John Paul

@sarahsalviander It's very hard to prove a negative. The only way I could see this working would be to completely rule out every possible existence for God (often why it fails).

What are the best arguments for God not existing? I'm not talking about defending a lack of belief by saying "there's no evidence for God," but strong arguments in favor of the statement "God doesn't exist." When I was an atheist, I didn't pursue these arguments, because to me it was just a given that all religion was false. It was the way I was raised, it was the environment I grew up in. Now that I'm on the other side, the vast majority of what I encounter (especially here) is extremely weak tea - lack of evidence, religion is dumb, haha magic sky fairy, which god do you believe in, etc. I'd like examples of strong, intellectual atheism. I'd also genuinely like to know why the vast majority of atheists on social media don't use these strong arguments, but instead rely on weak antagonistic stuff.

@BamaSaltyMarine Have you tried jiggling the dongle?

I put the thingamabob inside the whatchamacallit turned the doohickey and the Wuteveritis still doesn't work. Any idea's?

@politicalmath Too small for me to read, but someone said Princess Bride and I would agree wholeheartedly. My teenage son thought it was boring, but I imagine girls might find it more interesting.

I want to try an experiment in iconography and cultural literacy This is a picture of all the movies I own. I'm trying to pick 5 movies to show to my teen kids to give them the best cultural cinematic education. Which movies on this list qualify?

@octonion @JDHamkins I had this happen to me. I had a professor who often had rules based on past student actions. The JP rule became, "You can't sleep and write a paper." Or as he said when he gave it back, "You might not have been drunk when you wrote this, but you certainly weren't awake."

@JDHamkins I was once really sick when I took an exam in a course on stochastic processes. I started hallucinating and wrote complete gibberish for one problem. I had a good laugh about it later with my professor.

Years ago, when I was a math graduate student TA, I would grade quizzes or exams, and occasionally I would find a submission consisting of incoherent nonsense. At the time, it seemed unkind to give harsh feedback, and so I would write, "Sorry, I don't understand this."

@JoeBerne1 I once told my three year old son very seriously “we don’t sleep with backhoes.” 12 years later I still think about how I didn’t see it.

In your opinion, what's the dirtiest sounding word that's not a dirty word? I'll start. Backhoe.

@Romy_Holland Someone never religiously watched Boy Meets World.

me, absentmindedly while biting into a banh mi: i wonder who invented the sandwich fiancé, straightens up, giddy, hardly able to contain himself:

@edgaralandough John 4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

What's a scripture you hold on to but not a lot of people know about? Not Philippians 4:13. Not John 3:16. Give me the hidden gems, the ones you cherish in your heart but never see on shirts. Drop the verse below.

@SwordMasterPub If the polls already taken are any indication, 60% seems to be the magic number, but I don't know why. Presumably, millions die even at 99%, so I don't know why blue throws away their reasoning at 60.

RE: Red button vs blue button. Change the percentage from 50% to 99%. If 99% of the people press blue, then everyone is saved. If you press red you are saved no matter what. See how that affects your personal decision and the outcome of the poll.

@micsolana If blue's argument is millions die, that still applies even if its 1-99% needed. By blue's logic, they should take the risk at 99% or 80 million will die. Red might switch to blue on a smaller number. But its the same risk to stay (100% safe). Some say 60% is blue's cap.

interesting how completely the conversation has shifted to kids. initially, most people assumed we were talking about adults, not babies smashing buttons, which kind of breaks the thought experiment. that this is all we’re now discussing implies blues understand they were wrong.

@blightersort Often you get what you pay for. That $100 is junk if the normal cost is 1k.

yes, exactly. "you should be allowed to charge more for things that cost more!!!" you should be able to charge whatever you want. the cost of inputs is not unrelated to the price you will charge but is not the same thing. the price you can successfully charge will be related to the demand for what you are selling and the available supply. nothing else. "this cost me $1000 dollars to make but people won't pay me more than $500 for it!" then stop selling it or you will lose money. "this guy is selling something that barely costs anything to make for $100!!!" well, if people are paying it then I guess there you go. maybe you should start making it and selling it too if it's so cheap and easy. (there are caveats here, of course, but one of them definitely isn't "you are only allowed to charge more if your cost of goods is more", that's just dumb)

@myloveishigher To be fair, we often describe it that way.

A surprising amount of people don’t understand that the sun is not on fire

@MrBeast @MrBeast You could create something like this. Do it with 1-100 age category, offering 10k each if they push red, 10k for everyone if 50% push blue. Don't let them know what they are doing or allow them to convince others.

Everyone on earth takes a private vote by pressing a red or blue button. If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives. If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press? BE HONEST.

@BlackDumpling Yeah, a good DM could make this work. Maybe he convinces them he's rich, or he makes her think of boy she had a crush on when she was younger. At least it could be plausible. Even the shooting the moon thing could be, you shot the moon....as far as you can tell.

The best house rule ever invented was critical success and critical fumble on natural 20s and natural 1s for ability checks and saves. Some of the most fun you will ever have at your table involves those moments.

