3,623 Forum Posts by "Ravariel"
At 5/29/11 06:25 PM, Iron-Hampster wrote:At 5/29/11 11:20 AM, poxpower wrote:yep, lol.At 5/28/11 11:02 PM, Iron-Hampster wrote:take that story however you want to, I thought it was trippy.Let me get this straight, I come back over and over again, TO LEARN and yet each time my memory is wiped clean?
???
So basically God is directing a mediocre Adam Sandler movie casting us as Ms. Barrymore?
... not one of the more enticing arguments I've heard.
At 4/27/11 05:07 PM, Camarohusky wrote:At 4/27/11 04:27 PM, Malachy wrote:I definitely disagree here. There are so many ways that the people can place blame. However this one is intentionally targetted at Obama because of his race. When people say he was born in Kenya, they don't say so because he's a Democrat, they say so because he's black.At 4/27/11 03:33 PM, Camarohusky wrote: All the "birther" phenomena is is a veiled excuse to act and vote based on Obama's race.Or a similarly veiled excuse to disagree with the mere fact their guy didn't win. Just like Dems during GW's presidency (even after he was re-elected).
When it boils down to it there are many other things that can be used to discredit Obama in people's minds, but so many have latched onto the ones involving his ethnicity.
Well, now many prominent birthers are moving on to questioning Obamas college record, claiming Affirmative Action was the only way he got into such prestigious universities. So, if nothing else they're getting a little more honest about their racism.
At 4/25/11 05:49 AM, WolvenBear wrote: I mentioned that it would be virtually impossible to override an Obama veto. You have just proven me correct. Next?
A) How is that different from any other pres? And B) no, that's not what you claimed. You claimed that Obama has deliberately and systematically quashed job-creating bills with his veto, which I just proved incorrect. Sigh, the word trolls are the ones who lie about what they say.
Is there a point, or are you pretending to have a point to pretend I'm wrong.
The point is that of all of the bills that Obama has signed, as an example of the "worst of the worst," you choose this bill? You need to rearrange your priorities. Also, it shows that he's not nearly as bad as you're trying to claim if this is the best you can do as examples of why he's so bad.
Yea, cause no one EVER looks at price before purchasing a service. *eye rollie
Sure, keep telling yourself that the tanning industry will collapse because a 10% tax got put on a ridiculously rare luxury good used mainly by those who have enough money that they won't notice an extra $8 on their weekly tanning bill.
Let's pretend your entire points are all valid. Why should this be in effect.
Well, it shouldn't.
Immense benefit for extremely little cost? Yeah, the horror of such a measure is astounding! Wow, Obama's SO bad, he wants to help out those who will have the most difficult time purchasing insurance!
Number of banks failing is not the only factor at play here. The context of the entire world was different, as was the type of bank failures at the heart of the problem.Yawn. Nonsense. "All factors that hurt my case are irrelevant!"
Where did I say anything was irrelevant? Or are you quoting your own philosophy?
Bored, sorry.
Me too... cellardoor6 was a much more interesting troll.
At 4/24/11 05:16 AM, WolvenBear wrote: Did I say that? Well, no I didn't. I said that the President was the final voice on whether job LEGISLATION passes. Since overriding his veto is unlikely, more like impossible given the two congresses he's had, he gets the final say.
Obama has vetoed a grand total of 2 bills so far. Neither of which had to do with job creation. You're full of shit.
(IE) The Food and Drug Administration is now authorized to approve generic versions of biologic drugs and grant biologics manufacturers 12 years of exclusive use before generics can be developed.[13]
GREAT! Increase the costs of generics AND increase the waiting time! Thanks for making health care more expensive!
By... two whole years! OMG! The HORROR!! Considering that the development cycle for most FDA-approved drugs is 7-8 years, that only gives them 4-5 years of exclusivity in order to make the multiple millions in development costs back.
(july) A 10% tax on indoor tanning took effect.
So tanning will decline and jobs will be lost. Awesome.
