about the here and now.

OK, but that is a softer part of physics, right? I mean, this is to physics what forensic linguistics (trying to determine somebody's native language from grammar mistakes he makes) is to linguistics, is not it?

To determine if the prisoners are some kind of hologram or robot vs. real human beings would be within the purview of physics.

Well, the most scientific hypothesis would be that prisoners are a hologram and will disappear once you come closer to them. That one is the easiest to falsify: if you come closer to them and they don't disappear, then you have falsified that hypothesis. At least that's how I understand the Karl Popper's philosophy of science. Karl Popper said that the most scientific hypotheses are not one which are most probable, but ones which are the easiest to falsify.

You've actually gotten worse

Well, that should be impossible, right? If you feel like you know less than you knew before, that is because you only now know enough to realize how much you do not know.

Are you denying the existence of underwear now?

No, I just said I don't see the difference between claiming Proto-Indo-European did not exist and that underwear does not exist: both are soft science claims that almost no social scientist agrees with. OK, maybe a better analogy is denying Grimm's Law or denying that English is a spoken language, since there are indeed some social scientists (no linguists, as far as I know) on the fringe who deny Proto-Indo-European.

even if some field of social sciences did have more credibility on the existence of prisons

I am not sure what you mean. Do you mean to say social sciences have nothing to say about the existence of prisons?

because of the very close relationship in methodology

Well, obviously, sociology and linguistics are both fields without a clearly defined methodology and almost never using the scientific method, and rarely using mathematics.
Whether that is the way it should be is an interesting question. Obviously, the most successful sciences are ones that heavily use mathematics. But, also obviously, the most widely accepted claims in linguistics are ones that have basically never been tested mathematically. As far as I know, no social scientist has doubted that Grimm's Law is mostly correct (of course, with the exceptions described by the Verner's Law, and that *gwh probably did not turn into *gw in Germanic, as Grimm's Law predicts), even though there have, as far as I know, been no attempts to determine its validity mathematically. Grimm's Law is far more widely accepted than the results of the Kiki-Bouba-experiment (perhaps partly because there have been some Kiki-Bouba-experiments with negative results, with monolingual speakers of Bantu languages). Grimm's Law is also far more widely accepted than the idea that languages being spoken at higher altitudes (lower air pressures) causes them to have ejective consonants (although the p-value of that pattern is claimed to be less than 0.0001), or that language having fewer adult learners causes it to have less complex morphology (also quite a few studies strongly supporting it, but many linguists denying it).
I have used some statistics in arguing for my alternative interpretation of the names of places in Croatia. However, I cannot deny it is possible that my work is to historical linguistics what Fomenko's work is to history. Fomenko tried to apply statistics to history without properly understanding either, and, of course, got everything wrong.

A biologist wouldn't really be expected to have any increased knowledge of astrophysics or vice versa, since they're more distant.

Well, sociology and linguistics are arguably more related than, say, linguistics and economics.

The point about flat earth and prison denialism, though, is the belief that must be supported by conspiracy theories.

And why is actually massive conspiracies being impossible a valid argument against Flat-Earthism? Massive conspiracies being impossible is a soft-science claim, Flat-Earthism is a (wrong) hard science claim. You do not use a soft science to contradict a hard science.

If that's not the case in Croatia specifically, then it's entirely plausible that the people behind these policies are just stupid and following the example of other countries where it is the case.

And that does not go against the principle of rationality?

but they also have compulsory voting

And aren't most social scientists against compulsory voting?

There are too many variables at hand to look at simple comparisons like that.

Maybe, but if such simple comparisons are the only data we have...

Is that what led you down the wrong path of deciding prisons don't exist?

I don't think so.

You could help thousands of families or more with very small changes.

For example?

[brimstoneSalad]

Not witness quantum events that would contradict what we see as wave-phenomena (which would seem reasonable)

I am not sure what you mean.

OK

Rather, a physicist would be able to inform the design of an apparatus or experiment to tell us about the here and now.

OK, but that is a softer part of physics, right?

No, there aren't really soft and hard parts of physics in that sense; it would use well established laws of physics. There's stuff on the fringes of research, but something like this would not be. This isn't like quantum stuff.

It's more soft sciences that have harder parts in them because some people are using good methodology and studying things that can be studied like that, not so much hard sciences having soft bits.

I mean, this is to physics what forensic linguistics (trying to determine somebody's native language from grammar mistakes he makes) is to linguistics, is not it?

No.

To determine if the prisoners are some kind of hologram or robot vs. real human beings would be within the purview of physics.

