Let's Talk About Population Control

[wufwugy]

Don't get me wrong, I see your point. If they weren't coerced, then they make their own choices, which means they are responsible for their actions.

Even if coerced, making a decision means that your being, at whatever level, felt that decision was in its best interest. At the very least, that's the assumption.

You're going further, though. You're saying people not only choose their own choices, but that they always choose what they believe to be best for them - maybe best in that moment. That's where I don't necessarily see where you're going with it.

Can you think of an instance where a being chose something that it truly did not want? If the being wanted something different, would it not have chosen that thing?

I'm not gonna come up with anything. Have you given it your honest effort to do so, either? I'm somehow certain there are counter-examples which show that this statement is, at the very least, too broad.

It seems there's a decent amount of (3) involved in any good Murcan's consumer week. If you're not buying random sheet, then...
Bad Commie! Go to the mall and at least pretend you're trying to blend in.

How's this:
I propose that people choose rationally, and most of the time, they're focused on self-preservation, and improvement, even... but sometimes they do random stuff at their whimsy, too. Some do things and afterward say, "IDK why I was doing it. I wanted to stop doing it, but I kept doing it." when they describe that time they watched themself slowly lock their keys in their car.
I can prove it's the right description, 'cause look around.
If you try to base your model on anything else, you'll get hairy palms and a severe case of Mycoxafloppin.
So don't even think about that, bro.

It's not intuitive? I can't think of a single instance in which a being with any level of agency could possibly make a random decision. Randomness requires lack of agency.

Ugh. Really?
Look at the history of physics, man. It's a long, sordid tale of raging nerds saying wrong things to prove to the other nerds how wrong they were, thereby climbing the nerd ladder of saying things very slightly less wrong than the poor nerd who was wrong. The upshot is that we have a collection of very clever things to say which haven't been proven wrong, yet.

History tells us that everything we now believe to be true displaced another explanation which was quite similar, but ultimately wrong, but which we believed to be true right up 'till that one raging nerd wouldn't shut up about it. It's only a matter of time until the next raging nerd comes along and shows us how ever so slightly wrong we are, now.

Seriously, though. In science, the things we say are falsifiable predictions. If even one example of the prediction being false is found, then we stop saying that thing. The fact that we say things are consistent is because we limit our topics of discussion very rigidly to things which can be predicted. This necessarily implies consistency. We only talk about things which are consistent. If a thing is shown to be inconsistent, then we stop talking about it.

We don't stop studying it. We just stop claiming we can make falsifiable predictions about it.

FYP

That's literally the opposite of science.

So, you can probably tell I'm a huge fan of internet debates. Well, the time I got obliterated in an internet debate the most was against a guy who had the lockdown on philosophy of science in a way I had never seen before. One of my main takeaways was that at the root of science exists entirely unscientific assumptions. When we're discussing base assumptions, we're not talking science per se; we're talking the things for which we can't get any deeper; hence we have no option but to make assumptions. This is at the root of the most rigorous and established orthodoxy of knowledge.

Evaluating base assumptions with the scientific process doesn't work. The scientific process is itself an assumption. Every field of knowledge has at its base assumptions.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Even if coerced, making a decision means that your being, at whatever level, felt that decision was in its best interest. At the very least, that's the assumption.

As far as I know, coercion is being physically forced to do something against your will.
IDK what you mean by coercion.

(1)Can you think of an instance where a being chose something that it truly did not want? (2) If the being wanted something different, would it not have chosen that thing?

(1) Blah blah yargle blargle. Nothing I say stops you from asking this question. Why do you ignore my answers?
Is it because I'm not arguing with you on your right to set the definitions at this point?
Or do you want more angles on how this is a naive way to describe humans? How about this:

People are complicated. We have layers of understanding and layers of emotions which blend into our perception of every moment. We constantly face decisions about which we are conflicted, but must choose quickly. We are not clearly definitively wanting the thing we chose. To say otherwise diminishes us from our unavoidable complex understanding of ourselves and our stimuli. It ignores our struggle to find "what is good?" in a morally ambiguous world.