I'm sure this will cripple the tanning industry. *eyerollie*
(Sept) Dependents (children) will be permitted to remain on their parents' insurance plan until their 26th birthday,[22] and regulations implemented under the Act include dependents that no longer live with their parents, are not a dependent on a parent's tax return, are no longer a student, or are married.
So, long after most people move out of the house and live on their own, the insurer has to cover them? Yea, that doesn't affect companies bottom lines or anything.
The insurance is still paid for, it just lowers the burden on those who probably don't make enough to easily afford insurance. Also, the amount of insurance payouts that people from the ages of 21-26 use is miniscule. Statistically insignificant on anyone's books. This change is a huge help to kids just out of college that has a minimal effect on the bottom line of insurance companies. Profit losses will easily offset by the mandate that comes into effect in a few years.
Except they haven't all been paid back. My current fav on the "paid back list" includes GM:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424 052702303491304575188473069446344.html
Sorry, not paying to subscribe to read that article. What I could read is positive, so I'm not sure what you're complaining about.
No they don't. Look how many failed during the 80s, and we survived.
http://www.tutorgig.com/ed/Early_1980s_r ecession
Number of banks failing is not the only factor at play here. The context of the entire world was different, as was the type of bank failures at the heart of the problem.
In fact more banks failed in the early 80s and the recession was relatively short lived. A less than two year recession that has a double dip is pretty decent. Several months of loss, a year of growth, several more months of loss. Not the greatest, but hardly the awful 4 year nonsense we've got now.
The severity of our recession was because it wasn't just the banks that failed. We had a housing bubble burst and an auto industry crash AT THE SAME TIME as the bank crash. Had it only been the banks, we would already be out of the woods.
Paul Krugman is a moron, who claimed that doing nothing was "Herbert Hoover" economics. This, despite the fact that Hoover/FDR are a good parallel to Bush/Obama. The previous made the bad policies, the successor expanded them, and bad times were had by all. The Depression was caused by government foolishness not bank failures.
Way to provide that enlightening source, instead of spouting pure opinion. It's conscientious debate like that that makes me love this board.
1. Remove federal laws that allow states to ban citizens from purchasing out of state policies. More competition always leads to lower prices and more innovation.
Agreed 100%.
2. Remove state and federal mandates that require certain things be put on plans. If you want catastrophic injury insurance only, you should be able to buy it. This will drop insurance costs like a rock.
This one is more complicated than that. The thing with insurance is that it is cheapest and most effective when EVERYONE does it. It is also the most profitable for the insurance companies, because far more people are paying than ever need coverage. Also, the only way we can insure those who most need it (those with existing conditions, see below) is by mandating that everyone must purchase it. Otherwise you could just sign up for insurance while waiting for an ambulance with the "broken leg" pre-existing condition... that would definitely raise costs.
3. Remove any and all requirements that insurers cover adult/non-dependant children.
There is no requirement currently. The law merely states that kids may remain on their parent's insurance for an additional 5 years (compared to the previous policy).
4. Cut the requirement that seniors be on medicare. If they have private insurance, it is asinine, complicated, costly, and unnecessary that medicare pays anything on them. It is also a burden to them.
True, people should be able to choose which to use.
5. Eliminate any and all laws that force insurers to cover anyone with a pre-existing condition.
So, basically fuck those who need insurance the most. Very cost-effective indeed. Old and sick people are a drain on the economy anyway and if they shuffle off the mortal coil sooner, it's just better for everyone.
At 4/19/11 07:26 PM, stafffighter wrote: Still, If I needed surgery I'd prefer a doctor with more than google at their disposal.
Oh ye of little faith.
bow down to your new god, Google.
At 4/16/11 07:02 PM, adrshepard wrote: What was the basis for believing herself to be the opposite sex? What did she feel, and how did she know gender lay at the source? My biggest issue is this: If you take away the biological gender indicators and take away the social gender traits, what's left? Some vague feeling that's asymptomatic of all other psychological ailments?
What do you mean "basis?" What is the basis for you to feel male? Also, why would you take away either the biological or social aspects of gender identity at all? Both are present and interacting constantly to hold up a person's gender identity.
