Outrider

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Our future is already writ in the stars. I don't know this and I can't know this but I highly suspect that every day some form of life springs forth on some alien planet. There are so many of them and well, we are here. So where all they all at? We have a few anomalies like tabby's star. But not near what you would expect by just crunching the numbers. We will, as a human race, burn this planet and everything on it. Best case scenario is we blast ourselves back to the stone age. I highly doubt we are that lucky. Again. I am sorry!

Autism is such a catch all term these days that the original question makes little sense. Anecdotal I know but fwiw. My son was diagnosed at eight years old. During the course of I realized I had a lot of the "symptoms " But we are completely different. Hes very coordinated, still has trouble comprehending what he reads and is emotionally aloof. That last part does not stop him from doing things for people but if his help does not help he just dosen't feel it. Where it wrecks me. I was reading 12th grade literature in the sixth grade but still cannot do a jumping jack to save my life. My point is that I think autism is one of those things that is very undiagnosed and the term has become so broad that it's not really useful.

Who cares? Not me. As has already been said this "issue" will go away with time as we all get used to a new reality. I used to be uncomfortable around homosexuals. But as I am around them more that did pass. I am a widower (covid took Laura three years ago) and I do date and occasionally have sexual relations and I would be offended if the lady wasn't always a lady and did not tell me. I think when you are intimate with someone they deserve to know your history. Period. Also in youth sports (don't give a damn what the pros do) I would not like to see a young ladies one chance to be a hero for her small town taken away by someone who was born a biological male. Otherwise it's none of my business. I have only know two openly trans. Both born 100% female according to them. Lucinda asked that I call them a he. I asked would it be ok if I just called them Lucinda. They were fine with that. Sally does not (according to them) know what Sally is but is ok with being referred to as Sally. It's really not that hard 95% of the time. To answer your question Phi. 95% of the time yes I get to identify as whatever I want to be. But in a very small number of cases where it is take away from a cis or a trans. I think society has the right to make a decision. It would be case by case and I personally would not want to be in the position of making that decision. I could if I had to.

https://www.sciencealert.com/worlds-first-x-ray-of-a-single-atom-reveals-chemistry-on-the-smallest-level Heh. There is a lot I don't understand here but I did find the news very exciting and wanted to share. The scientists are using synchrotron x-rays. A process of accelerating electrons in a circular path to make them glow with light. They are also using a technique called scanning tunneling microscopy which takes advantage of quantum tunneling and may lead to better understanding of that phenomenon. Hence my excitement 🙂 This all according to my understanding of the article. Either of which (the article or my understanding) could well be flawed. Any corrections and or comment will ofc be appreciated! The paper is behind a fairly pricey paywall. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06011-w

Others have done a good job addressing some of your misconceptions. You have a lot of reading to do if you really want to understand the mountain of evidence we have on the age of the universe. I suggest "pale blue dot" by Carl Sagan. It's a bit dated but still a great starting point to a wonderful journey should you take it. So whats the difference you asked. Well the person on the beach didn't go look. We (as a species) have. Billions have been spent and many very smart individuals have spent their whole lives investigating the age of the universe question. The person on the beach could have found a way to travel in a straight line till they arrived back at the beach. Then would have known the earth isn't flat. Or they could have used some sticks and shadows like Eratosthenes did over 2,000 years ago. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200606/history.cfm#:~:text=By around 500 B.C.%2C most,method of estimating its circumference.

Girls can play in the more competitive male leagues. Boys cannot play in the less competitive female leagues. That is the system in the USA. I don't see any need to change it. In 2018 we had 2,404 girls playing high scool football. Missed this earlier. This is the only thing in your post I disagree with. I won't go into it. To far off topic. Agreed. Of course. But generally with boys the emphasis is in teaching them not to be a predator. In girls not to be prey. But if you get something else then you have to do something else.

Maybe big schools could have a less competitive league or something. My son's graduating was less than 80. In high school you really need 30 to 40 kids to be competitive in football. We struggled to keep 30 or more on the team. Not really seeing any options in that sport for small schools. I relate everything to football because my son dropped all other sports in junior high. Both the girl and the boy played many different sports in we elementary. She stayed in softball awhile but finally dropped everything but cheerleading when she entered high school. One 15 year old creeping on another is not the same thing.

I'm glad that was your experience. It wasn't mine at all. My boy started football at 5 years old. 60 kids on that team. Not what you want as a coach. 20 to 25 is ideal at that age. Ranging in age from 4 to 6. The first game maybe half of them played including my son was usually the biggest kid around. After the game I asked the coaches were they gonna play the other kids in the next game. I got blank stares and was asked did I not want to win. 25 years later there are still those who dislike me. The number of parents who did not care to win at any cost out numbered the ones that did and we were able to get all the kids significant playing time. So for 13 years I sat with parents who hated me and cheered on our team.

