The Abortion Debate (continued) (1 Viewer)

[Not-That-Bright]

We have not looked at the possible happiness the new human could have if given the chance to be born.

Well we'd guess that they have average happiness and therefore would not change the overall happiness of the world. Meaning that there is no added happiness but there is potential added unhappiness. I see no reason to imagine that fetus's if born would add GREATER average happiness to the world, but I can see how not allowing abortion's would affect the average happiness of the world.

See what I mean?

 

[BradCube]

Well we'd guess that they have average happiness and therefore would not change the overall happiness of the world. Meaning that there is no added happiness but there is potential added unhappiness. I see no reason to imagine that fetus's if born would add GREATER average happiness to the world, but I can see how not allowing abortion's would affect the average happiness of the world.

See what I mean?

Nope, I certainaly do not follow you on this one.

Why is it not possible that they could add a greater average of happiness to the world? If they become part of the world, then there is every chance that they could or could not add happiness to this world. They could help starving children or even live a greater then average happiness life. Both would add to the average of the world.

Could you clear this up for me?

 

[Generator]

bshoc, should any more of your posts contain personal attacks, I will be forced to take action. Consider this your final warning.

 

[BradCube]

Not-That-Bright you once again prove that indeed your name is a reflection of the reality.

...

The sentiment of a brainwashed indavidual.

Why are you insulting this poster? There really is no need

 

[gerhard]

bshoc, next time you get sick and have to go to the doctor, and he says you need a blood test, make sure he takes all of your blood, and not just a sample

 

[ur_inner_child]

I didnt pick his name for him, infact none of that is really insulting at all.

Stay on topic.

No.

A username is a username, not a description.

You brought it into a context, a personal context for that matter.

It does not add any more evidence or justification towards your argument, which means it is unnecessary.

Nevetheless, it does not do justice to your argument. Might I remind you that there are viewers who do not have an already formed opinion, or are willing to shift their opinion. Such personal attacks do not help you, particularly in a thread such as this.

 

[banco55]

Well for me it's about creating a society with the maximum level of happiness/satisfaction. Therefore when deciding whether to allow abortion, it's a question of the pain of not allowing abortion, or the pain of allowing abortion. As up until the 3rd trimester it is a fairly certain thing that the fetus will not feel pain, I see no reason to disallow abortions or make it harder in the first two trimesters. As when it comes to the 3rd trimester, the question of whether they feel pain becomes more fuzzy, I feel it is appropriate that at the very least it should require more possible pain on the mother's side (i.e. that she was raped) to overcome the possible pain the fetus may feel.

again,



If that is the logical conclusion you've drawn, why not draw that the logical conclusion is that you can kill anyone, anytime? Pro-abortion people's arguments generally rest on the development of the fetus and that's why often they do have a different view of late-term abortions.

I'm not up on the current medical technology but hypothetically if you could give the fetus pain killers so that the abortion was painless do you think abortion should be allowed after the second trimester? For that matter you could give a 1 month old baby with down's syndrome a overdose of morphine and they would feel nothing.

I'm not agreeing with the conclusion I suggested. Our prohibition on killing (except in certain circumstances) is actually based on often irrational premises. In western societies killing used to be wrong because God said so hence it was natural law. Similarly abortion was wrong because God said so. Which is arguably why abortion etc. has only become generally available in western societies following the death of God. Hyper-rational arguments like the pro-abortion people use often lead down quite nasty pathways.

 

[bshoc]

bshoc, next time you get sick and have to go to the doctor, and he says you need a blood test, make sure he takes all of your blood, and not just a sample

I'm gathering that you are having difficulty disproving the fallacy of composition and Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, thus resorting to making neither smart nor funny posts that infer nothing on the topic, they may tell us a thing or two about you though - lesson one however is dont argue over statistics with an economics student.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

While interesting, you yourself have stated that no one can really tell us anything, thus making any reports irrelevant.

No one can tell us anything about the OBJECTIVE REALITY, however as I explained before (but you've yet to understand) the information which people give us should form our known-reality, as it is the best information we have at hand. Perhaps in the future it will be wrong, but for now it is the best truth we know and we have no reason to believe it is wrong until we recieve contradictory evidence.

As for your rant about the stuff I said I didn't want to argue about, but you decided to write heaps of stuff about anyway

Whats worse, killing one person or making another slighly upset?

You don't get it. I said that killings don't matter if the creature does not feel pain its self and if there's no one there to get upset about them, there is essentially no pain - no one cares.