I don't know. What would I have left behind in my old body that made me comfortable as a man but which I would lack as a woman? I can't think of anything, nor am I consciously aware of anything besides my own anatomy that would define me as a male.
Really? Then I would suggest taking a few psychology, anthropology and sociology courses... not necessarily focused on gender issues, but those would work, too. I mean, have you never felt cognitive dissonance? We use the sum total of our experience to build our identity. How creepy would it be for everyone to call you "she" or "her"? Or to have to deal with the social politics that exist between members of the female gender?
And physically, especially sexually when relating to whatever gender you feel your attraction, can you even understand what it is like to be in the female position (lolpun)? Can you understand the desire to take a person inside yourself? Can you understand the feeling of wishing to carry and give birth to a child? Because all of this, and much more, are aspects of the female identity that you would have to deal with in a woman's body. That is what GDD is.
At 4/16/11 01:03 PM, adrshepard wrote: Yes, but what does it mean to "feel" like the opposite sex? There are two definitions of gender at play: social conventions that can be broken, and anatomy differences which are defined. If my desire to be a woman has nothing to do with social conventions then what's behind that desire at all? Discomfort over having or not having certain sex organs? Does that turn taking a piss into a depressing event for the transgender crowd?
The comment that made it click for me was on another online community. The transgender girl (MtF) said that it was more than just being uncomfortable with the appearance of one's body, but a significant and pervasive level of cognitive dissonance between what she believed herself to be and the anatomy she had. No man, gay or straight, that I know of has ever had the honest desire, almost need, to carry a child. She did. Even though her surgery made her outwardly female, this is something that could not be given, and is still a source of discomfort for her.
I mean, imagine if tomorrow you woke up in a woman's body. Past the initial fun of playing with all your new parts and getting used to the new distribution of weight and muscle, how would you feel? In your mind you are you, male and of whatever orientation you might be. But now you need to live in a woman's body as your own. Would that not be pretty uncomfortable after a while. I consider myself pretty damn chill for the most part. There are very few things I can imagine that would really bother me, but having the wrong body is probably on that list.
At 4/16/11 08:42 AM, JordanD wrote: If you shine light through a prism, you get the 7 colours of the rainbow. Each of these colours have their own wavelength, going from slowest frequency at the bottom of the spectrum, and the highest wavelength at the top.
Uh, no... you get hundreds of colors. Not 7.
You can see this pattern evident also in music, an octave is made of 7 notes, connecting the 7th with an 8th which is the start of a new octave. You'll also find it in the human Chakra system, so the pattern is connected to our beings at our core.
Actually there are 12 tones in the Western musical scale. You only see 7-tone octaves in septatonic scales in the middle and far east (pentatonics are actually more common).
This is exactly how the universe is too. Everything we can see in this dense, physical reality is in 1 of 7 realms within this octave of universe.
Please describe these other realms, and how they relate to our own.
At the moment, were not consciously aware of the other 7 realms because the matter itself is vibrating at a different frequency.
What frequency? And what frequency is required for the other ones? How do we measure this frequency?
There are hundreds of thousands of other species in our universe, were just not consciously aware of them because they too are vibrating at a higher frequency.
Not a lower one? How can you tell? Also, how does frequency pertain to perception. Do multiple frequencies react to each other? How does one detect this reaction?
Pretentious, sure.
Cowardly? That you may need to back up a bit.
Also, Bacch, don't try too hard to separate religion and culture. They are historically intimately intertwined and to try and purify either beyond a semantic (or hypothetic) point is treading heavily in easily arguable territory. The Dog and the Cow are still both animals, and share 90% or more of their DNA... to stretch the already thin metaphor.
This must be your class, right Seven?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badast ronomy/2011/04/13/jurassic-school-assemb ly/
At 4/8/11 07:23 PM, Camarohusky wrote:At 4/8/11 04:18 PM, Ravariel wrote: Also, to the question of homogenizing the gene pool to a dangerous level... why, if we had the choice, would we tend towards homogeny?I think your example of 'tailored people' and the freedom of chopice are heavily at odds.
