mistermack

I think the nature/nurture dichotomy is a false one anyway. It doesn't have to be either/or. I would argue:- atheism : Nature and nurture.

In my own case, up to the age of about ten-ish, all of my nurture was full-on Roman Catholic religious indoctrination. It's pretty intense, although not particularly opressive. I didn't really question it, although I might have vaguely wondered why everything was hidden and nebulous. Then one day, my brother said to me, "what if god doesn't exist?" and I said, "what do you mean?" and he said "well, have you ever seen him?" and withing hours, I had stopped believing. Or maybe I never did believe properly, but never bothered to question it. But after that moment, it was clear to me that the poeple telling me about god had no way of knowing if it was true. They were taking it on faith, and I wasn't prepared to. So I became an atheist, in spite of a heck of a lot of nurture. So there's no way I could agree that atheism is down to nurture. A very slight bit of nurture might be that I was taught to think logically at school, in science and maths classes. To question why fact A and fact B might lead to fact C. Or eliminate C. I guess that comes into it, but not enough to class atheism as a product of nurture. I think Richard Dawkins and others have done a good job of exploring why our ancestors were inclined to be religious. I don't remember the exactl arguments, but I'm sure that I absorbed a good bit of it, into my own thinking on the subject. I don't class atheism as a firm belief that there is no god. My own atheism gives the god scenario a remote chance of being true. Very very remote, but not zero. And that matches Dawkins thinking, and it probably owes a lot to his writing on the subject. I love the clear concise way he puts it into words. He's one of the world's top thinkers and communicators, for me.

Exactly. It's like saying water is destroyed, when it evaporates, and vapour is created. Same goes for ice. Acutally, 72 years ago, my mother's pregnancy was destroyed. Luckily, by way of compensation, I was created as a baby at about the same time.

Two absolute legends jamming. The sadly late and truly great Don Partridge. Definitely the best real busker ever.

If it's possible to travel back in time as an observer, then there must be a record of time to observe. You would only be able to view what is recorded. Therefore, you will only see 25 because that's what would be recorded. If you had it on video, you're not going to see it roll 24 are you?

I'm sorry, but that is an incredibly silly post, almost Trump standard. You do know that there are Ukrainians walking the streets and living their lives, totally unaffected by the Russian presence? And why on Earth do you think that a Jew should walk freely in the Gaza Strip? Most Palestinians in the strip have relatives undergoing torture in Israeli jails, or have lost a loved one. If Palestine had been Jewish for thousands of years, and the Jews were now being slowly squeezed out by incoming Muslims, with hundreds of thousands confined to refugee camps, would you think that was all right?

They won't find a peaceful solution because the zionists have an ongoing agenda that is nowhere near complete. It's to completely clear the country of Palastinians. Every time trouble dies down, the government applies enough pressure to ensure a flare-up. As they control everything, it's easy for them to keep it going, and constantly portray the Palestinians as terrorists. And the Palestinians have two choices. Constantly take it, or kick back now and then. Both of which suit the zionist project. If things go quiet, they bulldoze more houses, or torture a few prisoners. It's always just enough to keep the pot boiling.

The British had no right to give away the land of Palestine. Nor did the United Nations. It wasn't theirs to give. Just because they did it, doesn't make it less of a theft. The British fought the influx of Jews quite vigorously to begin with. Not to be fair to the Palestinians, but because they wanted to keep control of the region. Once they saw that they were fighting a losing battle against the Jews, they did an about-face.

He's listed as Stonehouse, which is about five miles from me. Most suppliers have a UK coverage map online now, with different colours for signal strength. I tested mine for speed before I signed up. It's poor compared to wired internet when you run a test, but I honestly can't tell the difference. If you can get 5g, the speed would be a lot higher, but 5g is shown as patchy where I live, and I'm happy with the 4g performance as it is. I'd have to upgrade to a 5g phone or portable modem to get it.

A thought occurred to me that when it becomes the norm, that babies are developed all the way in an artificial womb, it might affect the jobs market. At the moment, employers look at women candidates, and in the back of their mind, they are weighing up what it will cost them if she gets pregnant. With this process, the only medical procedure needed by the woman is egg removal, so apart from that, men and women will be an equal bet for employers. ( I know discrimination is illegal in a lot of countries, but it's still happening all the time ) I guess that some women will go on a hormone regime, to mimic being pregnant, so as to induce bonding and breast milk flow.

