koti

DrKrettin, thank you for putting rigor into my argument, I sure can use it. I agree that Im operating too frivorously with the word "fact" and this can get me into trouble (and it actually does in some cases)I would like to adress one of your statements: "Newtons laws are wrong because they do not explain every observable motion" I disagree with this statement, imo you cannot put an equal sign between those two. If something is not complete it doesnt mean its wrong. I know you will probably say its semantics but I think that to say something is wrong we better have strong argumentation for it.

Evolution of species is a fact and cannot be disproven, there is too much evidence pointing to it being right. There can be added aditional information to the fact that species on earth are evolving making the theory of evolution a fuller set of information but there is no possibility to disprove evolution and substitute it with a different, alternative process. Just like General Relativity cannot be disproven, there is just too much experimental evidence prooving it right. There can be additional information added to GR which will make for a fuller view of reality. Just like Newton's laws are not wrong or have not been disprooven by General Relativity, only additional information was added to make for a better, broader view.

This is englighting to me CharonY as I have virtually zero knowledge on these things. So to dumb it down, the removal of particulate matter is more efficient on organ level rather than on cellular level ? If so, how is it done in the case of tar in smokers lungs? Im a smoker myself and Im kinda getting ready to quit.

I see 2 options: 1. Work out a lot and eat what you want and you will be fine. 2. Don't work out and mind what you eat and you will be fine (more or less) In my opinion junk food is far away on a list of delicious things to eat.

I believe you. The other week we went to the zoo with our son and I was lucky to stand face to face with a gorilla male with glass in between us. I felt seriously intimidated, the muscle structure on this guy was just ridiculous. On a side note, I had thoughts that it's a mistake to keep primates in a cage in a zoo, this goriila guy seemed to have a certain sentient dignity to him.

You can see by the way this guy moves that the amount of power he's capable of generating is far beyond any human. Wow.

Good advice. I bet I would be better off mentally if I red some Verne instead of the pathological crap which I'm weirdly addicted to ingesting.

PBSS sounds serious. You think I stand a chance of recovery?

I had this ridiculous nightmare the other day. I was reading through that lake balaton thread in my dream and the posts started to point towards evidence that the earth is in fact flat. Then I woke up (in my dream) and went phew - good thing that was just a nightmare I thought to myself but to my horror the earth was still flat.

It's already happening, there are "mild" outbreaks of mumps here snd there (Italy, Romania) and there are deaths. That doesnt stop the anti vaxxers, in fact they are doing great - they are convinced that the MMR vaccine caused the Mumps outbreaks.

+1 Prometheus. It was a pleasure to read what you wrote. I was about to write a sarcastic note that I'm worried about you being a non-drinker but I decided to let go as it might be taken the wrong way

Im in Poland, vaccinations are compulsory here and not vaccinating is subjected to significant fines. This doesnt stop the anti vaxxers, it actually makes them stronger, they are pursuing a stance that their fredom is being taken away from them and they manage to gain more followers through this - they are growing like weed month by month. Private kindergardens and schools are full of non vaccinated children, people are finding ways to bypass the law and not vaccinate their children. Its also happening in the middle class society - educated, wealthy people. Just last week there was an anti vaxxer march in Warsaw and thousands of people attended - its psychosis. Being from Belgium, Im sure you know the other "wonderful" things happening in Poland and what our current government is doing. Im so sick of it for the past year and a half that I'd move out to brussels tomorrow with my wife and son if I could.I didnt want this thread to be specifically about vaccines though, I more wanted to pursue the social media mechanisms which lead to these kinds of stances and try to find out how much influence the internet has on people choosing the "conspiracy theory" path.

1956 sounds pretty comforting actually. Maybe the amount of damage that is being done by internet social media is not as significant as Im assuming. I think the three examples you show are all a bit different and cannot be put in the same basket. Flat earthers are plain crackpots, FSM people are just having a laugh at religion (I never accepted that as its just not funny to me) and the anti-vaxxers are usually a group of people supporting all sorts of other conspiracy theories like big pharma, chemtrails, NWO and a few others. These conspiracy theorists are thriving on the internet and they are actually managing to succesfuly brainwash people who otherwise Id never suspect of being an irrational person. Example: My brothers wife is a middle class girl in her early 30's, speaks 3 languages, college graduate. She is a firm anti vaxxer, she just knows that theres a big pharma conspiracy and the vaccines are dangerous because it says so on the patient information slips, etc. There is absolutely no way to try to get her to think rationally, I tried. There are dosens of young, middle class families around her who behave similarly including some rich and powerful people - its scary. What John Cuthber wrote above seems like the punchline here. I would add that appart from lies spreading faster compared to legitimate information theres also a problem with finding legitimate data and legitimate information these days because of the huge amount of bs out there. I spent quite a few weeks researching vaccines myself and believe me its difficult to keep cutting through the vast amounts of false information and manipulation on the internet. Its especially difficult having zero formal med eduation like myself and most people out there - its easier to slip. I see people around me who slipped with various subjects, not only vaccines and I see more and more of them. And the catalyst for these slip ups seem to be internet social media mechanisms in every case.

I don't want to link to it. I dont even want to type in the title of it here. Type into the forum search "Lake Balaton" and it will show a thread about laser measurements, its locked by swansont.Edit: I don't want google to show that I'm citing crackpot discussions.

