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At 11/3/06 03:16 PM, Begoner wrote: It is impossible for 2 teams of 5 people each, working independently from each other and
not sharing information with each other to perform equally well as 2 teams of 5 people each, working with each other and sharing information. It just doesn't make any sense to assume that you will be perform better if you are restricted in your access to information.

That is a false statement, Begoner. First of all, effectively nothing is impossible when discussing human interactions. Past history has clearly shown that multiple groups working independently can achieve solutions excellent for their unique methods, while multiple groups collaborating can be counter-productive through conflict or completely destroy their chances of success by all pursuing a false path to a solution.

You cannot assume that either situation will perform better than the other, but if all groups have relatively similar source information, the isolated groups will likely be more effective overall because they will pursue independent solutions, not link onto one idea and have half the effectiveness because of communication barriers and conflict.

At 11/3/06 04:33 PM, Archon-John wrote: According to nigh every religious text, God (whatever religion) is omniscient. Otherwise known as all-knowing. In fact, a prerequisit for deity status is all knowing and all powerful.

Actually, that isn't true. For most of history, gods have not been omniscient, only highly knowledgeable. The Abrahamic god is essentially the first and only omniscient deity so far.

Just look at the Roman/Greek pantheon for a quick example: Zeus and the other "gods" eliminated the Titans, their parent deities, through trickery-- which obviously means the Titans were not omniscient. The gods did not know everything, they were just like super-humans.

Ehh, your reasoning isn't quite accurate, but you did get one aspect of the effects of the war right-- Iraq and Afghanistan were both turned into examples for the rest of the world, but not for the reasons you assume. Oil was not the real motivator.

At 11/2/06 04:55 PM, EternalRabbit wrote: Do your brains exist?

The same goes for God!

Actually, not quite. I think you messed up that cliche'd argument. The brain is a physical object which can be observed; God is not, so no analogy can be made between them. I think instead you mean does your "mind" exist, since it appears to be a non-physical thing as well (but it actually isn't).

So in three whole days, you manaed to travel 166 miles. Last weekend, I drove 515 miles from where I lived to Albany, NY in 10 hours. In the second half of the day, I had meetings and got work done.

With your plan, it would have taken me nine days to reach Albany, and the same coming back.

No matter how good exercising felt, it isn't a good solution to actual travle. THe failure of most Americans to stay in shape is not because of the use of cars, it is the lack of actual workouts. Crippling our nation with only bicycles wouldn't help, especially for older people.

Jwelch, stop trolling.

Your joke sucked when you started, and it's just getting worse. Stop trying to bait people with the stupid "evangelist" act and just drop it. No one here is dumb enough to actually buy that kind of viewpoint, and it can't be that amusing.

Stop trolling.

I should warn everyone in this thread, since it may not be totally apparent:

Jwelch is a troll. His "evangelical" attitude is really a front-- he is just baiting.

You're never going to "convince" him because he doesn't believe it already, but he is clever enough to find all the falsification necessary to justify his supposed position. He's really just trying to lure you in with his bull.

Don't feed the troll. Just have the debate without him.

At 10/29/06 05:29 PM, Peter-II wrote:

At 10/29/06 04:28 PM, Draconias wrote: Cmon, people, you should know not to feed the troll.

Hah, yeah, but I actually think he's being serious. I have met numerous people like him.

He may sound serious, but I am completely sure that he is only baiting. He isn't impersonating a "true believer" quite well enough, and his shift in tone over the thread to a more provocative posting pattern makes it obvious that he is trolling.

It also helps that I've seen him troll in other threads as well.

At 10/29/06 02:32 PM, jlwelch wrote:

At 10/29/06 02:20 AM, ImmoralLibertarian wrote:

At 10/29/06 12:57 AM, jlwelch wrote:

Now I’m absolutely positive you’re a troll…

I am nothing of the sort.

Jwelch, you absolutely are a troll.

Troll: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.
Dictionary

I can't quite figure out why so many people are responding to your obvious baiting.

Cmon, people, you should know not to feed the troll.

It's not a perfect solution, but it should at least slow the waves of illegal immigrants until we can pressure the politicians into a real solution. I think that we should heavily punish anyone who employs an illegal immigrant-- if you destroy the jobs for illegals by fining all the exploitative workers $3,000 per illegal, the illegals will leave of their own accord.

At least the wall construction will produce a good number of jobs and get money flowing into the economy, even if it isn't a complete solution. It's a step in the right direction, and if it is successful enough we might eventually get this problem solved.

