Do you have any of your own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, etc...?

[seveninchblues]

...or are they all based on what someone else has taught you
   what to think, how you are supposed to feel, what you
     SHOULD believe...?

Because, you see, it doesn't matter to me if it's religious bullshit
     or a strict disciplinarian upbringing that has made you what you are
or if you are being led by the nose by this or that political group.

I find it hard to believe that if there is some of your real beliefs, real thoughts, real feelings in there, why would we see so much parroting of the beliefs of either the right or the left, up and down party lines without variation?

It makes me proud to be apolitical.   I know if I became political, I would have to choose a side and therefore betray some of my beliefs.

 

[Athos_131]

I think you shouldn't make posts that contradict your other posts.

Claiming you aren't political yet just making a post attacking President Obama is a very weird way to operate.

Hypocrites are as bad as liars and thieves.

#Resist

[herschel]

Yeah. I believe in the law of the jungle. I don't like it, I don't approve of it, but I see that it determines outcomes everywhere I look.

[seveninchblues]

I think you shouldn't make posts that contradict your other posts.

Claiming you aren't political yet just making a post attacking President Obama is a very weird way to operate.

Hypocrites are as bad as liars and thieves.

#Resist

I don't recall "attacking" him.  I have NEVER attacked Obama. Rather a strong word, but then I'm used to that.  I have criticized him as I have criticized other politicians, but
criticizing someone here or there, from time to time, does not make one political, as opposed to other people who spend their entire day at it.

Of course, once again, you've completely upended my question and you are trying to tell me what I shouldn't do.  I wasn't here when you made the rules so please, by all means, give them to me: Athos's Rules to Post By.

[Athos_131]

It is not my fault you post a lot of stupid things and then get pissed when people react negatively to them.  

At times you come off very narrow-minded.

#Resist

[Jed_]

Telling me what I’m supposed to believe based on labels is a sure way to annoy me.  I’m largely liberal in my viewpoints, but I also own about 30 guns.  I’d probably have an assault rifle, but feel overall it’s probably not a good idea for those not in the military or law enforcement to possess them.  Many of my viewpoints are libertarian, except I don’t go to the selfishly sociopathic extreme so many libertarians seem to do.  I hunt and find the concept of being a vegetarian rather silly, but to each his/her own.

I’ve voted Republican in the past, but find it highly unlikely I will again (unless the Republican Party reverses their goosestepping to the extreme right).

One of the both amusing and sad things is when someone on the right asks me about being a liberal and the beliefs they presume I have, they don’t get a damn thing right:

I want the U.S. to be like Venezuela.  No, of course not.  But being more like the Nordic countries where they have universal healthcare with high taxes and populations considered the happiest in the world would be nice.

I want a bunch of free stuff?  No.  It’s the wealthy in the U.S. that feel entitled.

I want the government to run everything.  No. No one does.

I want to outlaw guns and hunting.  No.

I want open borders.  No.  I doubt anyone does, certainly none of our elected officials accused of that.

As a liberal, I want tons of sex with lots of hot girls.  OK, you got me there.

[psiberzerker]

No, I tend to go along with what everyone else is thinking...

 

[Jed_]

No, I tend to go along with what everyone else is thinking...

 

Or as my one uncle thinks what happened to his older brother (now deceased) and me; we started out Republicans, but liberal professors in college brainwashed us to be liberals.  This uncle went to a trade school after high school, no college (nothing wrong with that).  Doesn’t matter how many times I tell him I never knew the political beliefs of any of my professors, they still brainwashed me to be stupid.  My version is I was taught to think independently and critically, AND in science you are taught to eliminate bias in your judgments (nothing destroys an elegant hypothesis more thoroughly than an ugly factual result).

[psiberzerker]

in science you are taught to eliminate bias in your judgments.

You're taught to Account for it.  Critical thinking cannot Eliminate biased thinking, it's just the way we think.  Among other things, it gives us the tools to Examine our thinking, to doubt our first assumptions, and also Peer Review.  If we could completely eliminate the fallibility of our thought processes (Including biases) then we wouldn't need our peers to check our work.