Humans...
...are like onions.

But none of that matters because I'm willing to accept your definition as you stipulate it. It's your field, it's your first principle. It's your right to tell me exactly what you're saying. So in the terms of economics, I accept your use of the word rational to mean what you say it means. Can we move on?

(2) IDK at best, and I don't see how you can possibly know, either. What proof do offer to support your answer, either way. What would you consider ample counter-proof?

Recall that I have posited thus:
Some [people] do things and afterward say, "IDK why I was doing it. I wanted to stop doing it, but I kept doing it." when they describe that time they [...].

This is a common theme among people who have put their lives into harms way to rescue someone in a moment of need. They weren't thinking about maximizing or minimizing anything, they were half watching themselves do the things.

I did seriously lock my keys in my car once and it was literally (one literally) in slow motion. I was sitting there. I took out the keys from the ignition and set them beside me. Then a bit later I got out, locked the door and stood there looking at my keys and somehow calmly closing the door while mentally screaming at myself to not make this terrible thing happen. It happened.

Are you saying that I chose to lock my keys in my car? Because the facts in the story are that I consciously saw that it could happen, with time to NOT do it, and then proceeded to continuing to not want to do it as I saw it happen. By me.

So if that's not a counter-example, then you're not saying anything at all. If the person telling you what happens says they didn't want to do it and you say, "but you did it, so you wanted to," then you're either not listening to them or you're stripping all meaning from the word "want" and we're right back to you saying nothing more than "People do things" when you say "people are rational actors."

It's not intuitive? I can't think of a single instance in which a being with any level of agency could possibly make a random decision. Randomness requires lack of agency.

You keep saying that you can't think of something like as though that's somehow proof of anything other than your inability to think of it. That's not anything I can objectively observe and agree with.

Furthermore, I posit that you can not possibly know why anyone does anything unless you ask them, and humans are well documented to lie about this stuff. So get to your point.

People are rational actors... i.e. they do stuff... and...

So, you can probably tell I'm a huge fan of internet debates. Well, the time I got obliterated in an internet debate the most was against a guy who had the lockdown on philosophy of science in a way I had never seen before. One of my main takeaways was that at the root of science exists entirely unscientific assumptions. When we're discussing base assumptions, we're not talking science per se; we're talking the things for which we can't get any deeper; hence we have no option but to make assumptions. This is at the root of the most rigorous and established orthodoxy of knowledge.

Evaluating base assumptions with the scientific process doesn't work. The scientific process is itself an assumption. Every field of knowledge has at its base assumptions.

Don't pretend we're talking philosophy of knowledge level stuff, here.

You're trying to say that "we don't know that making falsifiable predictions and having non-invested parties test them to find a falsifiable occurrence and when this fails a lot, we consider it knowledge," is in question, here. It's not.

If anything what's in question is things like the Schroedinger equation.

It is true that the Schroedinger equation was simply hypothesized with no theoretical justification, and it works like a dream. To equate this to your statement seems to wholly misunderstand how many amazing things can be predicted and observed with this equation. It's not a hollow statement setting up a definition of terms. It makes bold predictions which most intelligent physicists believed were a load of hogwash.

E.g. The Schroedinger Equation predicts quantum tunneling. Meaning a particle has a non-0 probability of being where it doesn't have enough energy to get to. Like if you roll a ball up the hill, no matter what shape the hill is, the ball will not go higher than its initial kinetic energy equated to the change in gravitational potential energy. The initial speed determines the maximum height. The Schroedinger equation says this is not true for particles. Many physicists were like... "Ha! This can't be true!"
It is true. Schroedinger was slightly more right. His equation can't handle relativistic electrons in large atoms, but it's pretty good. Not as good as Dirac's equation, though. Dirac slightly more right.

Your statement has yet to be linked to any bold predictions.
I'm actually surprised at how many times I've described physics and the scientific process to you, but you still say the most backward things about these topics. I can practically pre-emp your next move by saying that the continuted progress of physics is that of refinement at this point. All the new surprises will come from energy densities well beyond what humans encounter without trying really, really hard.