This is probably not what Dim wanted, but just for added info : My internet on my desktop comes in through my mobile phone. I gave up the wired phone and internet about 20 months ago because this is much cheaper. I have a contract with Smarty on the sim, 50gig for a month data, (which I don't get near ) for £10 a month. You can pay a bit more and get unlimited data from various suppliers, but this is fine for me. All I have to do to connect is go to settings/network and wireless/internet hotspot and click enable, and you get a wireless network enabled that you can connect to with a USB wireless network dongle. So I'm paying £10 instead of about £25 with line rental previously. The only drawback is the connection speed. If you need a lot, it's not for you. But I can honestly say that I've only noticed things going slow about two or three times in a year. A lot depends on how good the mobile signal is in your area, and whether you get 5g coverage, which I don't. 5g would be a lot faster, but you'd need a 5g phone or portable modem. Mine are 4g. If you have several people using the network, doing a lot of down and uploading, then it would be poor. For me, it's fine. The other bonus is that you can use it anywhere that you get a signal. So you can take it out with you, and connect a laptop or pad. ( I absolutely hate using a phone for the internet, my eyes ain't good enough )

It can be both, it doesn't have to be either/or. My original post was a cock up. Somehow, when looking at the jokes, I clicked myself accidentally onto page one of the thread, and that had the original joke in it, so I thought I was just appending a joke made hours or days ago. I just added a line to that joke in the same format. I don't see anything wrong with that, in a political joke section, but of course if it doesn't follow on from the original, it's got no context.

It's interesting what's been happening since the last post on this thread. Quite a lot of progress has been made in the field. A lab in Israel has substantially extended the life in and artificial womb of mice embryos to 11 days. ( That's out of about 20 days full term ) https://www.science.org/content/article/mouse-embryos-grown-bottles-form-organs-and-limbs https://www.weizmann.ac.il/WeizmannCompass/sections/briefs/artificial-‘wombs’-incubate-stem-cell-breakthrough While impressive and very useful, the technique is facing a road block, because it doesn't involve growing an artificial placenta, so the way to take it further is probably barred, but it does demonstrate that the fetus is naturally trying to survive and grow, given the right conditions. The next step would be to find a way to establish a placenta, and once that's done, there would be probably no reason why the fetus should not go all the way to delivery. At the other end of the cycle, a lot of progress has also been made on transferring an extremely premature lamb fetus to an artificial womb, and continuing the development to a more mature stage, and I believe, all the way to the lamb being born. From what I gather, the lungs of a premature baby stop developing when they start to breathe air, leading to health problems in life. If a premature fetus can be kept gestating for a few weeks, it might make all the difference to the prospects of a healthy life. Real progress has been made with premature lambs, that were given extra weeks effective gestation in a plastic bag simulating a womb, complete with artificial placenta. https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15421734/artificial-womb-fetus-biobag-uterus-lamb-sheep-birth-premie-preterm-infant https://www.iflscience.com/artificial-womb-used-to-successfully-grow-premature-lamb-for-the-second-time-43344 I think the ball is well and truly rolling in this field, and the progress made in the last seven years seems to indicate that it's not a lifetime away from going the whole way to producing a live lamb from invitro fertilisation to birth, and after that the first human baby by the same route.

So do I. But I don't support their right to occupy a stolen land, which is what Israel is. Would the USA allow a religious takeover of Utah? Not a chance. Would they allow an independent Jewish state in Montana? Of course not. It's ok for Arabs, but not Americans. No country would allow it. Not even a peaceful takeover, let alone sanction the existing population to be put in squalid little refugee camps inside their own country. Americans did it to their own indigenous people and support it in Israel, because Indians and Arabs didn't fully count as people. It's Christian Europeans vs heathen indians and infidel arabs. There's no way they would have done it to a white people. How long after something is stolen before it becomes the rightful property of the thief? Paintings stolen from Jews in WW2 are expected to be returned. The same therefore applies in reverse. They should return the stolen land and pay compensation.

A moon might have an effect. Causing internal tidal stresses, making earthquakes more likely. The earthquakes will let settling occur.

Yes, it's not really an argument, it's really just to explain where I'm coming from. That guy was very much one of the lads when he was younger, a bit of a fighter so I'm told. That doesn't tell you much. Most children ARE what they were assigned as birth. People applying for hormone treatment are about half of one percent, including adults. Kids are different, in that they are notorious for going through phases. I'm not saying gender identity in children is just a phase, just that it can be. I can't name it, but I've seen a tv program about individuals who were encouraged or allowed, whichever you prefer, to undergo hormone treatment as children, and bitterly regret it now, and no longer identify as the opposite sex. That was less than six months ago. So it's not black and white, some do get really harmed by it.

That's clear then? Not a bit of it. My one trans friend went all the way MTF, but he still regrets it some days, not others, and will present as either. He told lots of lies to get it done. He's not happy, that's for sure. Do you have evidence for that? Anyway, on what imaginary planet will parents ever stay out of it? My friend is still confused, and he was adult when he changed. But at least he knows he made his own decision as an adult.