Ahh this whole other thread but with apologies to the op it needs answered. I wouldn't have wanted a 15 year old boy in the bathroom with my daughter when she was that age. I think the final answer to this is to make all restrooms gender neutral.

Sorry Zapatos, iNow, board. I totally missed that this topic is restricted to secondary schools. High schools is a more popular term round these parts. I'll try to do better. This makes things a lot more simple. Lets just keep the current system. If a girl desires to compete in the male league that is fine. Not so the other way around. If the quarterback prefers to go to the prom in a dress that is their prerogative. Swimming on the female team is not. Gender divisions were created for a reason and that reason has not changed. Taking some pills does not change your gender it just puts you on that path. And if you have an 18 year old who has successfully transitioned into a female. IMO you have over sexualized that child somewhere along the way. But sure let her swim with the gals. But surely there is some middle ground somewhere. I have two children. I raised the boy to be a man. He is. Yesterday I saw his newborn sleeping on his chest and him being as nurturing as any person could be. I cried like a girl I guess you could say. I felt no shame in it. I guess different fathers have different concepts of what being a man is. I raised the girl to be a lady and so she is. She lives alone and changes her flat tires, fixes her leaky toilet, etc. And then she goes to school and gently teaches 3 and 4 year olds. And I think the jury is still very much out on which holds more sway. I also think we agree that girls need different things from their dads then what boys need.

These are private schools. Nothing I can do about that. If you want me to say it, fine. Generally females are allowed to compete in male leagues. If a female in a private school wishes to compete against males she does have the option of enrolling in a public school. My point stands.

I retracted that see above^^ Lets make the cutoff between amateur and pro.

IMO you really need to come up with a more specific example. In regards to what I posted earlier "at 21 years and older anything goes" I'd like to retract that. I was wrong. Reading some of Lia Thompson's story made me realize that. https://www.foxnews.com/sports/penn-swimmer-lia-thomas-olympics-trans-women-not-threat-womens-sports So what? He took pills for a year and that made him a female? I think not. If Lia would like to be addressed as she then that should be respected. But I think the key word here is "transitioning". Until the transformation is complete Lia should compete in the male class. My opinion of course. Also, of course, this is under the current system. I'm still chewing on the whole "let's dissolve gender classifications" thing. All of my emotions cry no, no, no. Which is why I should think on it some more. What made you think that? Yes we need to change many things. Now thats the Peterkin I know and love.

Again sorry inow but this also needs addressed. How unusual for you Peterkin. Giving humanity to much credit. Every spring 12 and 13 year old boys are dressed up in garbage bags and made, by their fathers, to run and/or sit in vehicles on hot days with heater on full blast. This is to cheat the weight limit rule. To give their boy another year in less competitive football league. Trust me theres a few fathers out there willing to mutilate their kids in order to bring them athletic success. Prob a mom or two as well. I'll bite. Which league are they excluded by regulation from? Maybe you can find me an example we will see. But my main thrust was to clear up Clint Eastwood's misconception about American football. A collegiate basketball coach may not give a lady the "look" she deserves but that's her/his/their prejudice not regulation. Back to topic. What do you think of my proposal? Since I asked you to weigh my proposal I thought it only fair I took a closer look at yours. I find I'm in total agreement with what you had to say. Bravo! I can only add what I have already stated. If you are that one in ever how many girls that can compete with boys and you have that desire well then have at it. I think the current system in the USA accommodates this.

Long time lurker here and as some of you know I pop up from time to time. So sorry inow. I know this isn't the topic but this misconception needs to be addressed. Girls are allowed to play American football in any and all leagues. Straight up to and including NFL. https://www.wunc.org/sports/2021-10-21/chapel-hill-brooklyn-harker-more-girls-playing-tackle-football-tigers-marsh My son started at age 5. There were 10 girls on the sixty person squad. The last female dropped out in junior high. She may have felt some societal pressure but she was not excluded by any regulation. ASFASIK ladies are allowed to play in mens leagues period. And, for me, as it should be. But the reverse is not true. Again I think thats fair. Back to topic. Here is my simple solution. Up to the age of 21 you play as the sex you were born with under the current system. Girls can play in male leagues but not visa versa. After that anything goes. Be a mess for Olympic committee I guess but they will sort it out. 21 and under games and over 21 games maybe. We can quibble over the age I guess. Any cut off will of course be arbitrary. It's a messy world. We just do the best we can.