@FondOfBeetles @BJurns48955 Presumably blue's arguments still apply if the % is 51-99% must vote this way. If 60% is the cap, that's still billions of people dead. Why did they give up at 60% if the arguments never changed? Red only ask you to take care of yourself.

When does my faith in human cooperation reach its limit? 🤣 I don’t think blues would hit 100, obvs. Not even 80. Polls suggest they top out at 60? But am I working simply with numbers here? You are red? What’s your threshold to switch to blue? It’s a bit different for you guys because you can free-load, so your calculus might be different. If the blue threshold was 10%, you don’t need to worry about contributing to it particularly 🤣

Reds are really annoyed that every single poll shows blues are gonna be fine, huh? How long does it keep repeating before they re-examine their priors?

@LeannaRapier I think I leave out personal pronouns. I might say, "Get a grip." Sometimes I might say, "Get a grip, man," which implies third, so maybe I default to that.

When you talk to yourself out loud/inner monologue, do you use first person: 𝐼 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑔𝑟𝑖𝑝. Or 2nd person: 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑔𝑟𝑖𝑝. I speak to myself in first. I have heard people use second. I’m assuming no one uses third.

@JamesStanard @ZeroAltair1 @cremieuxrecueil I would say its really not. Red doesn't need to recruit at all. Nothing happens to red in either case. Blue needs to convince people to not vote red.

@ZeroAltair1 @cremieuxrecueil Sure. That's one framing of it, but in this scenario doesn't everyone just sign the petition? It seems mean to threaten people with death, but everyone has a really easy escape hatch.

If this was how the buttons looked, what portion of humanity would press blue? It'd probably be a large enough number due to mistakes, the young, altruists, etc., such that it remains wise to press blue.

@Suchan_Arc I wonder if this is simply a numbers game. If all people have to vote, then presumably some are going to press either one for whatever reason. In this scenario, 50% seems plausible, but is 75%? That's still billions of people if it doesn't pass but will people still vote blue?

Imagine there's a button that says "EVERYONE THAT PRESSES THIS BUTTON LIVES", and you just...don't push it. You press the other one, thinking that "hey, if me and other idiots press that one...we all live!" That's democracy. A bunch of idiots choosing death for no reason.

@CptAncapistan I highly suspect red is the majority outcome when the hypothetical is removed. Self preservation is just too strong.

Alright, one last post about this after having given it a lot of thought and seeing people's reasonings. I'll give my final choice at the end. Firstly, I don't think you're necessarily stupid to pick blue or necessarily immoral to pick red. I think a lot of it just comes down to what your first instinct is, "we have to save everyone" or "why would anyone pick the option where you can die?" I think most people are sticking with their first instinct and finding ways to justify it. People are wired differently. It's good that society has a mix of these instincts as both compassion and self-preservation serve a purpose in our survival as a species. There are bad people and good people on both sides, and there are dumb people and smart people on both sides. I also think framing matters a lot, particularly when it's reframed as action vs inaction. The scenarios of taking a poison pill or jumping into a blender/woodchipper make it easy to choose red because blue is more clearly taking a suicidal action. The scenario of the red party killing everyone who voted for the blue party if they win makes it easy to choose blue because red is more clearly taking a homicidal action. The rules are still effectively the same in all three scenarios, but the framing matters. The button example is so controversial because the framing is as neutral as it can be, which lets both the blue side frame red side as homicidal and the red side frame the blue side as suicidal. The best argument I've seen for blue is that the only scenario where no one dies is if more than half of people press blue because we can safely assume that a non-zero number of people will press the blue button. On top of that, if a slim majority picks red, that's basically a Thanos snap situation, and it would be far worse than what the writers of Avengers: Endgame were able to fathom, with the added bonus of a selection bias that eliminates all the people with compassion instinct and leaves us only with the people with the self-preservation instinct. For those reasons, I would hope that the majority press blue. That being said, I still ultimately come down on pressing the red button. There are some 8 billion people in the world. The chances that my choice is the deciding button press is effectively zero. If I press blue, I'm just leaving my fate up to the results. My button press is meaningless. The only way I have agency in this situation is to press the red button. Also, I know my wife is pressing blue, but I don't know what my kids will do. If one or both of my kids press blue while the majority picks red, I can't save them by pressing blue. But, if one or both of my kids press red while the majority picks red, I can guarantee that they aren't orphaned if I press red. But hey, maybe I'm just finding a way to justify my initial instinct, just like everyone else. x.com/waitbutwhy/sta…

@joe_shipman Seems like you could conduct it with money if the stakes were high enough. Maybe someone like Mr. Beast could do it. Offer 1000 people a chance at 1k. Red, you get 1k. Blue 501+ people, everyone gets 1k.

Can anyone come up with a REALISTIC example of the red-blue puzzle which does not require a powerful villain murdering people?

@FJBLGB1998 @Jaaavis @mkhammer Not a lawyer, but it sounds like he's arguing that election day is for reviewing votes/tallying votes and voting itself.

@Jaaavis @mkhammer Can a lawyer translate this for me?

Justice: "So your position requires us to interpret an election in such a manner that literally, every single vote that is cast for whatever the office is is cast before the election, even begins?" Dem lawyer: "Yes, Your Honor."