Built for job X, but freedom of choice could lead to a great deal of Xers wanting job Y and so on.
Then they could tailor themselves for that job. Eventually we will be able to build ourselves as we wish to be. Not everyone wants to be a Football player... not everyone wants to be a concert pianist. This goes beyond engineering prior to birth... we will be able to engineer ourselves as we see fit.
At 4/7/11 01:59 PM, MultiCanimefan wrote: Eugenics is fine so long as it doesn't lead us to some technocratic scientific dictatorship.
How might it lead to such a state?
Also, to the question of homogenizing the gene pool to a dangerous level... why, if we had the choice, would we tend towards homogeny? The physical abilities that are most suited for marathon running are ill-suited for sprinting, Basketball or deep-sea fishing. The physical attributes that allow survival in hot climates do poorly in cold ones. The mental attributes that are best for the artistic side of things aren't as useful for the mathematical. If we gain the ability to create ourselves in whatever image we desire, why would we all create the same thing? We can all choose the same clothes... yet we don't. We can all choose the same music... yet we don't.
I believe that the human desire for both individuality and community will pull on that issue enough to make it a moot point. I also believe that the separation of abilities as the rich gain first access to the technology will not be fast enough to allow them to create a meritocracy that lets them impose a set standard for enhancement.
At 4/6/11 09:08 PM, SolInvictus wrote: so many fun moral questions and religious flame-war possibilities and no ones biting?
I know... I expected more from you, Newgrounds!
there is still the question of availability of genetic enhancements; will we be globally benevolent or will profits (or just about anything else i guess; its still the future) influence the lag between populations in so far as genetic improvement?
Well, of course there will be a lag. There always is. Look at Cell phones for a good example. 15 years ago, they were only for the rich. Today, they fuel revolutions in third-world countries and are ubiquitous throughout the world. The same happened with vaccines (though current retarded politics has allowed that shit to backslide... though that's a topic for another thread) with the rich western countries gaining the benefits first, then as costs decreased the rest of the world could benefit.
At first, yes, this will create a disparity between those with money and those without. It is also possible that the accelerated technology means that the richest will always have access to better gear, that, as tech advances, continually puts them farther and farther ahead of the poorer nations who will always be unable to catch up. Or, possibly there will coma a time when the rich are so far advanced and ahead of the pack, that their ability to bring the lower class along will outstrip the separation.
And that word is: Eugenics.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Zomgnazis, hitlerhitlerhitler wtfevil.
Now that Godwin's law is out of the way, shall we look at the reality?
The reality is that we already practice Eugenics. Using prenatal genetic testing, during the 80s and 90s over 90% of those cases that indicated the existence of Down Syndrome were terminated. Over 60% of Spinabifida cases were terminated. Over 80% of Anencaphaly cases were terminated. Over 70% of Turner Syndrome cases were terminated and over 50% of Klinefelter Syndrome cases were terminated. As our ability to safely test for these genetic disorders increases, we can similarly expect an increase in the number of terminated pregnancies. Though, if we look at the numbers, if all instances of these situations were terminated (an unlikely scenario) then the rate for abortion would rise from 2% to 3%.
However, there is another side to that. We already require married couples to get blood tests to check for possible incompatibilities that would increase the likelihood of serious genetic disorders. We use in-vitro fertilization that may choose the best embryos for implantation. The abortion rate is already falling, and tests to determine the viability and genetic makeup of embryos prior to implantation means that the incidences of these problems is likely to drop.
Using our medical technology to lower incidences of genetic diseases is eugenics. We do this. Terminating pregnancies that are severely disabled or otherwise genetically harmed is eugenics. We do this, too.