At 10/28/06 05:58 AM, Camarohusky wrote: Those who are not of true faith would view the fossils as proff that god does not exist, whereas those of true faith would see that god created those fossils.
I find it amusing that you ask untenable questions and play it off as proof against a theory you cannot grasp.

Don't you see, Camarohusky, that those exact questions people have been bringing up are the reasons why God doesn't exist? It simply does not make any sense at all for God to:

* Make such a complex universe, most of which will be forever unreachable
* Fake 3.5 billion years of evolutionary patterns
* "Tweak" radioactive materials to decay slower now (to fake the dates)
* Create such unnecessary unpredictability and complexity in the universe
* Introduce threats that can simply wipe out Earth (blackholes, meteors)
* Create a dynamic planet which humans can destroy accidentally
* etc.

Furthermore, there are many unanswered questions about God:
* If you must have an Intelligence to create an humans (another Intelligence), how did that first Intelligence originate?

Simply saying that he "always existed" is a false answer, because that means that humans, the earth, and the universe could have "always existed." Either you can't create anything from nothing, or you can create everything from nothing. God doesn't get an exception based on faith.

* Why would a Benevolent Omnipotence create Evil?

If God is so loving, why did he create Satan and place the Snake in Eden? From the very beginning, when humans were supposedly too innocent to understand their own actions, God placed traps and Evils to plague them. Then, once humans left Eden, he gave them a world full of pain, evils, and death. What kind of "benevolence" is that?

* Why would an Omnipotence find it necessary to "test" humans?

Why waste entire humans lives in a pointless pursuit when a simple tweak of Omnipotent Power would make it so faith was an automatic and honest actions and ethics could be the test, not faith. Even the smallest child would realize that forcing everyone to start from zero every time is pointless.

* If God is the "one true God," then why do other religions exist?

If God is Omnipresent and Omnipotent, why do so many differing religions exist in the world? Why didn't God show his "Truth" to the people of the Americas, to the Africans, to the Australians, to the Indians to the Chinese? Why did they develop completely seperate religions if there is only "one true God" and humans are all equal? Even more, why did God allow his own people to split into so many different sects-- Judaeism, Islam, Christianity, and so many sub-sects. Why would he never clarify his word or introduce a prophet to the modern world to help sort out this pointless problem?

* Why is faith necessary?

There's all this talk about how God can't show himself because then faith would be pointless-- so what? Why do we even need faith at all? Why does it have to be a cloudy issue, one that causes violence and death, simply because God is too lazy to clarify a point or two in religion because he is afraid that people will "lose faith" by accepting him as fact? Fiath doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't disappear, it just becomes so strong that he seems like fact. Why does God have to hide from us?

--------------------
The questions go on, almost endlessly, but they all lead to one conclusion: the idea of God is so full of holes that it isn't believable. You simply can't justify every flaw in this "perfect" being with "it's because he wants to" or some other cop-out. Performing miracles wasn't a problem before, in the ancient times, so how can you justify his hiding at this time when he could be so helpful?

The only reasonable conclusion is that God doesn't exist, or at least not how you believe he does, and the Bible and Koran and every other book like that are simply collections of Myths, no different than the Odyssey or American folk tales.

Yeah, the polls have been calling against Republicans for weeks-- but that doesn't mean they're right. Last election the polls were off by almost 30% on the Republican votes.

I highly doubt Ohio will go as easily to the Democrats as you assume. In fact, I predict record voting levels among Republicans in Ohio in the elections as a reaction to the pre-emptive victory celebrations of the Democrats.

Ohio won't fall so easily, regardless of what polls claim.

At 10/26/06 05:33 PM, UnusQuoMeridianus wrote:

At 10/23/06 03:18 PM, Unrelenter wrote: How can you believe in God and Evolution? They're totally incompatible, there's evidence for evolution and well.... um... does the bible count as evidence if it's constantly being changed? either way, religion is normally forced on people whereas evolution isn't... so make your mind up people!

how are they incompatible? is it possible that what are feeble minds interpret as evolution, physics and the sciences are how God functions and influences our world? is it possible, since we are nothing but pathetic animals (for those creationists who keep saying that the earth is 6000 years old), that what was written in the Bible is only what we could understand and write and not an exact word for word account of creation?

Feeble minds? Pathetic animals? Humans are nothing of the sort.

Your argument simply doesn't hold up fora simple reason: the descriptive sciences don't include motive. Everything is a tendency towards a more stable (less energetic) state, which the exception of life. No means of expressing will exists in the natural laws, so they can not possibly be a result of God's will, only independent rules crafted by God.