There is no such thing as utalitarianism, not in sociology, economics or anywhere else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%2...bility_Theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

It's a big debate, glad you've declared yourself 'teh winnar'.

How can one even begin to devide up or distribute something one has no hope of measuring - and Mr Nobel Prize Mathematician Arrow proved just that above.

We have no hope of measuring happiness, so we collectively make guesses based off the information we know. I never claimed we can achieve some sort of 'perfect' utilitarian world, just that I stick to the principle of utilitarianism in my decision and I think other's do too. It's a moral debate, you've put forward your idea about abortion and explained how your moral's work (I guess) and I've done the same. Of course I can never prove it conclusively right, but it seems right to me and might strike a cord with other people.

No thats a side debate you're mainly having with youself

Ok fine, but do you disagree with me or not?

I say;

Abortions allowed - little pain.
Abortions disallowed - more pain.

Do you disagree? Because for many people, despite however you've come to your decision, will decide this based on how much pain they feel will occur under each scenario. Of course, if you do agree... then I can't understand why you would allow more pain to occur.

Feeling pain is irrelevant, there are many instances where people are in pain free states, that does not make it O.K. to kill them, why the exception of the unborn?

It's not just about the painful experience of the ones directly involved. If you kill an invalid, their family will feel pain, thus it is wrong because if you didn't kill that invalid there would not be as much pain. Again, I explained this before.

Actually the result would be irrelevant, and since you've already accused the medicinal professions and scientists that support my case to be nothing more than zealos christians, I accuse your so called "scientists" of persoal agenda pushing.

Err... I'm afraid that christians/jews/muslims/atheists etc all generally come to the same results, from different backgrounds etc when using the scientific method to come to these conclusions. The experiment's done to come to such conclusions can be repeated in labs by anyone whom wants to, the information about how the test was done is freely available and open to scrutiny... thus they are accepted.

It's not a conspiracy

Elitist judges actually, from the hippie era, who are dying away thank god.

Actually I think you'll find even in america, where judges have been stacked by the republican party, which is a party much more in-line with your views, still come to the conclusion that the science on the pro-choice side is correct.

Heres a good lesson for anyone who likes elitism

http://www.israt.it/israt/sportello/.../mussolini.jpg

hopefully you know what that is a photo of, seeing your self admittance that you are not-that-bright.

Oh again with the name calling.

If it were, abortion would be illigal.

Well you say that, but it turns out... well you're wrong.

I'm not up on the current medical technology but hypothetically if you could give the fetus pain killers so that the abortion was painless do you think abortion should be allowed after the second trimester? For that matter you could give a 1 month old baby with down's syndrome a overdose of morphine and they would feel nothing..

Yea I'm not up with the current medical technology either really.

As for allowing it after the second trimester, it'd come down to overall pain for me again (i.e. is it going to hurt the fetus/is it more likely to hurt the mother/could it have wider psychological effects, however I think that there's also a question about awareness. For the one month baby with down syndrome, I think that generally society would care that the child had been killed in such a way and therefore societies collective pain of having that baby killed IMO would be greater than any pain alleviated for the mother by its death. If there was a huge amount of people that cared deeply about the death of aborted fetus's the same way as society cares about the death of babies with down syndrome then the death of the aborted fetus would be just as bad.

lesson one however is dont argue over statistics with an economics student.

Why not? You're telling a law student about 'activist judges'.

 

[bshoc]

No.

A username is a username, not a description.

You brought it into a context, a personal context for that matter.

It does not add any more evidence or justification towards your argument, which means it is unnecessary.

The point is if it was offensive his username would have been banned and we would not be having this debate, please get over it.

Nevetheless, it does not do justice to your argument. Might I remind you that there are viewers who do not have an already formed opinion, or are willing to shift their opinion. Such personal attacks do not help you, particularly in a thread such as this.

I think that the masterpiece that was my page 2 post consists of un-flawable logic, please dont tell me you've forgoten the last thread where at least a few people on your so called side insulted me by calling me a "f*ckhead" and 100 other derivatives, thus if it does not help my side, your side is already dead.

 

[gerhard]

for the life of me i cant see how the fallacy of composition applies at all in this case.

and did you even read arrows impossibility theorem other than the first sentence?

 

[ur_inner_child]

The point is if it was offensive his username would have been banned and we would not be having this debate, please get over it.

The mods will get over it if it does not occur again.

I think that the masterpiece that was my page 2 post consists of un-flawable logic, please dont tell me you've forgoten the last thread where at least a few people on your so called side insulted me by calling me a "f*ckhead" and 100 other derivatives, thus if it does not help my side, your side is already dead.