Eugenics is unfairly associated with an unfortunate part of our history, and is conflated with the massacre of those people considered to be "less human" or "genetically inferior" to those in power. The creation of a master race is not eugenics. Killing people is not eugenics. The improvement of the health and abilities of our species IS eugenics, and it is something that we already do, gladly, enthusiastically and, sometimes, sadly (in the case of terminating pregnancies). Eugenics is not about destroying life, it is about improving it. Why would we abort a pregnancy if we could fix the problem through gene therapy? This is obviously many years away yet, but certain types of in-utero gene therapy already exist... to expect that in 20-30 years that we can eradicate instances of debilitating genetic disorders such as Taysachs, Downs Syndrome and others is no stretch of the imagination.
Another dirty word that often gets chucked around with the boogeyman of eugenics is the idea of "designer" babies. The thought that we can combine parents' DNA in such a way as to bring about the best possible combination to create smarter, healthier, stronger children. But with gene therapy, as well as some other technologies coming down the pike, we can not only expect to be able to create designer babies, but designer parents as well. We have found the gene that creates obesity, and have shut it off successfully in mice, where they can eat as much as they want, gain all of the caloric benefits from that food, but do not store the excess in fat and are no longer subject to things like Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and other obesity-related issues... as well as lived 20% longer than the mice who were left with their fat gene activated. Human trials for this procedure are about 10 years away at this point.
Curing diseases is Eugenics. Vaccination is Eugenics. Transplants are Eugenics. They are all methods of improving the viability of the human species. They are all also ways of creating "designer" humans. Our methods currently are crude, and work in broad strokes, but our ability to fine-tune our modifications improves every year.
Like it or not, we live in a culture of eugenically designed humans, who value the superlative over the mediocre (or worse), and who will continue to better our lot in life, and that of our children. The question becomes, then, do we embrace the betterment of ourselves, our children and our species... or do we run like scared children and let our genes determine everything? Like it or not, again, you probably won't have much choice. Eugenics has touched you, your family, and the entire world... and we are all better for it.
note to mods: I know there are other eugenics topics out there, but they're over a year old and the discussions didn't really have the depth of information I felt was needed. Feel free to lock if you think this is too derivative and repetitious.
At 4/6/11 05:14 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Apparently the greatest minds in science agree with you there.
And who WOULDN'T want to ride a nuke rocket into deep space?
Well, to be fair, in this instance, it would be like riding the hardest single-stroke engine ever.
How telling is it that in a year with a sagging economy and a pres whose numbers are less than stellar, the only real movement on the GOP nomination front is Donald Trump, a joke, and a gay guy who no one knows anything about. Normally the primary ticket would be exploding with people trying to take advantage of an apparently weak president.
At 3/31/11 09:21 PM, JordanD wrote: I disagree. I found sicko to be rather accurate, just uncovering a small portion of what's really corrupt with the system. While it may say "This is the reason things are wrong here", that doesn't mean there's not MORE places where things are wrong, he's just talking about one of them.
Ugh... you just love the logical fallacies.
Actually shortly after walt disney died, the disney corporation got copyright laws rewritten, corporations got 95 years. I'm pretty sure this applies to pharma.
You would be wrong. Copyright and patent law are separate. Pharmacological items fall under patent law. That's why we have generic versions of... most drugs. If it was under the (frankly idiotic, but completely irrelevant) copyright system no generics would exist. They do, ergo you are wrong. QED.
For the record, if these pharmaceuticals take 10-15 years to be developed, how come pretty much every drug these days have such horrific side effects? Like everything gives you a potential chance of a heart attack.
Perhaps you should take some advanced biochem, microbio, pathophis, and anatomy courses. That you think that it should be easy to make a side-effect free drug in the span of 10-15 years shows just how little you actually understand about medicine and the industries that surround it.
And i didn't say that big pharma was trying to quash faith-based healing. For those running the show, they don't give a shit because they're making incredible amounts of money. Since there is incredibly slow rate of growth in pretty much everything these days, it's making it even harder for things like "faith healing" to come out.
"Slow growth rate?" What are you even talking about? Pharma companies generally run one of the lower profit-margins of companies that post earnings of that size, and they have grown exponentially in their ability to research and produce their products. We have gene therapy available to the public less than 10 years after we sequenced the human genome. It took us 20 years to sequence the human genome, it took 15 years to sequence HIV and 31 days to sequence SARS. Medical technology
expands at an exponential rate, just like any other technology. Our medicine over the last 15 years has turned HIV from a fatal condition to a chronic one. We have created prosthetic arms that allow people without arms to feed themselves without spilling a drop of milk from a spoon and also allow them to feel.
