James C
Recent Activity
James C commented on Rick Warren on How to Confront Death on April 10, 2009, 6:24 AM
Rick knows there's a hell because there's evil in the world. I guess I think there are two human causes for bad things happening, malice and stupidity. I guess malice=evil, and that's what hell is for. What's the equivalent of hell, for people who were innocently stupid? If there isn't one, then I'm not sure what's proven by bad things happening.
James C commented on John Temple on the Future of Newspapers on March 18, 2009, 4:06 PM
The specific value people get from multiple sources is protection against failure or corruption of one of the sources; eg gambling fraud. Explicit payment for content (especially micropayments) crosses some psychological work which has been done on cognitive overhead. In general, most offers to pay that I see are either enormous, or sliced so finely that I can't work out the total cost.
James C commented on What is your counsel? on December 6, 2008, 3:31 AM
He wants to change the incentives that some people experience.They are the people who set the incentives for each other :-(If people want a doorstop to read, they could consider "The New Spirit of Capitalism" by Boltanski and Chiapello. I don't know how to summarise it.
James C commented on What is the way out of poverty? on December 6, 2008, 3:21 AM
It doesn't answer BogdanBelcea's question, but Don Cupitt has a nice taxonomy of theories of how people and their own evil interact, in a footnote in "After God". There are three alternative positions: - non-dualism: - there are no well-defined "good" and "evil"; there are only events and people who respond to them - secure in my ignorance, I am going to say that this is the orthodox Buddhist position - external dualism: - evil is a separate external thing that is imposed on people; it could be removed, and they (or perhaps all of the good ones) would be largely unchanged - this is the orthodox Christian position - internal dualism: - the possibility of evil is something that people create for themselves; it is 'the yeast in the dough' that causes them to have practice in making moral decisions; without it, they would be completely different - this is Don Cupitt's position, and I find it persuasive - on this account, remembering one's heros is a recommended technique for practising making moral decisions
James C commented on Ricky Gervais on Religion on April 10, 2009, 6:38 AM
Hi Caleb, A religion can have real consequences, even if the [Gg]od[s] it claims aren't correct. For example, the economic consequences of the Reformation, described in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism", by Max Weber.