Also, if you didn't rember, God is supposedly omnipotent-- meaning that he could make us capable of understanding anything he wanted. The Bible was written by humans, not God, and it reflects human bias and tendencies just like any textbook or sci-fi novel.

At 10/22/06 09:53 PM, fei-long3 wrote: Everywhere I go, I hear people complaining that they lost their jobs because of illegal immigrants. I hear them complaining that those immigrants should be disposed and must not be given a right, to the extent, to be a normal human being living in Aemrica.

Or are they really saying that illegal residents should not be given the same benefits as full citizens? Few propose violating rights, but many people support retaliatory action against individuals who are degrading the system and injuring them economically.

Now, what jobs do Amercicans like to do? White collar jobs? Just be there in the office and do the papers? Be like the millionaires that we see on TV?

There are not enough white collar jobs to support even half of the American population. The majority of people hold blue collar jobs-- and there is nothing wrong with that.

White collar jobs are simply an aspect of the American Dream, not a serious goal.

Most Americans like to do shortcuts in their works, where they just make the best of their whole 8 hours on not giving their best, and then demand a higher pay!

Do not generalize. It is inaccurate.

Where as people outside America are starving to death and will do ANY KIND OF WORK just to live.

1. Whose fault is it that they don't have enough food? Them.
2. Mexico has enough food.
3. Legal immigration is still possible.
4. Running away from a problem won't help solve it.
5. The US gives out more aid than any other country in the world.

I don't see any American working as a caregiver(wiping solid and liquid crap, changing diapers of seniors in carehomes, giving their own medications, maintaining the cleanliness of the home, and being abused to work 24/7 with no day offs),

Ever heard of a mother or father? They don't get paid for it, can't quit, and have to work a second job most of the time.

cleaning the lawns of other homes with that big blower and mower under the heat of the sun, and being a janitor. There are so many "dirty jobs" that most Americans don't want to do because of pride.

Want to do? Wrong. There are so many "dirty jobs" that Americans don't dream of doing, but which we do just as enthusiastically. It's not some absurd torture to have a job like that.

These jobs are the jobs that those immigrants are willing to do. Those immigrants are taking the "hard road" to achieve that American dream that we're enjoying.

If you haven't noticed, illegal immigrants destroy industries and generate their own "suffering" situation. Why do those jobs pay so badly? Because illegal immigants offer themselves up at the most abysmal prices and allow themselves to be blackmailed into exploitation, and we can't fix those industries because of them.

Trucking used to be a decent job. Butchers used to have respect. Mowing lawns and outdoor care used to be the job of teenagers. What has happened to those industries now?

Point is, THEY ARE WILLING TO TO ANY JOB WHILE THOSE WHO WHINE ARE NOT REALLY DOING THEIR JOBS!

Point is, they shouldn't be working such shitty jobs! It makes it worse for them, and everyone else, by furthering unacceptable situations. Illegal immigrants prevent the correction of problems by filling in jobs at absurd prices.

*blabbering* ... All WE all have to do is just lower our pride, accept reality, let those immigrants work to live, and then leave them!!!

Or we could fix the problems they further, like poverty, crime, exploitation, ghettoes, and more. No one should be in such a horrid siutation within America, and all of them just make it worse for everyone.

At 10/19/06 05:48 PM, Begoner wrote:

Why not guillotine him? It would be quick and painless, regardless of his medical condition(s).

Quick? Painless? I think not. Some people may live over 10 seconds after their head has been severed from their body.

Solution? Instead of using a blade to sever the neck, use a 5-ton weight to completely crush the head from the neck up. It would be a bit messy if not designed properly, but it would be almost instantaneous and completely lethal on the first try.

At 10/22/06 11:24 AM, jlwelch wrote: Also, the Origin of Species has a clear illustration of Darwin's that depicts a seperate evolution of black people and clearly implies they are less advanced.

The claims or beliefs of Darwin are irrelevant. Science is based on ideas, not scientists. Darwin was wrong on many points, but further development by other scientists has purified and improved the theory of evolution.

Also, it is worth noting that further developments in technology have only pushed back the dates for human development and the origin of the world. As time goes on, we are only becoming more sure that the 6K age is wrong.

Did you know that the Bible never declares the age of the planet? The 6K age was invented by a human-- a fanatic. There is no actual solid evidence in the Bible for that date.

At 10/17/06 03:34 PM, defactoidZERO wrote: The thing about creationism is that it is a spiritual truth. It is individual, and therefore, unarguable.

Nothing is inarguable. That sort of statement is just a cheap cop-out, used for when you have no way to justify your beliefs except admitting ignorance and mistake or exceeding your intellectual abilities to find a valid reason.