Growth rate of technology is exponential. We are literally 15-20 years away from human-integrated personal computing, 30-40 years away from biological immortality.
Quick primer on tech growth, including that of the medical and pharma fields.
It's not really something that I need to convince you of though. I can only talk about it, it's up to everyone else to find for themselves. I know that sounds cheesy, but it also is true.
So, basically you're saying that I can't be convinced until I'm convinced. Nice.
Cause anyone who's wrong about anything is either crazy or grossly ignorant, of course!Or perhaps they just have a different understanding than you.
Whoooooosh!
At 3/31/11 04:09 PM, JordanD wrote: It's not a huge conspiracy or anything, but if you've seen the movies Sicko or RIP: Remix, you'll have a better understanding of it. Basically there's essentially a global-lockdown of information that's getting more and more controlled... actually, yeah go watch RIP Remix right now. It's free to download and shows you the state of the global condition in terms of copyright.
Sweet Mithras, you're just pulling anything out and chucking it at the wall to see if it sticks, aren't you? Sicko is a pile of propaganda that fails at fact checking, cherry picks data, and tries to correlate unrelated events and point the finger at corporations as the one factor that causes medical problems. While I agree in principle that government funding and investment drives good research and is necessary to keep the lower classes healthy and give them access to health care, I am also aware that the private industry is also necessary, including that of insurance.
And your use of the copyright argument for pharmaceuticals is, point blanc, ridiculous. Patent law only covers 20 years, and since most pharmaceuticals take 10-15 of those years to be developed, tested, and approved for use in the public, most patents for new chemical compounds only last for 5-10 years, after which they are open to be manufactured as generics by other companies (who then have to spend little to no $$ in development). This allows companies to make back the millions they put into developing these medications while still allowing, in a very short time frame, the public to gain access to cheap versions of them. This is not a compelling point toward some big pharma attempt to quash faith-based healing, or to their supposed killing of medical advancement.
And yet, we DO. People who have experienced the healing through personal experience know how. Then we tell others about it, and people like you call us crazy. A good example is the Goodmans, one healed themselves from spinal injuries and broken bones, and the other willed cancer out of her body. They then decided to travel the world telling people about what they know and how to do it. Im sure you haven't actually ever listened to what these people actually say, let alone try it for yourself. If you really want to experiment, you only have to give it a try.
Way to totally not answer any of the pertinent questions posted in favor of a huge "nuh-UH!" answer. If "all you have to do is believe" is the best you can do... then you'll never be able to convince any member of the scientific or skeptic community.
At 3/31/11 01:38 PM, JordanD wrote: Or maybe the reason peer review didn't happen is because businesses, governments and anyone high up in the political hierarchy (related to healthcare) know that if this knowledge gets out in a serious, scientific way, then there will be much less money to be made. Considering much of the american healthcare system is a for-profit system, they wouldn't like that too much now would they?
Really?
...REALLY!?
Did you seriously just go there? It's now a big pharma/government conspiracy? Honestly, with all the woo you've been spouting so far, I shouldn't be surprised.
You can read tons of stories about healing all over the web, all of them saying "The reason i healed is because i did it inside first". In this case, it's not just correlation. They're not saying "i decided to feel better and holy shit, suddenly i got better! They must have something in common!". They're saying flat out "I had cancer, and i healed it myself."
And you can totally believe all of what you read on the web! Scientists aren't actually interested in treating/curing cancer, they just want to make money via big pharma, right? They're just trying to preserve the disease-ridden status quo for their own profit.
When enough people practicing this all over the world all say the same thing and have the same stories, it's no longer just a hypothesis. It's something we need to explore further.