I hope youre right but I suspect its not that simple - remember the thread here on the forum about Lake Ballaton earth curvature measurements? This thread was open for 6 months and it managed to lure into the discussion quite a few regulars. This thread is being used now by these psychos as leverage for their flat earth theory elsewhere. This is what Im wondering about, how much does the social media and the internet contribute to the creation of new morons. The lake Ballaton thread case Im mentioning would not be possible without the social media and the internet, it is clearly a mechanism by which false information has a lot more momentum to spread.

That looks exactly right.

The "Flat Earth Society" group on facebook has 77 thousand followers. There are hundreds of similar youtube channels and FB groups with more that 100K subscribers. The question is wether theres just that ~100K people globaly who are morons or is this spreading. Shaquile O'neal is a flat earther, Jim Carry & Jenny Mc'arthy are openly fighting vaccines for years now. There are dosens of similar subjects like Illuminati, chemtrails, moon hoax with hundreds of thousands supporters. I'm curious if this is a fairly steady number of nutt cases over the years or if the global village is really contributing to the creation of these nutters.

I envy your capability of a balanced, calm analysis concerning these things. No matter how hard I try, I just can't force myself into this kind of liberal aproach towards religions.

Does anybody know of any studies that could be used to compare what people thought on flat earth and/or any other subject of similar flavour say 50 years ago and now?

Im posting from my phone so I appologize for not attaching the pdf here on the site. I just read this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.0583.pdf on social media aspects of anti-vaccine movements. For the purpose of this thread, you can read just the abstract and the summary and conclusions. While reading this paper something struck me...the mechanisms of spreading dissinformation on social media which enable the spreading of anti-vaxx BS a lot faster than spreading of legitimate data based on actual science can be applied not only to anti-vaccine movements but to all other conspiracy theories and dissinformation. I'm sure I'm not the only one who notices a presence of cardinally moronic things on social media and on the internet in general like chemtrails, flat earth, moon mission was a hoax and a dosen more. My concern is...do you think that these moronic stances were always present in our society and internet is just a means for us to notice it or is the internet a catalyst which contributes to the "moronisation" of society? Hunch and logic dictates that its both at the same time but I wonder...were we always "that" dumb or are we actually getting dumber due to the social media mechanisms enabling the easy spread of dissinformation?

I'm no expert on complex probability calculations but my hunch tells me that its equally impossible to calculate the probability of the existence of a deity as it is impossible to rule out its existence. I guess what bothers me with arguing non-zero probability of the existence of deity's is what I wrote in my previus post - theres an infinite number of ridiculous things which have non-zero probability of existence yet we do not discuss any of them nor take any of them seriously. The 1970's meme you saw I saw it too...I think it was Iran and it were 3 women photographed from the front walking their right side a street dressed casually and at the bottom 3 completely covered up women in black burka's. That meme represents a different case to the one Im making, Saudi Arabia is religiously the most conservative place on earth and yes, I am making a point that something is changing even there. It is not a significant change in context of making religion obsolete but I see a change in the last 20 years or so nevertheless. Riyadh (capitol of saudi) is a different ball game on its own. Its the most restrictive, weird, city I've been to. They have religious police forces called "Mutawa" which roam around and keep track of people behaving properly - no interaction between men and women in public, only families can interact in public etc. Local engineers I had in training asked me everyday to go to the shoping malls and the city with them because a foreign white guy like me would get them in anywhere. If they were in their own (5 arabic guys) they would not be let into a shopping mall. This is what Riyadh is like but as I said, even there I see a small change for the better. What is happening in europe (at least what I see) in the last 10 years is a huge boom of atheism and/or sceptisism. Im thinking that considering the fast changing geopolitical situation right now theres going to either be a 3rd world war in the next 10 years or the religious sceptisism will progress further and eventually take over in 2,3 generations. IMO the question should be will we be able to progress with pushing religion off its pedestal to eventually becoming obsolete before all hell breaks loose.

The first time I came to Riyadh in 2003 there were seperate offices and elevators for men and women, I havent spoken to a woman for 4 weeks I've been there. Last time I went there in 2015, I had 2 corporate girls assisting me in my training, women started to drive and I actually saw a face of a woman in the office for the first time - huge difference in just 12 years. I did get invited to public beating and hand cutting by some locals as ususal (and as usual I declined) but there seems to be a lot of progressive movement even in Riyadh. They are far from abandoning religion obviusly and you might be right that 2-3 generations will not be enough for them but sooner or later they will have no choice the direction the mentality is going in europe and the US, at least I hope that will be the case.

Kip, you also cannot rule out an infinite number of things including an infinite number of things which are cardinal bullshit. I always found this line (and many other) of arguing towards compromise and/or respect for religion to be flawed. Frankly, the only remotely valid line of arguing a form of righteousness for any religion would be a terminally ill person sincerely needing religious support to soothe his/her pain.As for the thread title question, I would say that it's a matter of 2-3 generations maximum for our species to be free of religion. I think theres a huge shift happening right now in the last 20 years, people are becoming sceptical all over the world and its happening very fast. I rememeber 25 years ago it was a completely different case compared to what Im observing now. Its a gradual shift but considering the time scale of our civilisation its happening very quick.

I don't really hate you but I would unplug your life support to charge my phone.

MigL, forget it... I havent been sleeping much lately, its horrible what sleep depravation can do to you.