A teleological argument that assumes truth is contingent upon a specific worldview would indeed be flawed, because it would make truth an artifact of a given perspective rather than something independent of it.
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
[1] I don't know how that's the republican's fault. Again, it's the constitution.
[2] This is entirely incorrect. Garry Wills, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, Simon and Schuster, 1999, p. 252. ("Until recently, the Second Amendment was a little-visited area of the Constitution. A two thousand-page commentary on the Constitution put out by the Library of Congress in 1973 has copious annotation for most clauses, but less than a page and a half for the Second Amendment.")
The Tommy guns and explosives used during the gangster wars of the prohibition were almost entirely legally obtained (some were imported from Ireland in exchange for liquor). As a lawyer, what you are saying is literally the opposite of the truth. Until the 1980s, gun rights were understood to be a state's rights issue, and most limitations on the federal level (like in the Dredd Scott decision) were based around the rights of black former slaves to own guns.
[3] There is only a contradiction if you assume that the supreme court only exists to prevent the death of people and the unborn, rather than to enforce the constitution. If there was a constitutional amendment that said that every citizen had to go and kill a Mexican every Wednesday afternoon, it would be the job of the supreme court to enforce that constitutional provision until it was repealed.
The Supreme Court doesn't exist to impose your political views, it exists to impose the constitution. The constitution often produces outcomes that are not in synergy with each other or a broader overall purpose. That is the problem of the legislature and the constitution, not the court.
[2] The second amendment is a constitutional right. A textualist right wing Supreme Court would outlaw any restriction or regulation on firearms whatsoever. That would be entirely consitutional.
[3] There is no contradiction to the logic you describe. There is constitutional right to keep and bear arms. There is no constitutional right to an abortion. Even the supporters of the outcomes of Roe vs Wade admit it was a lousy opinion (e.g. Ruth Bader Ginsburg: https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsbur...).
If you want to create the right to an abortion, pass a law. If you want to repeal or modify the second amendment, persuade your fellow citizens to pass a constitutional amendment. An actual, activist right wing court could find most of the federal government unconstitutional, using the same logic Alito used in Roe vs Wade.
There are something like 3000 regulations on firearms in the US which the court has found to be consitutional which is debatable. Most of the Federal goverment, especially regulatory agencies are probably unconstitutional. Social security is probably unconstitutional, as it should be relegated to the states. RICO laws are unconstitutional.
If you create rights by judicial fiat, don't be surprised when they are removed by judicical fiat.
From the UK branch which also is in severe trouble[0]
Jay Ersapah, the boss of Financial Risk Management at SVB’s UK branch, launched initiatives such as the company’s first month-long Pride campaign and a new blog emphasizing mental health awareness for LGBTQ+ youth.
“The phrase ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ resonates with me,’” Ersapah was quoted as saying on the company website.
“As a queer person of color and a first-generation immigrant from a working-class background, there were not many role models for me to ‘see’ growing up.”
Her efforts as the company’s European LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group co-chair earned her a spot on SVB’s “outstanding LGBT+ Role Model Lists 2022,” a list shared in a company post just four months before the bank was shut down by federal authorities over liquidity fears.
So if a Boeing plane is shot down in Iran, it would make sense to say "Iranians shoot down American plane"? During the Iran/Iraq war would have made sense to say "American missiles hit American planes in Iraq"?
NASA's budget peaked in 1964–66 when it consumed roughly 4% of all federal spending. The agency was building up to the first Moon landing and the Apollo program was a top national priority, consuming more than half of NASA's budget and driving NASA's workforce to more than 34,000 employees and 375,000 contractors from industry and academia.
Yes, let's assassinate a world leader of the country with the most nukes in the world based on unfounded claims of election interference and a hack.
Do you have any idea what America did in Russia in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union? The 1996 election in Russia which was majorly "interfered" with by Clinton: https://archive.is/R7i5u, not to mention the fact that most Russian hacking activities are done using NSA backdoors which were leaked?
I'm surprised and disappointed to see such flagrant ivory tower imperialism on HN.
> The Author is not a physicist and is no longer an active academician, but is an Entertainer
and host of The Portal podcast. This work of entertainment is a draft of work in progress
which is the property of the author and thus may not be built upon, renamed, or profited from
without express permission of the author.
The explosive eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 injected enough sulfur-containing compounds into the stratosphere to substantially reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth's surface. In response to the increased reflectivity of the planet, the surface temperature cooled by about 0.3°C during 1992, with temperatures returning to their normal levels by 1994. But what happens when a much, much large eruption occurs?
Roughly 74,000 years ago, a "super-eruption" took place in Indonesia, the largest know eruption in the past 100,000 years. The Toba eruption was enormous, throwing out roughly 1000 times as much rock as the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens (Fig. 1). Dust trapped in polar ice cores shows that ejected material spread around the globe, indicating that the eruption injected substantial material into the stratosphere, where it can strongly affect climate. How much and for how long the Toba eruption actually affected climate and life on the Earth's surface has been the subject of intense debate.
> 'On March 9th, we added extra protections for this employee, including actioning content that mentioned the employee’s name or shared personal information on third-party sites, which we reserve for serious cases of harassment and doxxing.'
So they didn't vet them but knew to protect their identity at all costs?
You don't think they have the right to have an opinion? How tolerant.
Everyone doesn't have to "live under" it, you don't have to get married.
I suspect having Mummy and Daddy being together "until further notice" would have disastrous impacts on children's sense of permanence and development.
My experience of Japan and East Asian govt/megacorps is that they are far more honest on the surface level but will stonewall and put up far more resistance if you try to dig deeper/follow up.
The issue i find with viewpoints like this are these comments:
> In the last few years, completely unregulated online speech has given rise to fake news and conspiracy theories that have actually killed people. It’s offered a megaphone to those promoting dangerous ideas like white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other anti-LGBTQ positions, and sometimes outright Nazism. It has tilted many democracies towards right-wing populism and fascism.
Perhaps that's what people actually think and would have thought regardless of the internet? Every thing listed is well below peak popularity, and anti LGBTQ sentiment for example is the lowest it has ever been with LGBTQ view enjoying widespread grassroots and estalbishment support.
Authors like this are simply yearning for the ecstasy of ideological conformity; the dream that they will one day open their web browser and find a world of people who suddenly share their enlightened world view. Instead of criticising others, perhaps they should question their own worldview and whether it would be even remotely normal for everyone to share it.
There is nothing more likely to grow those beliefs than to ban them outright. Goebbels was prosecuted for hate crimes in Weimar Germany in 1928[0], and to say such laws were ineffective is to put it mildly.
[0] Longerich, Peter (2015). Goebbels: A Biography. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1400067510.
History has shown that the monopoly on violence always exists. If the government did not have it then someone else would. I would advise you to live somewhere outside of the West before you relish the possibility of the state relinquishing its monopoly on violence.
A teleological argument that assumes truth is contingent upon a specific worldview would indeed be flawed, because it would make truth an artifact of a given perspective rather than something independent of it.