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There is a lunatic fringe to both Left and Right, though. The pictures of leftie antivaxxers in the OP obviously belong to such a fringe. What I meant was that we can all chalk up left and right nutcases till the cows come home, but on its own that means little. I suppose the point we are all making in the thread, in our different ways, is that something different and sinister is going on today, viz. that loony ideas seem to have migrated from the lunatic fringe to become mainstream in today's US Republican party. It's Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style", but on steroids. Rupert Murdoch is largely to blame, in my opinion, by treating news as entertainment and thus opening the gates to distorting news without limit, to fit the prejudices of a segment of the viewers. The internet has made it worse, and Trump has capitalised on this to create an entire political movement divorced from reality, that dismisses both science and other evidence-based sources of information when it suits them.

But requiring everyone in a venue to wear a mask protects everyone, including me. By wearing it in public, I'm not just protecting myself and possibly others, I'm also encouraging the practice of safety in general. People are more likely to comply if they see others doing it.

When people ask me about masks and COVID-19, I am showing them videos captured in slow motion, thermal spectrum, comparison of how much different kinds of masks release aerosols around ill person:

On June 7, 2021, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew closer to Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Ganymede than any spacecraft in more than two decades. Less than a day later, Juno made its 34th flyby of Jupiter. This animation provides a “starship captain” point of view of each flyby. For both worlds, JunoCam images were orthographically projected onto a digital sphere and used to create the flyby animation. Synthetic frames were added to provide views of approach and departure for both Ganymede and Jupiter.

Pitty. You have never disappointed. 👍

Like I said before, Stellar Nucleosynthesis occurred at the Sun’s core, not on the surface. So unless you and conjurer can think of way to move the gas from surface (photosphere) through dense convective zone and then to the radiative zone to eventually to the star’s core. Each layer of the sun, are hot dense plasma, but each layer below is higher temperature. I don’t see this conjecture from conjurer is going to work.

Calm down. I was in the middle of edit, searching for videos to attach.. writing/replaying on mobile is PITA.. Viruses (in aerosols ejected by ill people) can infect you also through eyes.. https://www.google.com/search?q=virus+infection+through+eyes https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00040-9/fulltext

If one follows the actual data, it is actually not terribly conflicting. The issue is more of one nuance. Masks have a higher impact on the wearer not infecting others, but offers only limited protection in most cases. It is not nothing, but even cloth masks provide a little bit of barrier. As iNow mentioned, specific masks and respirators can provide more protection for the wearer, but requires proper fitting and correct use, which is not often feasible for day-to-day use for many folks.

If I may provide an opinion on just this bit, sport is an outlet for our natural aggression and baser drives. Although humanity is our world's pinnacle intelligence, we remain a primitive, primal species whose only predator is itself. We are driven by that predation to best each other in a continuous and unending struggle to prove we are superior and deserving of survival and our place above all others. Even our solitary efforts in sport, where our only opponent seems to be ourselves, we are driven by our insecurity against the mere appearance of vulnerability in eyes of observes.

The distinction is that it's not coming from women's sports organizations, who would be obligated to come up with an acceptable and workable set of rules, rather than simply make supportive statements.

Also the "time isn't a real dimension" argument

Right, in 1920 women weren't allowed to compete in 16 compettions that men participated in. But since then, also in the past, some sports, including the ones women were barred from in 1920, have become available as an equal platform, for women to compete in. I don't see why you interpret 'the past' as 100 years ago, but not 60, 40 or 20 years go. And we're trying to tell you that triangular pegs don't fit into round or square holes. Your solution ( without gender categories ) seems to be same pegs and same holes. So that we end up getting rid of 50% of participants ( women ) in competitive sports, because they simply cannot be competitive anymore. All to benefit INow's 6 competitive trans athletes 😄 . The claim was made for some sports. Obviously not in 1920, but certainly for some sports since then. Don't be so selective about what is considered 'the past'. Quite right. It's just another slippery slope strawman style argument... Then what exactly is being suggested ? We are told a triangular peg won't fit into a round or square hole, so the choices are either triangular holes for triangular pegs ( as we are suggesting ), or, same pegs and holes. If you are not suggesting same pegs and holes, are you trying to suggest 'shoe-horning' triangular pegs into square or round holes, thereby mutilating the integrity of the pegs or the holes ? Then you've been taking part in your own little imaginary discussion, because for 25 pages we've been talking about competitive sports, at the elite level, where athletes earn a living from the competition. Those have been all the examples presented, along with the suggestion that rules are needed for some cases. It's a little late to try and spin it as a different argument after 25 pages. I like discussing things with you INow, but it really bothers me when you imply that anyone who disagrees with you argument is transphobic. Please stop doing that. Also stop tryng to equate 'stuffing' transwomen into women's competitive sports categories, with gay marriage, or gay rights. It was explained to you about 22 pages ago why the two are not the same. One doesn't infringe on anyone else's rights ( gay marriage ), the other does ( transwomen competing against ciswomen ).

