Topic: Why do people in USA fear socialism so much? - page 18. (Read 34853 times)

This is true. There will (almost) always be outliers due to confounding variables. Human society is really, really complex and responds to theories about itself so there are a lot of factors going on, many are not constant. However, that should not stop us from trying to discover what is most likely to occur.

For example, looking for a correlation between
A) How "corrupt" is a country?
B) How "Socialist" is a country?

Of course it is also difficult (I think not impossible) to define and measure "corruption" and "socialist" to some practical degree of precision. But if this hurdle is overcome, and these measurements are taken year after year, and we see that as a country becomes more socialist it becomes more corrupt (and/or vice versa), this would be scientific evidence that the amount of socialism is related somehow to the amount of corruption. Note that I am not using historical examples here. In other words, the hypothesis that degree of socialism is unrelated to corruption (during the period of time measured) will have been falsified. This seems to be pretty clear cut science to me.

Note that whether or not this finding will still apply 100 years later after various cultural, geopolitical, and technological changes have occurred would still be an open question. To get good enough data to answer that, these types of experiments would probably need to be done on the scale of millenia.

How about a theory that can't be falsified, only verified? For example:

Hypothesis H: Building a machine that performs X is possible.

If X is no violation of physical law or logic, how can you propose an experiment to falsify H?

For example:

Hypothesis I: Building a heavier than air flying machine is possible.
Hypothesis II: Building a conscious AI is possible.

and evolution impossible to falsify, so according to popper, evolution is unscientific.

Popper is spinning in his grave. Most, if not all of science is unscientific, then, because nothing can be replicated *exactly*. Any historical science such as Paleontilogy and Darwinian evolution would definitelly be unscientific.

china is more capitalistic then USA, its run by a strong government supporting big corporations. 

Every country is an experiment, but it cannot be replicated, making it unscientific and not of significant worth to other countries. Look at the USSR and look at China. China is doing much better than the USSR even with a similar form of government.

What do you mean? You think every country isn't its own experiment?

You both must be joking, of course. Not my kind of humor sense, sorry.

Did you see the chart I made? It was only some preliminary thing, but there are ways to get data and find out if they support your claims rather than just arguing about vague questions. This was figured out 300 years ago, get with the times. Both of you.

American's love socialism, they just hate admitting it lol.

So...did socialism mess up Portugul? or corruption? Would the same have happened if the corrupt weren't so corrupt and held accountable for their actions? Would it have also happened with the same people but in a capitalist state where they set the laws?

It sounds like an increase in responsibility is what you crave. Irresponsibility can exist in capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, minarchism, Santaism, you name it. Isms don't teach you personal responsibility, your peers do.

you are getting philosophical:


and we are getting off topic.

That makes sense and all, but it was not tested in the study that Dan Pink referenced. More than that, an alternative theory was proposed by the researchers who did the work. That is why I say he "pulled it from his ass."

I disagree. You are assuming you can have perfect info about the black swan existing. Perhaps there is something wrong with your measuring device (eyes + brain) or it was an illusion. It is very, very unlikely that people would mass hallucinate a black swan... but look at the success of religion.

Yep, that's basically what I said (or at least meant).

But thanks for getting the quintessence out of it.

Although I am not willing to accept the "there is no basis" part.

Yeah, just sounded like a cool thing to say. Sorry for not being too accurate about it.

Critical Rationalism

The evidence is that a people, who could sit on their lazy asses switching from sleeping to eating and having sex do stuff like creating art (writing, painting, playing music, programming) without an interest to make money, that people starting at early age compete pretty much everywhere, even and especially in games when they could as well sit/sleep/fuck, that people contribute to a lot of things without expecting anything in return. Maybe and this is even likely it's a social aspect - they want to impress. Also who doesn't love the feeling of accomplishing something, even if it's nor for something like money? Lots of evidences.

A huge thanks for the links.

Also thanks for your replies. Folks like you are why I love this community!

NO.
example:
hypothesis: all swans are white.

evidence: 1000 white swans.
conclusion: hypothesis is LIKELY to be true.

evidence: 1 black swan
conclusion: hypothesis is with 100% certainty false. (not 99.999999999999999999999% certainty but 100% certainty).

Please read Popper.

I mean this isn't my area of expertise so maybe I am wrong. This is getting off topic but here is my reasoning:

Axioms of probability theory:
• 0 ≤ Pr(A) ≤ 1,
• Pr(A) = 0 when A is known to be false,
• Pr(A) = 1 when A is known to be true,
• Pr(A)+Pr( not A)=1 ,
• Pr(B)=Pr(B,A)+Pr(B,not A)

Bayes Rule:
• Pr (A|B)=[Pr (B|A) Pr (A)] / [Pr (B)]

A is your hypothesis
B is the evidence
" | "means "given that"
If the hypothesis is true given the evidence then Pr (A|B)=1. This is inversely proportional to Pr (B). So as Pr (B) approaches 0, Pr (A|B) approaches 1...

Well, you can say it is very, very implausible given the new evidence. Since you never have perfect information, proving is like dividing by zero. In laymans terms you can say newtonian mechanics was proved inaccurate though.

what is the payment, can you then ask? money? fun?
some people find it fun to clean streets, or just doing something.
doing dangerous work, can also be a motivator.

So falsifying a theory is nothing more than gathering evidence against it? To my understanding, science proved Newton's theory wrong (even though it may still be useful). And proving something wrong is also a prove.

Now that some people do work without immediate material benefits does not prove anything about the general validity. Noone keeps doing dirty, dangerous and nasty work that is even considered dishonorable if they are not compensated for it. If cleaning streets 48 hours/week is not paying considerably better than not doing anything, nobody will go clean the streets.