Well, the most scientific hypothesis would be that prisoners are a hologram and will disappear once you come closer to them. That one is the easiest to falsify: if you come closer to them and they don't disappear, then you have falsified that hypothesis. At least that's how I understand the Karl Popper's philosophy of science. Karl Popper said that the most scientific hypotheses are not one which are most probable, but ones which are the easiest to falsify.

That has to do with the hardness. Any technology that the government is using to simulate prisoners would be equally falsifiable because it's all within our understanding of physics.
Unless you think the aliens are helping the government fake prisons with technology so advanced it's far beyond our understanding of physics -- THAT would be an unscientific hypothesis.

You've actually gotten worse

Well, that should be impossible, right? If you feel like you know less than you knew before, that is because you only now know enough to realize how much you do not know.

No, your mental illness and delusions are intensifying. That's not uncommon for untreated psychiatric conditions, they are likely to worsen.

Are you denying the existence of underwear now?

No, I just said I don't see the difference between claiming Proto-Indo-European did not exist and that underwear does not exist: both are soft science claims that almost no social scientist agrees with.

No, the existence of underwear is a hard science claim because it's falsifiable by hard science.

OK, maybe a better analogy is denying Grimm's Law or denying that English is a spoken language, since there are indeed some social scientists (no linguists, as far as I know) on the fringe who deny Proto-Indo-European.

There's a difference between descriptive and predictive claims, so no.

even if some field of social sciences did have more credibility on the existence of prisons

I am not sure what you mean. Do you mean to say social sciences have nothing to say about the existence of prisons?

Re-read what I wrote.

Well, obviously, sociology and linguistics are both fields without a clearly defined methodology and almost never using the scientific method, and rarely using mathematics.
Whether that is the way it should be is an interesting question.

If that's how it should be, then they aren't just soft sciences, they are not sciences at all.

I have used some statistics in arguing for my alternative interpretation of the names of places in Croatia. However, I cannot deny it is possible that my work is to historical linguistics what Fomenko's work is to history. Fomenko tried to apply statistics to history without properly understanding either, and, of course, got everything wrong.

Which is why you need competent peer review, which is why you need a field in which those practices are the norm (not a rare outlier). You will not find the help you need within a soft science field. You need to start in hard sciences, then you can return to linguistics to reform the field if you want to.

A biologist wouldn't really be expected to have any increased knowledge of astrophysics or vice versa, since they're more distant.

Well, sociology and linguistics are arguably more related than, say, linguistics and economics.

You have comprehended NOTHING of what I explained to you.

Only hard sciences are related in knowledge by hard science methodology. SOFT sciences with NO METHODOLOGY are not related in knowledge by virtue of their lack of methodology -- they're related in ignorance, which is not something that's helpful.

A from of knowledge is related to and provides insight into another that shares much of that knowledge, a form of ignorance does not provide insight into another form of ignorance.

Is that sinking in *at all*?

Because you have studied linguistics DOES NOT give you any special insight into sociology, and does not make you an expert in whether prisons exist or not -- to the contrary, the fact that you think that makes you the opposite of an expert on anything to do with reality. You possess negative competence when it comes to any real world question, and beyond that you have some kind of paranoid conspiratorial psychological pathology that ensures you can only arrive at conspiratorial answers to questions. You need professional psychological help, and you need to have actual education in the hard sciences because soft sciences only feed into your pathology -- you need to be grounded and soft sciences will do the opposite.

The point about flat earth and prison denialism, though, is the belief that must be supported by conspiracy theories.

And why is actually massive conspiracies being impossible a valid argument against Flat-Earthism? Massive conspiracies being impossible is a soft-science claim, Flat-Earthism is a (wrong) hard science claim. You do not use a soft science to contradict a hard science.

Flat-Earthism is not a scientific claim, it's an unfalsifiable ad hoc notion which has no models or testable hypotheses because its proponents only shift the goal posts to avoid reality. See what you said about Karl Popper. They're treating what should be a hard science as the softest of soft sciences.

If a flat-Earther came up with an actual falsifiable hard science hypothesis, it could still be dismissed by soft science because it's not just a question of hardness but also evidence. The hypothesis would have to accrue actual hard science evidence in its favor to graduate into a theory to be immune to soft science criticism.

You have to look at the credibility as Hardness & soundness of methodology * Evidence.

Physics has a harness of 100% with sound methodology, so even a small amount of evidence with good methodology counts for quite a bit. On the opposite end, a soft part of a soft science may have a hardness of 0% with no methodology, so no amount of "evidence" would ever overwhelm a non-zero amount of evidence in physics.

