TheVat

Teenagers!

I personally hold the universe to be a marble swallowed by a robot kitten named Louise. We both have the same empirical basis for our beliefs. Assertions are not evidence. Or valid arguments. And the universe is by definition a closed system. That's what is called an analytic truth. The terms being equated, universe and closed system both denote the same things. Cosmology has moved on since the 19th century. Robot. Kitten. Louise. Marble.

As I was leaving the art museum, I got arrested for stealing a painting. I don't understand. Earlier when I asked the guide if I could take a picture, he said yes.

GM algae, perhaps, when ships are near a star. With an unusually high density of chloroplasts. Maybe have exterior panels which are packed with chloroplasts, with a capillary network circulating water and CO2 in, and O2 and carbos out.

i learned from the newest member of the Vat household that five week old kittens will eat unscented cat litter, even when high quality food is available. (the mom cat's human had a baby last night and, due to circumstances, the adoption we were going to do at 7-8 weeks was moved up; fortunately the weaning process was well underway, so the litter snack didn't displace dinner too much)

@dimreepr, please stop trolling this thread.

Yes, a statute passed in 1924 banning noncitizens from voting in federal elections. (it is not forbidden in the Constitution) That federal statute would have to be struck down by Congress. It's a good statute, given the threat of crazy Scotsmen flooding into our country. 🙂 I am not sure how one would discern a nervous breakdown of Trump. He seemed unhinged to me in 2016, but millions of voters seemed not to mind. I would guess Trump rallies are like 9" Nails concerts - the man on stage can lose his shit and it's the high point of the show.

It does so through your valuing that art. Therefore it is extrinsic. Only if the art was a mechanical device that transported you to the shop would it also have intrinsic value in that regard. (and even there, an intrinsic value as a transport tool would only be there if you preferred not to walk - a bus coming along is no use to the person running a marathon)

Yes, intrinsic has been used loosely here. If it means "material that directly has use, in its basic physical constituents, to satisfy the bottom tier of Maslow's pyramid (food, shelter, heat, tools)" then most of what surrounds humans in a city is only of extrinsic value. The intrinsic value of Mona Lisa or a bundle of twenties is that you can toss it in a fire to keep warm. The intrinsic value of a platinum bar is you can grind it up put it in a catalytic converter and clean up the air a little.

Do you have your own comment that is germane to the topic? This is a discussion forum.

Well, it does not necessarily mean they can't escape checkmate, but rather any situation where a player is forced to make a move that will worsen their position. A chess player can't skip a move, even when that may be advantageous. Trump might be where he wants to skip a move (or yes, play pigeon chess), and sit out some things that a campaign requires. Any move is likely to worsen his position, because he can't reverse bad choices without looking weak to his core supporters.

It may help to distinguish between art with a pointed message (e.g. a political cartoon or a song that comments on society, current news, etc) and art that simply offers a new way to look at things or feel things (a David Lynch movie, an Impressionist painting, a jazz piece). A song that warned people about a dangerous demagogue or a destructive war, for example, would have intrinsic social value even though it was fungible and about a situation - same with a printed political cartoon or poster or graffito. It could help people survive. So its effect could be (potentially ) objectively determined as valuable in a certain defined time frame. Can you edit? I see the site is up to another trick where it posts but lets you think it didn't by freezing on the text window. Which is how your post repeats several times now.

Have you heard the chess term "zugzwang"? I think that's where Trump and his sidekick are at currently. HL Mencken: nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

No but it does make sin easier.

Well, salt water has been used since ancient times to treat wounds. And saline solution is currently used in medicine to cleanse wounds and help promote healing. I would think if a wound were treated at all, and any solid salt bits picked out, then the effect would have been mostly favorable in reducing chances of infection. It is true that in a hypertonic solution, the net osmotic movement of water will be out of the tissue and into the solution. A cell placed into a hypertonic solution will shrivel and die by a process known as plasmolysis. But wound tracts are generally getting flushed out with a lot of fluid and blood, and any large-scale hypertonic bathing seems like it would be minimal.

Don't be. It was a good rant. I have tended to look at cancer too much through the immune lens, and gotten eye strain.

Chrysler is not Anglo-Saxon, you twit. I want the three minutes of my life back I spent reading this inane thread.

Given the baby boom in the US, and that cohort at retirement age, and the prevalence of cancers that first manifest in a body with an aging immune system, the cancer rates should be expected to go up. Especially if there is an overall increase in immune system disorders in the population. Which there is. We live in a sea of immune disrupters. A weakened immune system doesn't handle neoplasmic cells as well.

"If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism." - Albert Einstein He liked it because it was the most empirical of spiritual paths and does not require dogmatic beliefs.

I have it on good authority that a BOOBE is a British out of body experience. It's like an OOBE except that the sense of relief is greater.

Thanks all of you. This is the first time been able to post. Am moving permanently to DDG, a browser I'm not crazy about, but at least it works to suppress some of these problems. Cory Doctorow seems to have been right.

Six tries to post this. Let me be blunt here. The ads, which for various reasons I cannot block on this chrome tablet, are now disabling my keyboard (and quite often the button that allows you to quote and then reply). I had to go through various contortions and finally got the keyboard to reappear. Other facts possibly of use to the site owner: This tablet has none of these problems with other comparable sites. Chrome tablets are common, so this site issue could be deterring other members and prospective members. (I have noticed some really slow days here lately - of course I can't be sure that is related to the ad attacks) Page blocking ads are rude as all holy fuck. (I may have touched on that last fact before) With regret, I will have to reduce my participation here if this problem persists.

Well, for me, harm in this context would have meaning where you have any species that is social...and it is social species that would have evolutionary drivers towards greater cooperation, language use, and developing a moral system. Cooperation is essential for social animals, and developing a moral system would seem key to that. Solitary predators, for example, would not have a moral system at all and would probably not reach the intellectual capacity for language and conceptual sharing. Perhaps those predators are rational agents, but only in the sense of acting so as to favor the next meal or the next f--k. So yes, I guess my metaethical view, is that ethics is for social creatures who move beyond pure genetics and instinct towards memetics and cooperative culture. As Wittgenstein said, if a lion could talk we wouldn't understand it. Or discuss ethical matters. Philosophy is not my field, so I hope I have somewhat explicated my linking morality to a social animal. I am mainly here to learn.

It is sort of comical. Rather like someone building an open cesspool and then whining that people don't want to swim there. I wonder if all these Right Wing types who like to bang on about the wisdom of the free market and Mr. Smith's invisible hand are going to find themselves really conflicted if X goes belly up. I think the part he couldn't handle was not the weird so much as it was his son's rejection of HIM. Musk is nothing if not a narcissist. Ah yes, that Cancel Culture Musk is so very incensed about.

Another x related name among the Musk children is Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, which seemed to border on child abuse. Then they changed it to ?, which California does not accept for a legal name, so they shortened her name to Y, as in "Why?" instead. Grimes and Musk's first son, born in 2020, was initially named X Æ A-12, but this was later tweaked to X Æ A-Xii since California law forbids the use of numbers in a legal name. Sometimes eccentricities are charming, sometimes just annoying. I expect Y Musk will at some point in her later childhood be asking why???