Posted on November 17 at 12:32 p.m.Suggest removal

Brian, of course it's a set up--that's what all thought experiments are. There suppose to test the internal logic of help propositions. That point means nothing. Second, it shows that we don't think life in the philosophical sense begins at conception, because if it did, then you would have to save five embryos instead of the 25-year old woman. It's the philosophical conception of life that matters, not the scientific, because it is philosophy that we use to derive our ideas about identity, rights, and so forth. And you can't say that abortion is murder unless you can point to who it is you are murdering. And you can't point identify someone unless you have a coherent idea of identity.

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Posted on November 14 at 12:21 p.m.Suggest removal

Okay, here's how you expose the JFA as being full of crap:
Ask them, "If you had to choose between saving a burning building that had five frozen embryos in it and a burning building that had one 25 year-old person it it, which would you choose?" Checkmate.

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Posted on November 14 at 12:13 p.m.Suggest removal

You know Leave It To Beaver was just a TV show, right?

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Posted on November 4 at 2:11 p.m.Suggest removal

Here is a thought experiment: Suppose you are faced with a dilemma where you are forced to choice between saving one person from a burning building or five people from a different burning building--you can't save everyone. Okay, now a different thought experiment: Suppose you are faced with a dilemma where you have to choose between saving one adult or five embryos. If life did begin at conception, then an embryo would have the same moral weight as one person, and in this case, you would be better off saving the five embryos. And if your answer is to save the embryos, you are bullsh*tting yourself. I don't know when is the best place to say life begins, but it is clearly not conception.

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Posted on October 22 at 10:27 a.m.Suggest removal

JJ, there is no such thing as "free money." Because buying a lottery ticket means not buying something else.

But the people who are really being duped is the public, because we are told this lottery money will imporve education. But no amount of money improves education as long as it gets mismanaged through a government monopoly.

Here is an idea to improve the lottery: Require everyone who plays show proof of health insurance.

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Posted on October 22 at 10:19 a.m.Suggest removal

Actually, education spending as a percentage of our GDP, Oklahoma ranks 17th in the nation. The only neighbors that rank higher are New Mexico and Arkansas (http://www.statemaster.com/graph/edu_...).

To mandate that we spend the same amount per pupil as our neighboring states is absurd, because the financial situation we have is different than that of our neighbors. They spend more per student because they are richer. We give a greater percentage of our economic 'pie' than they do, but since they are wealthier their slice is still larger. To arbitarily make our slice as big as theirs makes no sense, because money spent on education is money not spend on other things (e.g. healthcare and roads) and those things may provide us with more utility, given our limited resources.

Plus, there is no correlation between how much funding we give public schools and school performance (http://www.ocpathink.org/research-ide...). Our public schools have plenty of money--it's a problem of managing that money. The money is mismanaged because public schools are a government monopoly and don't respond to pricing mechanisms of the market.

So maybe instead of funding the producer (i.e. schools) and not the consumer (i.e. people), we should flip it around and let people choose what education arrangment best serves their needs and desires. It works for food stamps, it will work for education.

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