Skeptic Project

Anti-TZM propaganda.

scientific America is government sponsored shillster material. Plus who cares about appeals to authority, academia means nothing when Peter Merola makes scientists feel like they're just spouting attached emotional appeals every day with his pseudo intellectual sentences.

/end sarcasm

Do not underestimate the persuasive power of large xylophones.

Cult of personality ?
Naieve ?
Insane ?
Uneducated ?
Anti establishment no matter what ?

Merola is quite musically talented, but no more than me or Ed here, were both as good as him.

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/6793/omniscience.jpg

Both far more advanced than I am. :/

Being 15 with no job, no medical degree and no adult freedom sucks.

@Matt
Oh yah, that's me at concert time.

OK, I know I am slow and naive, and I don't pay attention to topics whose titles don't interest me.

Someone explain to me in very concise words why the "tabula rasa" theory is so primal to TZM ideology. I'm not doubting that it is, I just want to understand the argument. Sorry for being dense on this point.

TZM claims that all the world's problems will go away with the institution of an RBE... thus the concept of Tabula Rasa is needed to explain how there won't be any crime, murder, etc.

Bump for BKYLE

"Then what is it that you would want to become to even go into this stage?"

The point is that violent behavior does not always have a material end-goal or preception of self. Some people murder because they want to murder. Some people lose their tempers and become violent. To try and reduce the cause of all crime down to something related to money is asinine. Why do serial killers kill? My point is that no matter how perfect society is (which is utterly a fruitless statement as society cannot be perfect) there will always be violent action. An RBE would be completely incapable of reversing these complex behaviors.

Consider that psychological findings reveal that babies and young children actually automatically form categorical identifications based on audial ques (Kinzler, K.D., Shutts, K., DeJesus, J., & Spelke, E.S. (in press). Accent trumps race in guiding children's social preferences. Social Cognition.). Childhood development is so utterly complex, that this foolish idea that we can eliminate violent behaviors based on how we change our economic structure is absoultely absurd. No matter what society looks like, developing children still undergo the same kinds of complex categorization processes. Now add to this that any number of factors can make children grow up unstable (including mental disease and degeneration!). And how exactly will material security ever overcome this more complex behaviors?

RBE aims to fulfill material needs but has not created a convincing argument as to how this system would socio-politically work. Fundamentally its an issue of overcoming biological psychology- something modern science doesn't even fully understand. So how can anyone be so arrogant as to think they know the system that will do away with behaviors we don't even fully know the cause of?

I don't believe they ever mentioned that it will stop ALL crimes, but it has been mentioned in several of their youtube videos that it will stop 'Most' crimes. He even says himself (at the end of pt 3 of addendum) that 'there can never be perfection'.

If a RBE society (or a RBE-like society) were to be implemented, its hard to argue that the death/murder rates wouldn't drop dramatically. This would be true for any society or economy that can actually convince people to stop dropping bombs on one another other.

Cop-bot

> it has been mentioned in several of their youtube videos that it will stop 'Most' crimes.

Agreed, even if not most, at least there will likely be less crime than now.

There will be plenty of resources to spend on far more cops too ;-)

> "If a RBE society (or a RBE-like society) were to be implemented, its hard to argue
> that the death/murder rates wouldn't drop dramatically."

Somewhat agreed, especially considering most of the murders I hear about are illegal drug related.. (If you are wondering why these don't come to the attention of the authorities so much, its because drug dealers are better at hiding the bodies than joe public..)

Shall we go and dig up the bodies together to prove I'm right ?

Having spent several years living next door to a drug dealer, why even having a girlfriend who was an addict (She's dead now.) and with a lifetime of friends and dodgy assoicates who almost as a hobby spent their time knocking each other off and being buried in charming locations (the local sand dunes being a favourite I hear..), who at the drop of a hat, would murder their neighbour (And frequently did..) and claim it was an accident, that I'm rather more inclined to chalk up a lot of disappearances in the drugs trade as unauthorised burials, than people having disappeared to the South of France for an unsquegued holiday abroad.

You really should pay more attention to hearsay, it might save your life one day.

(I'm as much a fan of stats as the next person, which is why I bothered to learn about what happens in dodgy neighbourhoods as I wasn't sure police stats was the entire truth of what was happening in the country..)

Whilst I'm at it, you maybe interested to hear that is in part my reasoning why even though I'm awfully for laws, I would like to see various illegal drugs legalised, as the amount of crime in the country connected with drug use is just huge, and making them legal would at least reduce the number of criminal acts to feed peoples habits.

And is also why I want no such drugs in the first community I build, and will make sure there is heavy policing to enforce a nice place for folk to live away from the crime that has infected just about every inch of this country to date.

Next your be telling me drugs aren't all that bad..

(And that is why, at some point, I'll be building a community in some country that drugs are legal, so any drug user can go and live there, away from those of us who don't want them in our neighbourhood.)

I would love to provide you with more stats, but sadly drug dealers aren't keen on filling in forms..

I have countless stories..

Here is one, lets see how good you are on balance of probabilities..

Next street to me, drug user attempts to break into a house whilst the owner is out, neighbour steps outside his house (bad move..) and tells him he is going to call the police unless he buggers off.

User attacks neighbour and kicks him to death, whilst other neighbours look on..

Police arrive, user said neighbour fell over his garden wall and he didn't touch him..

User doesn't get charged and is scott free..

Nnne of the neighbours tell the police what they saw for fear of being next.

Said user talks about his crime later on in the local pub and boasts how he got off.

Now, do we believe the police, or several dozen frightened neighbours ?

If you are curious what happens to neighbours who do tell the police, why one woman just across the road from me, criminals broke into her house and not just stole everything, they even took all the plumbing, the carpet and the floorboards!

She found out who, told the police..

Next day, she gets hit by a stolen car in a hit and run and has both legs broken.

She, and everyone else is informed in the neighbourhood, if they speak to the police, all their children will be raped/buggered.

This is what neighbourhoods are really like.

This is why what is reported is less than what really happens.

This is why its important to live in a nice neighbourhood :-)

> 7% of murders are drug related.

Reported yes, unreported no.