Showing posts with label reality refusal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality refusal. Show all posts
Applied Modus Ponens Abuse
When discussing anything(foxes, guns, Ecstasy, let's call it 'Problem A'), at some point in the flow of discussion, some muppet always pops up and argues the toss as follows:
Problem B > Problem A by a huge margin, hence we should ban B, banning B is ridiculous, ergo, we should tolerate A.
Problem 1) Modus ponens (if -> then) is only one directional, that is, when it rains I take my umbrella, but taking my umbrella doesn't cause it to rain.
Problem 2) Horseriding is not Ecstasy, gun ownwership can not be compared to traffic accidents, and foxes cannot be compared to dogs either. The only thing all those have in common is that someone is taking a risk and all those events have the potential to produce more or less mangled people. Making a milkmaid calculation involving yearly traffic accident tolls as the benchmark is going to end up in no-one doing anything about problems ever, because statistically, accidents are nearly at the top here, and of course life being the terminally fatal STD that it is, occupies Nr. 1 in the death charts. (deal)
Problem 3) As for tolerating things we don't like... sometimes it's correct to prevent something, at other times, the same action is simply meddling. There is no magic rule that covers everything, other than: 'Thou shalt use common sense'.
Problem 4) Adding problems together in an effort to cancel them out is always an exponential affair, because in this kind of calculus, problems don't subtract, they multiply.
Problem B > Problem A by a huge margin, hence we should ban B, banning B is ridiculous, ergo, we should tolerate A.
Problem 1) Modus ponens (if -> then) is only one directional, that is, when it rains I take my umbrella, but taking my umbrella doesn't cause it to rain.
Problem 2) Horseriding is not Ecstasy, gun ownwership can not be compared to traffic accidents, and foxes cannot be compared to dogs either. The only thing all those have in common is that someone is taking a risk and all those events have the potential to produce more or less mangled people. Making a milkmaid calculation involving yearly traffic accident tolls as the benchmark is going to end up in no-one doing anything about problems ever, because statistically, accidents are nearly at the top here, and of course life being the terminally fatal STD that it is, occupies Nr. 1 in the death charts. (deal)
Problem 3) As for tolerating things we don't like... sometimes it's correct to prevent something, at other times, the same action is simply meddling. There is no magic rule that covers everything, other than: 'Thou shalt use common sense'.
Problem 4) Adding problems together in an effort to cancel them out is always an exponential affair, because in this kind of calculus, problems don't subtract, they multiply.
Toddler attacks fox (extra extra!)
...another Daily Wail classic(tm)
The self-hating comments are just sickening, one gets the feeling that even had the toddler been totally mullered, the crowd would've cheered for the fox here.
I guess the problem is that foxes are more than just predators --this is foremost a political and class issue, and that the reality that foxes are not as nice as the cartoons suggest is causing a lot of people a serious pain in their dogma which they fought to establish so hard for over the years against their archenemy, the toffs and the country bumpkins and their hated foxhunt.
Even the parents of the unlucky toddler state they don't want the fox to die -- it's as if a dose of forgiveness could magically make the event unhappen, and the animal had not learnt that biting humans is OK -- totally oblivious to the fact that foxes learn most of their hunting behaviour.
My hunch is that fox bites are quite common, but people tend to view them as trivial. So expect a lot more fox-bites-child news to come up as it's now on the news radar.
For those who like their math, here are some papers that should give you a good idea of the bad things that'll happen if rabies ever takes hold in London:
MODELING CONTROL OF RABIES OUTBREAKS IN RED FOX POPULATIONS TO ...
http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/receiv/FUDISS_thesis_000000000061?lang=en
And if it ever does, DEFRA's contingency plan is simple: a cull of every warmblooded animal there is in the vicinity, no appeal, not even a current rabies vaccination or keeping it exclusively indoors will save your pet(s).
Oh and it doesn't have to be an accidental release either, this basically is a huge biosecurity risk just waiting be be explored. And as an aside, I hope that the bitten toddlers have been protectively vaccinated against Rabies as a precaution. Because by the time they show symptoms (1-3 month) it'll be too late for them.
The self-hating comments are just sickening, one gets the feeling that even had the toddler been totally mullered, the crowd would've cheered for the fox here.
I guess the problem is that foxes are more than just predators --this is foremost a political and class issue, and that the reality that foxes are not as nice as the cartoons suggest is causing a lot of people a serious pain in their dogma which they fought to establish so hard for over the years against their archenemy, the toffs and the country bumpkins and their hated foxhunt.
Even the parents of the unlucky toddler state they don't want the fox to die -- it's as if a dose of forgiveness could magically make the event unhappen, and the animal had not learnt that biting humans is OK -- totally oblivious to the fact that foxes learn most of their hunting behaviour.
My hunch is that fox bites are quite common, but people tend to view them as trivial. So expect a lot more fox-bites-child news to come up as it's now on the news radar.
For those who like their math, here are some papers that should give you a good idea of the bad things that'll happen if rabies ever takes hold in London:
MODELING CONTROL OF RABIES OUTBREAKS IN RED FOX POPULATIONS TO ...
http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/receiv/FUDISS_thesis_000000000061?lang=en
And if it ever does, DEFRA's contingency plan is simple: a cull of every warmblooded animal there is in the vicinity, no appeal, not even a current rabies vaccination or keeping it exclusively indoors will save your pet(s).
Oh and it doesn't have to be an accidental release either, this basically is a huge biosecurity risk just waiting be be explored. And as an aside, I hope that the bitten toddlers have been protectively vaccinated against Rabies as a precaution. Because by the time they show symptoms (1-3 month) it'll be too late for them.
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