You do realise that is the reason the old thread was closed.

Any such abuse coming from either side will not be tolerated.

And I would like to stress that although I come up with statistics etc, I have not really expressed my true opinion on abortion. Accepting robbie1's argument should be an indication that I am definatley not one-sided.

 

[BradCube]

please dont tell me you've forgoten the last thread where at least a few people on your so called side insulted me by calling me a "f*ckhead" and 100 other derivatives, thus if it does not help my side, your side is already dead.

Sides? I don't think anyone is taking sides here. (other then possibley the actual topic of this thread) ur_inner_child was just doing her job as a mod.

 

[*Minka*]

My opinion on Abortion is Pro Choice - each woman has the right to make the decision that is best for her, whether that be having an abortion, keeping the child and raising it or placing it for adoption. I believe it is the womans body and she has the right to make the decision that she feels is best for her and I don't believe the fetus is a baby the moment it is conceived - life comes later. If someone disagrees with abortion, than fine, but they should not in any way attempt to take the right of abortion away from another woman.

Hardcore Christians need to accept that not everyone belives in god and their religion and should respect each persons right to their own beliefs and freedom of, or from, religion.

 

[bshoc]

No one can tell us anything about the OBJECTIVE REALITY, however as I explained before (but you've yet to understand) the information which people give us should form our known-reality, as it is the best information we have at hand. Perhaps in the future it will be wrong, but for now it is the best truth we know and we have no reason to believe it is wrong until we recieve contradictory evidence.

As for your rant about the stuff I said I didn't want to argue about, but you decided to write heaps of stuff about anyway



You don't get it. I said that killings don't matter if the creature does not feel pain its self and if there's no one there to get upset about them, there is essentially no pain - no one cares.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

It's a big debate, glad you've declared yourself 'teh winnar'.



We have no hope of measuring happiness, so we collectively make guesses based off the information we know. I never claimed we can achieve some sort of 'perfect' utilitarian world, just that I stick to the principle of utilitarianism in my decision and I think other's do too. It's a moral debate, you've put forward your idea about abortion and explained how your moral's work (I guess) and I've done the same. Of course I can never prove it conclusively right, but it seems right to me and might strike a cord with other people.



Ok fine, but do you disagree with me or not?

I say;

Abortions allowed - little pain.
Abortions disallowed - more pain.

Do you disagree? Because for many people, despite however you've come to your decision, will decide this based on how much pain they feel will occur under each scenario. Of course, if you do agree... then I can't understand why you would allow more pain to occur.



It's not just about the painful experience of the ones directly involved. If you kill an invalid, their family will feel pain, thus it is wrong because if you didn't kill that invalid there would not be as much pain. Again, I explained this before.



Err... I'm afraid that christians/jews/muslims/atheists etc all generally come to the same results, from different backgrounds etc when using the scientific method to come to these conclusions. The experiment's done to come to such conclusions can be repeated in labs by anyone whom wants to, the information about how the test was done is freely available and open to scrutiny... thus they are accepted.

It's not a conspiracy



Actually I think you'll find even in america, where judges have been stacked by the republican party, which is a party much more in-line with your views, still come to the conclusion that the science on the pro-choice side is correct.



Oh again with the name calling.



Well you say that, but it turns out... well you're wrong.

Look I would reply but in order to prove that you are right and I am wrong (as opposed to the current state of matters) you'll have to disprove both Arrows Impossibility Theorem and the Fallacy of Composition - until then your status as owned stands.

Oh but I cant resist a quick note on utalitarianism, which WAS a big debate ... back in 40's :rofl: , no economist, statistician, mathematician or scientist has taken that stuff seriously for a good 70 years.

So yes I am "teh winnar" as you so intelligently put it.

 

[bshoc]

for the life of me i cant see how the fallacy of composition applies at all in this case.

so ... you're having trouble understading how a statistically irrelevant part of 1407 poeple has in relation to a whole of 22 000 000

as opposed to the definition - which is

A fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some (or even every) part of the whole. For example: "This fragment of metal cannot be broken with a hammer, therefore the machine of which it is a part cannot be broken with a hammer." This is clearly fallacious, because many machines can be broken into their constituent parts without any of those parts being so breakable.

thats what you're asking right?

please tell me you're not a commerce/economics/mathematics/science etc. student

although posting stupid questions is a natural debating tactic of many people, it wont get past me.

and did you even read arrows impossibility theorem other than the first sentence?