The comparatively soft science claim in psychology and sociology of the impossibility of conspiracy theories isn't without methodology; it relies on mathematical models and pretty well established human behavior. Perhaps it's 10% hard, but even an iota of evidence for that overwhelms 0 evidence for even a testable flat-earth model, and there's comparatively a mountain of evidence against global conspiracies being possible.

If that's not the case in Croatia specifically, then it's entirely plausible that the people behind these policies are just stupid and following the example of other countries where it is the case.

And that does not go against the principle of rationality?

I have explained that your assumptions about rationality are wrong, particularly when it comes to politicians.

but they also have compulsory voting

And aren't most social scientists against compulsory voting?

I don't think there's any strong consensus for or against it. Most arguments are ideological in nature, regarding rights or duties -- people playing at philosophy when they should be looking at the politics and consequences.

There are limited studies on it, but I don't think anybody contests that it increases voter turnout, and it seems to benefit progressive policies.
The problem is that conservatives don't like benefitting progressive policies so they make a lot of noise about freedom, which is pretty highly effective rhetoric.

The best form of compulsory voting would likely be to send everybody a ballot and require that they be returned, providing a randomized list of candidates (to prevent the effect of people just selecting the first on the list), AND providing the option to abstain with a check box that says something like "Voting is easy and most people do their civic duty to vote for the future of our country and people, but I am unwilling to do something so easy to help our country or its people by participating or I'm going to let other people make all of the decisions for me because I have no opinions of my own."

In other things, giving people an option to opt out that makes them look/feel bad tends to increase participation vs. no option to opt out.
Really optimizing voter participation would require study into ballot design.

You could help thousands of families or more with very small changes.

For example?

Reducing bail slightly, increasing visitation, shortening sentences, providing more vocational training in prisons, increasing use of house arrest and probation instead of prisons, loosening probation restrictions, etc.
There a dozens of components to the system, and the smallest changes to any of those makes an enormous difference.

[teo123]

it would use well established laws of physics.

Something that uses established laws of physics is by nature softer than the laws of physics themselves, right?

not so much hard sciences having soft bits

So, you think psychiatry, as a part of medical science, is not significantly softer than, for example, cardiology?

There's a difference between descriptive and predictive claims, so no.

I am not sure what you mean.

If that's how it should be, then they aren't just soft sciences, they are not sciences at all.

Then what are they? Humanities? Or pseudoscience?

SOFT sciences with NO METHODOLOGY are not related in knowledge by virtue of their lack of methodology

As far as I understand it, social sciences all share the principle of rationality as one of the central dogmas.

You possess negative competence when it comes to any real world question

Maybe. But you know as they say "Uzdaj se u se i u svoje ruse." - "Put your faith in yourself and in your rouncey (low-quality horse).".

you have some kind of paranoid conspiratorial psychological pathology

Maybe. A few years ago, I was given antipsychotics by a psychiatrist when I heard a voice telling me to jump through a school window into snow, and I did that. I was taking them for some time, but, as it didn't repeat, the psychiatrist agreed I can stop taking them. I also visited a psychiatrist a few months ago, and he diagnosed me a mild form of depression. But even if I am paranoid, that does not mean I am wrong, right?

that ensures you can only arrive at conspiratorial answers to questions

Well, my alternative interpretation of the names of places in Croatia is not a conspiracy theory in any sense, is it? Nor is my research in computer science, right?

you need to have actual education in the hard sciences

And I am, I am studying computer science at a university.

You have to look at the credibility as Hardness & soundness of methodology * Evidence.

It seems to me your philosophy of science is so complicated that it is useless even if it is true.
Do you then think that "You cannot use evidence from anthropology against nutritional science." is not a valid response to "Inuits eat a diet almost exclusively of meat, and they are perfectly healthy."?

I have explained that your assumptions about rationality are wrong, particularly when it comes to politicians.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree with that. I have a theorem that follows directly from one of the core axioms of all social sciences, and you try to contradict it with armchair psychologizing. If you cannot operate by the principles of social sciences, and I cannot operate on the principle of armchair psychologizing, there is little to discuss.

Most arguments are ideological in nature, regarding rights or duties

The most common argument against compulsory voting is that, while you can force people to vote, you cannot force them to take time to inform themselves to vote sensibly. People who choose to vote tend to be significantly more informed than people choosing not to vote.

There a dozens of components to the system, and the smallest changes to any of those makes an enormous difference.

To make that smallest change, I need to dedicate a lot of my time to studying law and politics.

[teo123]

By the way, @brimstoneSalad, you have said a few times that I should not blindly accept the conclusions I reach from science and logic. But if so, what are science and logic for? Science and logic are there to enable you to make conclusions without having to constantly question them, right?