Any time we start to assume the Perfection of our Intellectual superiority, it becomes a bias in, and of itself.  A form of narcissism.

[Jed_]

Eliminating bias is why we do blinded studies, although I also used the word ‘judgement’ to acknowledge there is some interpretation that occurs.  Certainly in many instances ‘accounting’ for bias might be all that can be hoped for.  The nice thing about science is people will always check your work and refute your findings if you are in error.

And most importantly, deliberately reporting falsehoods in science will destroy your career.  If only politics worked that way.

[psiberzerker]

The nice thing about science is people will always check your work and refute your findings if you are in error.

Unless you conduct your experiments in secret with water hoses, and electrodes, like they used to do at places like Auschwitz.  Which is why we have Peer Review, just in case there's nobody in the room to raise his hand, and say "Uh, guys?  I don't think this has enough scientific value to justify torturing children."

[_priapism]

Critical thinking cannot eliminate biased thinking, it's just the way we think.  

I was intrigued by a recent study concerning the possibility of replacing human juries with computer ones. The thought was that eliminating the bias of human jurors would result in quick, fair, and impartial verdicts. What they soon learned was that so-called “smart” robots have biases also, which can become exaggerated over time.  So the question then is, are biases inherent? Or do programmers loan their biases to the computers?

[psiberzerker]

So the question then is, are biases inherent?  Or do programmers loan their biases to the computers?

That's an interesting question.  I'd have to see the programming before, and after to really guess at the answer.  There is the possibility for Rounding Creep.  Do you round up, or down?  Let's say we've got the proverbial Solomon judgement to cut the baby in half.  Which parent gets the bigger half, or how do we make sure that the child is truly bisected, equally?

That's the kind of cold calculation you expect from completely unbiased Computer programming.  Over time, continuing to round up will add up, especially with a self learning iterative loop (Self referrential critical thinking, Hofstadter Loop)  The programmer may instruct the AI to err on the side of caution, but which side is that?  In every case?  We can't have it flip alternately, or RNG to randomly round up, or round down, because then the decision may ultimately be as logical as flipping a coin.  However, with each iteration, that minor bias may reinforce, and after 100 iterations, have 1,000 times the initial bias.  That's the way thse things work.

So, that effect of compounding bias, where each decision is based on the precedent of similar decisions before it can add up, mutiplicatively when you start compounding similarities in certain cases is in fact intrinsic.  That's not critical thinking, that's cold hard logic, and such a program might be confused when one of the parents gives up her child, rather than have it cut in half.

[_priapism]

[Athos_131]

The though was that eliminating the bias of human jurors would result in quick, fair, and impartial verdicts.

"A good sheep will do that!"

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

 

“I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
~ Robert A. Heinlein, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

We're trying to wax philosophical here, and once again, all you can come up with is Ad Hominem.  "Sheeple,"  ~A. Hipster.

#Resist

[_priapism]

So the question then is, are biases inherent?  Or do programmers loan their biases to the computers?

That's an interesting question.  I'd have to see the programming before, and after to really guess at the answer.  There is the possibility for Rounding Creep.  Do you round up, or down?  Let's say we've got the proverbial Solomon judgement to cut the baby in half.  Which parent gets the bigger half, or how do we make sure that the child is truly bisected, equally?

And the data reflects bias.  If more blacks are prosecuted, and convicted, than whites, will the computer conclude that blacks are more likely to be guilty than whites?

[psiberzerker]

If more blacks are prosecuted, and convicted, than whites, will the computer conclude that blacks are more likely to be guilty than whites?

Why would we program Race into the computer?  More Males are convicted than females.  To make a truly Impartial program, the Person needs to be removed from the equation.  The computer doesn't care "Who?"  It wouldn't judge the case on the merits of the person, that's Bias.

It would judge the case on he Facts of the case.  "Race" is immaterial, and basically a myth anyway.  I wouldn't even submit the race to the program, it doesn't even need to know their names.