Yeah, it is still a hypothesis. You have no idea what mechanism this may work through, how to trigger it, how to control it, or the efficacy rate. You have no idea even how to test it. You're BARELY even nudging into the hypothesis area. Read again the steps to the scientific method posted on this very page by the-universe. You've barely even been able to say this phenomena is an actual event and not just an outlier occurrence with very little causal connection to anything.
Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean you should reject it.
Said without a trace of irony... brilliant!
Next time you get an infection or a broken limb or, shiva forbid, something more serious... you heal yourself while being observed by several medical professionals, and THEN you'll have an event warranting further study. Until then you have isolated events with barely any correlational connection.
At 3/30/11 04:37 AM, WolvenBear wrote: But that's irrelevant. If a woman refused treatment, and got better, for lack of a better term, she DID will the cancer out of her body. A quick google/yaoo search brings up hundreds of articles on this woman, and none of them call her a liar. Other than smarmily saying "it's not peer reviewed"...what do you have? This happened, no one is contradicting it. Therefore, this case is proof you are wrong. Until someone has a better explaination, this is solid.
Do you understand why peer-review is important? Because it seems to me you don't. It's not just some other published fella looking at a paper and saying "that makes sense!" It's a slew of people mulling over methods, results, and questioning where observations might be attributed to causes not listed or tested for.
To wit: correlation does not equal causation, and in none of those stories is any possible explanation for the remission even seriously considered. Without a peer-reviewed study, there is no way to possibly determine that it was "positive thinking" that beat the cancer, any more than it was due to her watching a rerun of the 2nd season of Friends.
I wonder if the logistic and infrastructure issues wouldn't outweigh the benefits or make it prohibitively expensive?
My name's not Quickly, and whose bright idea was it to make the invisible generator invisible!?
I should hope so... they're supposed to give you anesthetic for surgery >_>
I applaud your patience over the last few pages, Bacch... You're a better man than I. >_<
At 3/13/11 10:57 PM, orangebomb wrote: Your thoughts?
Most safety concerns dealing with meltdowns, radiation leaks and waste disposal are outdated. Current technology is safer than coal plants, cannot melt down, and reduces waste to the point where it can be used in other applications. The hysteria behind the specter of nuclear technology is hyperbole propagated by people who don't understand it. That we don't have multiple plants currently under construction nationwide is a supreme failing of the government on several fronts.
At 3/11/11 07:15 AM, gumOnShoe wrote: SHOULD is an application of your morals, which are not derived from nature.
Are they not? Nearly every moral that exists in humans can be explained through nature. In fact, I would challenge anyone to give example otherwise.
There is nothing that says a fetus SHOULD not be aborted in nature. Civilization sometimes says otherwise.
Kant, being one of the fathers of the very idea of "natural" rights, gives us an easy counter to this example. Basically that if we normalized the practice of aborting fetuses, that we could not exist because we would bear too few children to continue the species. Similarly if we normalized the killing of children and adults as well, we would soon find ourselves extinct (Humans are nothing if not thorough hunters). Ergo, in general, life should not be artificially removed from an individual.
Now, as I have argued in the past, this obviously cannot be a universal law, as self defense and defense of others is also the artificial removal of life from a person, but for the purposes of preventing that very thing. At which point you are both moral (protecting life) and immoral (harming it). However, these rights as we give them in society, stem from the natural as benefit to our existence and the growth and evolution of those societies. As nature evolves, so do cultures and morals along with them, so the shift of morals over time is not to contradictory to the concept of "natural" rights as it may seem. In fact, in my estimation, it is strengthened, because the evolution of morals and rights as given by society merely follows the example of success given by nature.
At 3/9/11 09:00 AM, LazyDrunk wrote: Constituents is a loose term. I'd call it looking out for themselves. Screw the union monopoly and you lose the biggest supporter of the DFL. Why would they do that? ...and how do you discern the DFL motives?
Considering that is the very point of the republican's tactic, then protecting that flank is merely good strategy. And considering they're gathering the support of the people, this looks like a war that the republicans may lose in the end, even if they do succeed in busting the union.