May be relevant to the discussion: http://www.olympedia.org/lists/55/manual https://www.insider.com/michael-phelps-weight-of-gold-olympians-suicide-depression-epidemic-2020-7 I'm not suggesting that these sources can be taken as particularly rigorous, or that any conclusions should be immediately drawn. Depression seems to be very common among elite sportspeople, whether successful in their careers or not. But upon first inspection, it doesn't seem that successful sportspeople are spared a lot of this alleged suffering. Gold medalist Jesús Rollán was a case very much debated in Spain 15 years ago: I haven't made up my mind on this topic. If I wanted to give an idea of what I think it would be a collage of sentences by other members. I agree with some points by @Peterkin and @Prometheus, but I'm not blind to the fact that sports have many positive values, aesthetic included, mainly represented by @beecee. I suppose it's one of those things that can make you or break you.

I don't understand the title question. What exactly do you mean by someone "manifesting" their reality? Sidenote: have you tried stepping in front of a moving bus? I've heard that resolves the "reality isn't real" question for many.

As you posted this question in the Quantum Theory section, I'm going to assume you're pitching it at consequences of the holographic principle for human experience. Unfortunately there are none that we can discern so far. It is too fundamental, and at the same time too poorly understood, for anybody to be able to draw any conclusions for consciousness or any other presumably emergent phenomena (big clusters of matter doing something collectively). 'The universe is a hologram' is a catchphrase for a deep physical principle that is in the process of being understood. There is no direct connection to the double-slit experiment either. The connection may be more elaborate: quantum fluctuations being related to gravitational entropy.

Somebody could punch you in the nose, or put a glass of beer in your hand, I guess. But if the universe is a hologram, and we're part of the universe, we're obviously not real, but somebody much bigger, and clever enough to to project a hologram that looks so much bigger from the inside, probably is, but has no motivation to prove it to his holographic creations.

The section across Lakes Superior and Huron would have been quite the engineering challenge. Superior is 1300 feet deep in places. Never mind that we clever Americans have developed technology like ropes and ladders. It took us a while to catch up with the Mesopotamians, but we're very persistent people.

Yes, basically. At very low doses most mercury can be excreted with a half life of a few days to two weeks. However, especially at higher dosages the excretion pattern becomes more biphasic with a the fast phase (i.e. <2 weeks half life) only eliminating part of the ingested mercury. The rest follows a much slower (1-2 months half life) elimination pattern. If your intake outpaces the elimination time, you start accumulating which can result in issues.

Yes, wonderful illustration of patterns emerging from collective behaviour. Taken one by one these starlings seem quite "vulgar" as compared to other, more beautiful, birds. But when they team up to do this in the sky, they truly are a wonder of Nature.

No, there isn't- not among politicians who actually get elected. Did you read the thread I linked to? I kept on asking for examples of the Left wing nutcases. Nobody was able to provide any. It's not that left wing nuts don't exist- Piers Corbyn is a fine example. But the point is that, unlike the Right wing, these people are never given a role in any mainstream party. There really is a big difference. No. It belongs in the "fake" category. That picture is "old". Someone has just written the new words (the leftie antivaxxer meme text) over a old picture. "She" does not exist. She was invented by someone to discredit the Left. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/college-liberal So, at best, you have an example of a college student who is a hypocrite. Well, the thing about students is they are still learning... Are there any instances of any credible Left wing politicians saying that the vaccines don't work or that the virus is a fake- you know- like Trump did...?