This is a simulation not an animation. In my opinion it is awesome. Before scientists had to chose between long, large scale simulations with little detail or short, fine detail simulations. But with the Hazel Hen supercomputer in Stuttgart, with16,000 cores running for over a year. A simulation of a cube of space measuring more than 230 million light-years in diameter and has 20 billion particles representing dark matter, stars, cosmic gas, magnetic fields, and supermassive black holes has been generated. The team was led by Dr. Annalisa Pillepich of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, and Dr. Dylan Nelson of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. Two papers have been published and I will link those at the end. I read about this here. https://www.universetoday.com/143977/watch-a-simulation-of-a-galaxy-from-the-big-bang-until-the-present-day/ The papers are on the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomy Society and are linked below. https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/490/3/3234/5556547 And. https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/490/3/3196/5566345 Enjoy! I have only watched on my phone but am looking forward to watching on tv in just a bit. P.S. I hate that I never get on here to post anymore but I do read very interesting content almost daily. Keep up the good work!

I agree with all that. I have been misunderstanding you quite a bit. Sorry about that. I think she used a slur to criticize policy and did it on purpose. AIPAC is a political action committee (PAC) which basically means they legally bribe politicians to vote in their interest. I am very much against PAC's on principle. In particular AIPAC is a bad one because the money comes from Israel. So we have other countrys bribing our politicians to influence our foreign policy with them. Ain't America great. So Omar has every right to criticize them. But Omar wasn't criticizing PAC's in general or even PAC's funded with foreign money. She was criticizing a Jewish sympathetic PAC and using an anti-Semitic trope to do it. I think the hatred on the Muslim side comes from them both regarding Jerusalem as holy land. And fighting over it. On the Christian side is quite a bit more complicated. Short version is Shakespeare wrote "neither a borrower nor a lender be" in one of his plays and somehow that got attributed to the Bible. So many Jews ended controlling the banks. I think there are still parts of the world where Christians think it is sin to lend money. Why so many American Christians hate them I have no idea but I grew up in the middle of KKK country and both them and the skinheads do hate Jews. But then again they hate pretty much everybody.

The question can war be moral is philosophical. But the question should it be avoided if it is all possible is a practical one and the more important of the two. And on that we all agree. So here is a very hopeful 6 minute Kurzgesagt (german for "in a nutshell") video about how war may becoming (mostly) a thing of the past. Yeah I was lucky that way myself. I fell between Nam and Iraq. My grandaddy was on Omaha Beach on D-Day and somehow survived. Two uncles I never knew died in Vietnam while my dad served as a conscientious objector. I served during peacetime and my son son took part in the so called war on terror as an MP moving prisoners around. I would go, beecee if I felt my country needed me but how I would react I don't know. I don't think anybody that hasn't been does. I think us participating in WII was a good moral decision but dropping the bomb on Nagasaki was a horrible immoral decision. But in between that is the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima. I have struggled with that my whole life and I just don't have an answer for it. I am heavily emotionally invested in the answer to that question. Grandaddy was on a commandeered German luxury liner headed for Japan when they dropped it. I would have possibly never met him had they not dropped it. Yes it does indeed. Read up on the Navajo code talkers if you haven't heard of them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker

Why else would she bring up the fact that what she said is a fairly well known anti-Semitic trope? I would think if she really had not known she would have just apologized for offending people. That is the part of her quote I'm referring to. To me she acknowledges she used one. You are one of the most moderate posters on this forum and I respect your opinion. But we have: She has used blatantly anti-Semitic rhetoric in the past. She used a word for word anti-Semitic trope in this case. Leaders of the Jewish community met with her just last year about this very kind of thing. This leads me to believe she knew what she was doing when she did.

Yeah pretty much what Charon said plus our funds are finite and Trump's pet project takes away from other worthy pursuits. A wall is an inanimate object and as such can be neither moral or immoral. OTOH China built one 2000 years ago and they have absolutely no problem with immigrants from Mexico. No, no thats a joke please don't take that seriously.

Thanks Charon! I hope I am not coming across as thinking I know all the answers either because I certainly don't. I am interested in this in an intellectual way. But it is also an emotional issue for me because I know that most of the men and women doing the fighting would rather be doing anything else in the world. I hope I have mostly kept the emotion out of my replies and apologize if I haven't.

Maybe it's me but why else would she bring it up? Can we accept that as evidence that "it's all about the benjamins" was referencing an anti-Semitic trope? I say yes we can. Keep in mind the exact words are used by some in describing Jews. As in "they are all about the benjamins".

Well I served as a tele-type repairman and I took no such tests as mentioned on your quora link. I'll have to have something better than quora before I accept my memory is that bad. This was in 1986. I remember physical tests, physical examinations and a physc test. Also you had to tell the doctor what kinds and how much of certain drugs you had ingested in the past. Boy was he surprised.

I did know that Australia participated but I did not know that your returning soldiers got the same treatment ours did.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem-rep-omar-apologizes-for-israel-comments-calls-out-problematic-role-of-aipac-other-lobbyists Thing is she was educated last year.