At 10/16/06 07:44 PM, Boarean wrote: and the word IF goes un noticed why

You said "if you think about it," it all makes logical sense. It is obvious that you did think about it, so I did as well and it does not make sense because the initial premise is completely unstable.

It makes sense. The government has been trying for decades to concentrate "vices" such as gambling into specific areas which can be regulated and monitored for safety. It makes good sense, at least for gambling,

Online gambling organizations don't benefit other internet users, and they are next to impossible to track and regulate. It makes perfect sense to attempt to break them down, from a politician's point of view, but I doubt they will be able to enforce it. The primary strength of the internet is how decentralized and uncontrollable it remains.

From what I've heard, the problem you are referring to in the media is called "Tabloidization." Media outlets believe violence, scandals, and drama will attract and interest readers or watchers.

If you ask me, it just pisses off the audience after awhile.

At 10/16/06 07:30 PM, Boarean wrote: My beleif is that god exsists, i mean its just one thing leading to another if you think about, ive watched all sorts of ghost shows so if they excist then theirs an afterlife,

And I've read a bunch of conspiracy theory websites, but that doesn't make it true. Ghosts are exactly like werewolves, vampries, undead, and other myths. People love to pursue them, but they're fake and almost everyone knows that truth.

Nothing has changed. The market is simply profitable enough that all aspects of human sexuality and perversion can be expressed on the internet.

These aspects existed before, but information was not so freely distributed that you would notice. Ever looked into Victorian Era pron? Those people were freaks, even compared to today's standards.

At 10/16/06 03:50 PM, Begoner wrote: In an ideal semi-communistic society of my liking,

Ah, if only "ideal" existed in the real world. The primary reason Capitalism is so successful is because the people adjust it and maintain stability automatically.

Put simply, Capitalism is the rough-and-ready economic system for an imperfect world.

it would be much more effective if tasks could be sub-divided and the total data could be pooled.

Why do you think scientists follow that system? With regard to new discoveries, almost nothing works better. However, developing applications of knowledge (engineering) does not benefit from such a system; competition drives application creation much better because it forces increasingly low production costs and increasingly higher quality.

If they are working against each other, they would never construct a horse-drawn carriage. Together, however, they would succeed.

If only scientists completed research with an end-goal in mind. It doesn't work that way. In real life, the man with the wheel would first create human-drawn carts (see Asia for examples), and the man with the horses would first create riding beasts (see post-colonization Western North American Indian tactics).

The only thing keeping the two ideas seperate is communication-- not competition. In a competitive system, anyone who saw both human-drawn carts and horses would be encouraged to combine them because it would be an improvement over both items. Thus, the first few encounters of the two technologies would result in the profitable combination.

This applies to many different areas -- hell, look at how various video games are coded. Each person is responsible for several functions, which, when pooled together, form a complete game. However, if more manpower resources were available, the games could be that much better because the work could be divided in a more equitable manner.

Small design companies prove you wrong on this point. Microsoft is not better at coding and creating products than Lionhead Studios, even though Microsoft has a massive production staff and can afford any programmer. More manpower does not make better products, but a competitive system does push better products to the forefront automatically and encourages further development.

No, it would "obviously" be faster if there was a 0% unemployment rate because there would be more people in the road repair business.

Who says they would be? Very few people want to be in the road repair business, and if it was possible I assume most would find safer, easier jobs. Highway construction workers currently have the highest fatality rate among all professions.

Capitalism automatically deals with problems such as a highway worker shortage by generating incentives for more people to enter highway construction. Communism requires active management to create those incentives, which requires recognizing the problem and having the capability to create incentives.

And you assume that Capitalism means a single person works on each issue? Wrong. Capitalism forces group efforts to be effective. However, groups are only useful to a certain point where they become too big and cumbersome. Communism favors the large end.

No, I do not assume anything about capitalism. However, if a group has an extra member, there is no way in which that group could be less effective than it was previously.

Have you ever worked a big company for a few years? There absolutely are people who hurt group work, especially those who are abrasive, domineering, unreliable, or subversive.

However, there is no such thing as a group that is "too big" being less effective than a smaller group. If worst comes to work, the big group could tell a few people to just shut up and do absolutely nothing, thus making them equall y efficient as a smaller group. However, everybody does contribute, so that's a moot point.

Sorry, but no. Costs never go away, since one sense or another (such as food supplies) always exists. Unproductive group members hurt the group since only so many resources exist to use. If everything was limitless, Communism would be great, but as a system it can't deal with dangers, such as drought, famine, etc.

