[FRIAM] Posts from the Scotts

[Marcus Daniels]

Steve wrote:

    I assume you mean this in the sense of "single issue voters" and in the
    more general sense of multivariate optimization being more "effective"
    than univariate in general problem solving?

One might argue that is harmful to eat animals.   One way argue that would be to imagine that you were to be eaten.  How would you feel?    That assumes that all species are equally valuable or perceive things in a comparable way.   A hedonist might argue that the pleasure of eating meat is self-evident and not arguable.   Another way would be to argue that raising animals is too energy intensive, and that it produces greenhouse gases.  That would be pointing to a shared environment that would impact many species.    Or one might argue that carnivores are evolved for eating flesh, and so if all life is valuable then there is a paradox.    There are many perspectives one could take on the matter, some there are more objective and quantifiable than the others.   A rational decision involves agreeing on what matters and then making a decision based on all of those things.   Prescriptive cultures either fail to recognize the complexity of what matters (poor modeling), or they make up some random stuff and fail to learn from their social experiments.   The failure becomes doctrine and impacts their economies and quality of life for centuries.

Steve writes:
    
    The article on Cosmopolitanism seems to reference this somewhat...  
    That "giving a damn about the world at large" does not have to be in
    opposition to "giving a damn about one's
    family/community/region/nation", yet it is caricatured/characterized
    that way so often.  How might one (one self or all-one) resolve this
    kind of (artificial/rhetorical?) difference without geologic upheaval?
    
Logic?   If the whole is in equilibrium than the parts are in equilibrium.
I think upheaval is ok.   A few small earthquakes here and there won't release the energy.  

Marcus