[phil_20686]

Turnout in Virginia was so high that a polling station ran out of ballots at 2pm.

[dwar0123]

 phil_20686, on 2012-November-06, 18:20, said:

Turnout in Virginia was so high that a polling station ran out of ballots at 2pm.

You staying up for much of this? I see it is past midnight where you are

[Vampyr]

 phil_20686, on 2012-November-06, 17:37, said:

(if you believe strongly in free will you are likely to give little weight to the argument that having lethal weapons lying around increases the chance of arguments getting out of hand).

I think you have said the opposite of what you were trying to say. If you believe in some sort of predetermination, whether you get shot or not has long ago been decided, so it doesn't matter if there are guns around; what will happen will happen one way or another. If on the other hand you believe in free will, you realise that if there are "lethal weapons lying around", someone could make a hasty decision to pick one up and use it.

[dwar0123]

 Vampyr, on 2012-November-06, 18:26, said:

I think you have said the opposite of what you were trying to say. If you believe in some sort of predetermination, whether you get shot or not has long ago been decided, so it doesn't matter if there are guns around; what will happen will happen one way or another. If on the other hand you believe in free will, you realise that if there are "lethal weapons lying around", someone could make a hasty decision to pick one up and use it.

Actually the argument works on both ends.

If you believe strongly in predetermination, than nothing matters. At all.

If you believe strongly in free will, than you believe people should be able to make all the stupid choices they want and face the consequences as they come.

[TimG]

 Vampyr, on 2012-November-06, 16:11, said:

So calling Obama a Muslim is supposed to be insulting? I don't have any respect for religion, but still I think this is sick.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself, but a few days ago someone told me they weren't voting for Obama because they thought he was "on their side" and by "their" this person meant "Muslims".

[phil_20686]

 Vampyr, on 2012-November-06, 18:26, said:

I think you have said the opposite of what you were trying to say. If you believe in some sort of predetermination, whether you get shot or not has long ago been decided, so it doesn't matter if there are guns around; what will happen will happen one way or another. If on the other hand you believe in free will, you realise that if there are "lethal weapons lying around", someone could make a hasty decision to pick one up and use it.

No, if you believe strongly in free will you are likely to parse it as "Man A decides to kill man B, then man A looks for way to kill man B", ergo: guns don't kill people, people kill people.

If you believe that peoples decisions are strongly shaped by environmental factors you might instead think that the mere fact of owning a gun makes you more likely to think using it is an option in any given situation.

Of course, these are generalisations, but the correlation between religion and guns in the evangelical regions of the US is not a coincidence.

[TimG]

 luke warm, on 2012-November-06, 17:30, said:

of course not... we have a constitutional amendment on that

Slavery was OK before there was a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting it?

[Vampyr]

 phil_20686, on 2012-November-06, 18:40, said:

No, if you believe strongly in free will you are likely to parse it as "Man A decides to kill man B, then man A looks for way to kill man B", ergo: guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Well, OK, but having a gun makes it a lot easier.

Quote

Of course, these are generalisations, but the correlation between religion and guns in the evangelical regions of the US is not a coincidence.

Maybe, maybe not. Bible-belt dwellers are much more likely to live in areas where hunting is popular. I do not think that there is anything particularly Christian about gun ownership.

[phil_20686]

 dwar0123, on 2012-November-06, 18:35, said:

Actually the argument works on both ends.

If you believe strongly in predetermination, than nothing matters. At all.

If you believe strongly in free will, than you believe people should be able to make all the stupid choices they want and face the consequences as they come.

So by "believe strongly in free will" I meant, "believe strongly that the decisions that you make are actually choices", as opposed to being basically determined by environmental factors. Societal attitudes to this question have moved a long way. in the 1900's it was believed that most character traits were essentially completely inherited, and that you could therefore alleviate criminal tendencies through eugenics. By 1970 most of the intellectual left believed in the blank slate hypothesis.

[phil_20686]

 Vampyr, on 2012-November-06, 18:49, said:

(1)Well, OK, but having a gun makes it a lot easier.

(2)Maybe, maybe not. Bible-belt dwellers are much more likely to live in areas where hunting is popular. I do not think that there is anything particularly Christian about gun ownership.

(1) I think the rates of pre-meditated murder is the same pretty much everywhere. If you decide to kill someone in cold blood there are a lot of everyday objects that make perfectly serviceable weapons.

(2) So we are not talking about gun ownership, so much as attitudes to gun control. Owning a hunting rifle does not seem to be strongly correlated with whether you think rocket launchers should be legal....... I mean the gun associations in the US once held a protest over legislation requiring a waiting period for buying a military grade assault rifle. We are talking about whether you think assault weapons and sub machine guns should be legal, not hunting rifles or shot guns.

[phil_20686]

So both ohio and virginia are classed as "leaning republican" with 60-40 to romney, but only a few % of precincts are in.

Ok so now a few more precincts are in and ohio now 50-50

[hrothgar]

 phil_20686, on 2012-November-06, 19:01, said:

So both ohio and virginia are classed as "leaning republican" with 60-40 to romney, but only a few % of precincts are in.

Ok so now a few more precincts are in and ohio now 50-50

Exit polls from Ohio are suggesting 51-48 for Obama

[phil_20686]

 hrothgar, on 2012-November-06, 19:10, said:

Exit polls from Ohio are suggesting 51-48 for Obama

there are now about a million votes in in both ohio and virginia, and it is now obama in ohio and romney in virgnina, both by margins of about 15%. Anyone know roughly how many votes we are expecting in these states?

[hrothgar]

 phil_20686, on 2012-November-06, 19:40, said:

there are now about a million votes in in both ohio and virginia, and it is now obama in ohio and romney in virgnina, both by margins of about 15%. Anyone know roughly how many votes we are expecting in these states?

Please look at my earlier post about early returns in Ohio...

The pattern of returns varies enormously over time. You can't use early margins to predict much or anything...

[MickyB]

Indeed. Nate is looking at results more closely, says Florida basically tied, sure he'll comment on other states shortly.

[PhilKing]

Obama is 1.13 on Betfair. Does that mean I can go to bed?

[y66]

Virginia is extremely heterogeneous. North and south of the Rappahannock River are 2 different worlds with most of the north leaning toward Obama and most of the south leaning toward Romney. So, it depends a lot on where the early #s are coming from. I will be pleasantly surprised if Obama pulls off another win here as he did in 2008 and disappointed but not surprised if Tim Kaine (Dem) loses the senate race to George Allen.

[MickyB]

 PhilKing, on 2012-November-06, 20:14, said:

Obama is 1.13 on Betfair. Does that mean I can go to bed?

Romney has even collapsed on Intrade now

[PhilKing]

1.08 now - I'm nearly ready to call it. The election pundits are still trying to drag it out, though.

[Vampyr]

 phil_20686, on 2012-November-06, 19:00, said:

(1) I think the rates of pre-meditated murder is the same pretty much everywhere. If you decide to kill someone in cold blood there are a lot of everyday objects that make perfectly serviceable weapons.

OK, whatever. I really suspect that the Colorado Batman murderer would have been less successful if he'd had a paperweight instead of guns, but what do I know.