To your own satisfaction, yes you are. You don't seem to be aware that the huge majority of children are correctly labelled. Not pushed. An absolutely teeny miniscule minority are truly wrongly identified, or intersex. I don't accept that the huge majority of kids should be non-labelled, just because of a teeny minority. That minority, handled sensitively when they become adult enough to make adult lifetime decisions, can be helped.

You don't say how your connection comes to the house. Is it down the phone line? If it is you can run a phone line down the garden, and have phone and router in the caravan. You can make the desktop wifi enabled with a usb dongle, costs just a few quid on ebay, but I'm not sure they would pick up from 260m away.

I'm not sure how this is an advance on underfloor heating. In the UK, new houses are pretty well insulated, with double layer of brick and thermal block, and a cavity filled with foam. Older houses can have the empty cavity injected with foam, and older still houses are cold. But you in add an internal layer of insulation and eliminate draughts even on the oldest houses, and add double glazing and loft insulation. With all of the lovely cheap renewables, and ground source heat pumps, we should be fine for heating in the future.

Fair enough. But I will try to make it clear, I'm commenting on the real culture that I experience and read about, and not the imaginary one that you are pushing for. I'd be happy when it arrives, but till then, I'm commenting on the current reality. "Conversion therapy" has recently been made illegal in the UK, because it's abusive. I think it's equally abusive to push a child in ANY direction of sexuality. If they feel one way or the other, it should be left till they are adult for them to make up their own minds how to handle it.

Child abuse is everyones business. The evolved trait isn't homophobic tendency. It's a tendency to pick on others. Many apes and monkeys have a very strict pecking order in their clans. They are picked on from above, and pick on those below. Being gay is just an invitation to some to peck down, and by forcing someone down in the order, you can raise yourself up a notch. And climbing up the pecking order gives a real boost to your survival prospects. That's the real evolved trait.

I would have a slightly different take on it. From birth onwards, babies are very trusting. They might ask lots of questions, but that's just because they are primed to learn. As they get older, they begin to learn that not everything they are told can be trusted, and they question in a different way, not just for facts, but to test the facts they are given. But they are plastic in some ways. If you hammer any religion into a child from a young age, there's a good chance they will keep it till they die. But that's often because it's constantly reinforced day in day out, and boosted by social pressures. Also, the religious stories are carefully designed, to fulfill wishful thinking, so it's made to be something you WANT to be true. And that's true of most cons.

No I don't think that. If you just take the case of phobias, they are by definition irrational fears, but as far as I know, they occur naturally. In any case, it's rational to be cautious about things you are not familiar with, and don't understand. Rational, and natural. In the case of a sexual advance from a man, that's not familiar, or understood, and having no idea what they have in mind, or how far they will go, then a certain bit of fear is neither unwise, illogical or unnatural. The first out-and-out advance I had from a man was a pretty scary experience. I was 21 in 1971, hitchhiking around North America. I was in the outskirts of New York, making for the Bronx. I got a lift from a guy, and my very first thought was that he looked a real hard case. He could have walked straight into a mafia part in a movie without changing anything, but he was polite and friendly enough. After about ten minutes of driving along, he was asking me about hitching around the US, and out of the blue, he said, "with all that hitching, did you ever get a lift from someone who tried to put a hand on your leg?" and like the innocent that I was, I said "no, that's never happened, I suppose I've been lucky that way!" and he said "because I'd like to now!" I was stunned because I'd had no hint at all that anything like that was coming. I didn't answer, my mind was racing, mainly weighing up what might happen, and how I might handle it, and he said, "you've gone quiet, would you not like that?" and I said "no, I wouldn't" and he said, "yeh, but would you resist if I did?" and I said, "yes, very definitely", and then he went quiet. My mind was churning, because I had the impression from the start that he was a hard case, and I wondered if he had a knife or a gun. Then, after a bit, he said, "I was just joking back then" and I said, "yeh, I thought you were" (lying) and he said that he had to turn off here, and stopped for me to jump out. He then did a U turn, and went back the same way we had come from. I've since had a few advances, much more subtle and friendly than that, and never felt scared like I was by that guy. Generally, it's just the same as having a woman come on to you that you don't fancy. Easier to handle, really, because you can just say "sorry I'm not gay" whereas with a woman, you feel obliged to invent some excuse, rather than say "sorry, I don't find you attractive". I've never been a good liar. You seem to be talking about a different species. A more ideal kind of human that doesn't exist. My experience of humans is mixed. There are some lovely people who wouldn't hurt a fly. There are some absolute bastards who glory in violence and aggression. And a lot in the middle. But going back in history, the violence and aggression were much more to the fore. We are a violent ape, and inclined to pick on people given the chance. Like gays, jews, gypsies, blacks, catholics, the mentally ill or disabled, or people who support a different football team. It's not excusing people, to point at the "defects" of human nature. It's just recognising reality. The nasty side of human nature is just as real and "natural" as the nice side.