I've applied it already in both economics and politics if thats what you mean. I'm also pretty sure I've read quite alot, which is quite alot, more than you.

 

[BradCube]

I don't believe the fetus is a baby the moment it is conceived - life comes later. If someone disagrees with abortion, than fine, but they should not in any way attempt to take the right of abortion away from another woman.

When do you believe that life does come?

 

[Generator]

although posting stupid questions is a natural debating tactic of many people, it wont get past me.




I've applied it already in both economics and politics if thats what you mean. I'm also pretty sure I've read quite alot, which is quite alot, more than you.

Nobody here cares about the supposed size of your mental penis, bshoc. Give it a rest. Please.

Edit: Or take it to the PM system.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Look I would reply but in order to prove that you are right and I am wrong (as opposed to the current state of matters) you'll have to disprove both Arrows Impossibility Theorem and the Fallacy of Composition - until then your status as owned stands.

Not everything has to go along with Arrows impossibility theory.

Arrow's theorem has spurred two lines of development in welfare economics. One line of development relaxes various assumptions that Arrow made; for example, we might relax Arrow's assumption that the social ranking must be transitive (if X is preferred to Y and Y is preferred to Z, then X must be preferred to Z). The other line of development considers the possibility of allowing information other than individual, noncomparable ordinal utilities. It is this second line of development that is relevant to the use of social welfare functions in contemporary law and economics.

http://legaltheorylexicon.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_legaltheorylexicon_archive.html

Oh but I cant resist a quick note on utalitarianism, which WAS a big debate ... back in 40's , no economist, statistician, mathematician or scientist has taken that stuff seriously for a good 70 years.

Actually it's still rather big I think you'll find, just because it's no longer strong utilitarianism doesn't mean it is no longer even discussed...

Classical-utilitarian SWF--We could substitute summation for F, and simply add the individual utility values; this is sometimes called a Benthamite or classical-utilitarian social welfare function famously associated with Jeremy Bentham. The classical utility social welfare function can be represented as follows:


W(x)={U1(x) + U2(x) + U(3(x) . . . Un(x)}


Average-utilitarian SWF--The classical SWF adds the utilities. This raises some very interesting issues when the different states of the world (x or y) have different population sizes. When deciding whether to add additional individuals, the classical-utilitarian SWF says more is better until we reach the point where adding more actually reduces the overall level of utility. One way to avoid this implication is use the average level of utility instead of the sum, as in the following formula:


W(s){[U1(x) + U2(x) + U(3(x) . . . Un(x)]/n}


In other words, we divide the sum of utilities by the number of individuals!

Bernoulli-Nash SWF--In the alternative, we could substitute the product function (¡Ç) and multiply individual utilities. This is sometimes called a Bernoulli-Nash social welfare function, which can be represented as follows:


W(x)={U1(x) * U2(x) * U(3(x) . . . Un(x)}


Rather than adding individual utilities, we multiply them! And yes, the "Nash" in Bernoulli-Nash is John Nash of "A Beautiful Mind" fame.

No, I'm afraid utilitarianism is still around.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/ROETHE.html?show=contents

In particular I am a proponent of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarian_Bioethics

There are arguments from both sides, read away.

As for fallacy of composition

You have it wrong in applying it to statistics on populations. A society generally is the same as a small sample of it's parts (if that sample is taken from a wide enough variety of people).

 

[gerhard]

so ... you're having trouble understading how a statistically irrelevant part of 1407 poeple has in relation to a wholeof 22 000 000

thats what you're asking right?

seriously, just give up. you obviously have no understanding whatsoever of statistics. obviously it relates because it is statistically relevant. this sort of thing gets taught it lots of first year statistics classes.

i mean i dont know how to explain it any clearer so ill just copy some quotes from websites. maybe I just can't explain well.

But isn't there some risk of sampling error in a poll of 1,000 or 2,000 people? Yes. Statistical theory allows us to estimate this. Imagine a country that divides exactly equally on some issue — 50% hold one view while the other 50% think the opposite. Statistical theory tells us that, in a random poll of 1,000 people, with a 100% response rate, then 19 times out of 20, a poll will be accurate to within 3%. In other words, it will record at least 47%, and no more than 53%, for each view. But there is a one in 20 chance that the poll will fall outside this range. With a sample of 2,000, the poll will be within 2% 19 times out of 20.

from http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/questions.html

http://www.janda.org/c10/Lectures/topic05/GallupFAQ.htm
this one also says exactly the same thing, with exactly the same example (3% margin for 1000 people)