Extra people may seem okay when times are good, but when you only have enough food for 80% of the people to survive, that wasted manpower begins to hurt.

At 10/15/06 07:07 PM, Begoner wrote: How does it cause stagnation of the infrastructure and technology?

Competition produces motivation. Enforced-collaboration produces a stagnant, unchangeable system because all of the "collaborating" decision-makers have a deathgrip on the system. Just look at the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages.

If anything, it improves the rate of construction and of discovery. Do you think that we'll discover a new medicine faster if we have 10 scientists work together, or competing against each other?

10 scientists competing, while seperated into collaborative groups. It gives the benefits of collaboration without the organization head-aches or over-concentration on a few inssues. It gives the benefits of competition without overly-isolated working or opponent elimination.

Do you think that we'll repair roads faster if we have a 4% unemployment rate or if we have a 0% unemployment rate?

Obviously it would go faster if there was a 4% unemployment rate because no new roadworkers would be available for hire with 0% unemployment. If someone quits, you're not getting another.

Anyways, the "0%" unemployment of Communism is simply a lie. It is an artificially created figure, because the society still doesn't use those people.

Communism allows for the full application of human resources, and a more efficient application thereof -- obviously, a group of people will be more productive than a single person.

And you assume that Capitalism means a single person works on each issue? Wrong. Capitalism forces group efforts to be effective. However, groups are only useful to a certain point where they become too big and cumbersome. Communism favors the large end.

Logically, it then follows that a group of people will be more effective than a bunch of people working separately on the same issue

Assuming that big group is following the right path to achieve the goal. The advantage of multiple independent groups working on the same problem is that they almost always find different answers. Not every path to a goal works, and certain ones are better than others, so the more options the better in terms of solutions.

Communism is simply a weakling in terms of economy, efficiency, and sustainability. It is an ideological system, not a pragmatic system, so it will never be particularly effective.

When you go into a battle zone, you will be at risk from crossfire. How do we know it wasn't the enemy shots which hit the van?

At 10/10/06 09:58 PM, Cycloned wrote: I believe it was something like 70% of people who watched the Fox News Network thought that we had discovered WMD in Iraq. Which we both know never happened.

Actually, we did discover WMDs in Iraq. However, it was only chemical weapons like mustard gas and neurotoxins. It was not the nuclear weapons most people expected.

If you are tired of the liberal media, change the channel to Fox News. They are bound to have the lies that you are looking for. For me though, I will choose to continue to watch the “Liberal Media” because I want to know the actual facts of what is happening in the world.

Do you really believe that 50 channels with a liberal bias will be any more accurate than the single channel with a conservative bias? If you see any outright lies, you can call any news channel on it, but more often than not every news channel will be reporting on the same topic because they have the same news wires.

You may call it lying, but that's just another way of saying that you are heavily biased and completely untrustworthy for accurate opinions.

At 10/8/06 04:04 PM, the-man-who-knew wrote: They think their findings may well explain his genius for mathematical and spatial thinking.

What such researchers have always failed to prove is whether those brains began that wait or became that way. The brain is constantly changing, developing, and making new connections; it makes sense that people who actively and powerfully exercise their brains will have growth and improvement in the same way that weight-lifters have muscle growth and improvement.

In other words, simply because a world champion weight-lifter has massive muscles does not mean he was born with muscles that big and strong, putting him at an automatic advantage against everyone else. No, that weight-lifter worked and trained to make bigger muscles and become stronger-- meaning that theoretically anyone who put in the proper effort could become equally or more capable.

Chahlesh, the 911 conspiracies have been thoroughly disproven time and again. Unless you have something new to bring to the table, linking (or failing to) to websites that NG BBS users and countless others have already torn apart is pointless.

Just look on Wikipedia or something for the counter-arguments instead of wasting our time.

At 10/7/06 06:44 PM, Grotesk wrote: What's to say that the Law of Causality isn't incorrect? You yourself proclaimed that the "end" of a human life is just a change in the usage of its matter. What if the same principle applies to the universe, where its "end" is just a change in its function and the usage of the matter within?

The Law of Causality is the foundation of logic. You can not suppose that it is wrong, you must disprove it. If the Law of Causality is entirely false, then Science is simply irrelevant.

"End" is fake. There is really no such thing. But there is a beginning. Causality says every effect must have a cause-- and that is true. The human term "end" comes into play when the effect is a change in form. The universe will only "end" when it simply spreads out so far that everything interesting ceases to happen often, or when everything collects into several large blackholes and nothing else happens.

At 10/6/06 11:57 PM, BanditByte wrote: above average intelligence

Define "intelligence"