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comment by Viliam · 2019-11-15T20:45:28.182Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Reading this article, I learned about your political opinions more than about logic.

More precisely, I didn't learn about logic more than its "alphabet". Not even how to use it, or what exactly "first-order logic" means and why should I care.

comment by gjm · 2019-11-15T17:13:27.392Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Nitpick: near the end you have written where you mean .

Less-superficial observation about your argument at that point: What you quote is not, strictly, a contradiction unless you take "you cannot decide for the lives of others" more literally than anyone could reasonably think the person who said that meant it. Suppose they had said instead something like this: "In general you cannot decide for the lives of others, but when people commit major crimes they forfeit the right to decide the course of their lives thereafter, and sometimes there's no way to avoid someone's life being governed by someone else, and the best you can do is to try to minimize the harm. If someone commits murder, then pretty much everyone agrees that that gives us the right to use considerable force and coercion to stop them doing it again; I think we should do it by killing them rather than by locking them up for decades. If someone wants to have an abortion, then either they decide for the life of their unborn child or we decide for their life by stopping them; I think the latter is the lesser evil." I think it's clear that (1) there is no contradiction in that, and that (2) at least some people saying what you quoted a politician as saying actually mean something like that, and could be induced to explain themselves more thoroughly by suitable questioning. (I am not endorsing that position to any greater degree than saying it isn't outright contradictory; in particular, it is not my own position.)

Replies from: yamar69
comment by aiiixiii (yamar69) · 2019-11-15T17:50:15.116Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Thanks for the clarification, I correct the error. As for the second point, who says we have to lock up the killers for decades? Just because this is what the system currently does does not mean it is right. The most rational way would be to use criminals as a workforce, there is no more important resource for a Nation and if you think about the number of convicts who remain to rot at the expense of the state I think this would be the absolute best use.