At 3/4/11 09:10 PM, Al6200 wrote: One of the features of Heidegger's writing is the contraction of several words into nouns: ready-to-hand, present-at-hand, being-toward-death. Traditionally dasein means something close to "existence" or "life" in the German language, but Heidegger uses it to mean "Being-in-the-world". The choice of dasein over the contraction is mostly an aesthetic choice by those who translated the original German into English.
Yes, the idea of both being and relation. An object without relation cannot exist, nor can a perceiver without something to perceive.
Let's again return to the table from a Heideggerian perspective (which I would call modern). Heidegger begins by rejecting the idea that we can think of the table in terms of its properties. He says that the table does not exist by itself, it only exists as something experienced. If the table is ready-to-hand (that is, if it is being used), we may not be aware of the table or its properties at all. Merleau-Ponty extends the Heideggerian concept by explaining that even when we are simply grasping something, we are actively projecting it into the future and placing it into a world of significance.
Well, modern as in new, yeas, but philosophically, the focus on perception alone is a central tenet of post-modernism. It breaks down the duality of the cartesian way of thought (which, once brought into the social realm of nature/culture dualities becomes the tenet of "Modernism") into what is supposed to be a simpler paradigm.
I am beginning to remember the name from my studies, and there are several main issues with the philosophy as a whole. The first is that if we abandon things-as-objects in favor of things-as-experience, then we end up with a lack of understanding one facet in order to bolster another. An object cannot be perceived without first existing, which begs the question of the world outside our perception: can it exist without being perceived, when all we call important is that perception?
The second problem is that it uses Modernism's (or rather the cartesian) paradigm as the structure of it's deconstruction, tying it irrevocably to the very thing it is trying to break down. When we abandon a dualist view for one that merely removes one half of the picture, then we are not philosophically strengthened... rather we are weakened. Instead, we need to find a way that subject and object can co-exist as a hybrid object, as something of both nature and culture, that can contain both the observation, and the objective.
A third issue it raises is the homogeny of observation between observers of remarkably different experiences. Without a stable underlying ontology (whether or not the entirety of that "be"ing can ever be known) should we be able to expect such widespread agreement about the world? Without objects being able to enact each other into meaningful existence, how can an observer even ever become? And when all observation is gone, might the universe enact itself beyond that point?
Each individual can describe the whole of their experience. They can call this consciousness. Some modes of experience we can characterize as being-with-a-thing. If I pick up a rock, I characterize my experience with it as being-with-a-thing because it is wholly determined by physical laws that I understand. When I encounter a person, I characterize my experience as "being-with-another" because I recognize my projections as having some similarity to the choices that I would make.
And what of that rock before you came upon it? And what of your mind before you came upon the rock? Did your perception will it into being, or did the two, instead, interact... and ENact each other into a new reality? Staticness (and, similarly linearity) is a problem of human cognition. It is hard for us to conceive of a world in constant flux. We resist change, we find it hard to anticipate repercussions beyond a few steps. We try to simplify things into moments, into something we can capture and say "This: this is real. This is." But the instant we do that, everything changes. Consider it heisenberg's universal uncertainty principle: The moment we know something, it is (like the brand new computer we just bought) outdated and obsolete and every moment of less and less import to the "current" reality.
Perception matters, indeed. Even as you gaze upon the same words on the same BBS as I do, they are different. Read by different eyes, displayed by a different screen, from a different location, through a different set of infrastructure, and understood by a different mind. This creates a separate ontological reality from mine. But a related one, and one that is forged through our interactions with our tools, and through them, each other. Pure perspectivalism cannot do the magnitude of this event justice: it seeks too much paring down to make ease of explanation. Instead, if we see things as chains of interactions, forever shifting and reacting to each other, forever using hybrid objects that are neither pure perspective or pure object, but inseparable alloys of both, then we can get a clearer picture of reality... and the role that consciousness plays in it.
At 3/7/11 08:03 PM, SevenSeize wrote: I didn't have a wedding.
Or a cake.
But I do have bacon.
Sounds like a wash to me :)
Both, really. But yeah, a friend of mine had carrot cake for their wedding.
Yum.
