toastywombel

I say the best part to jump right into is science news. If you see something scientific in the news there you go, post it in the science news section (if its not already posted). There are often interesting discussions. I have noticed that there is often some threads that new comers post on, than the regular crowd comes in (I guess I could be considered part of the regular crowd) and the op is often drowned out. I will try to avoid doing/being a part of this from now on.

Human nature has not changed by definition, reference my above post. Human Nature the general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioral traits of humankind, regarded as shared by all humans Human nature is the concept that there is a set of inherent distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have. So human nature is a concept that their are certain human behaviors/traits/thoughts/actions shared by all humans. So in response to Paranoia, I never said that the terms were synonymous. I defined them from wikipedia and the Oxford Pocket Dictionary. And according to those given definitions, the topic of human behavior falls under the topic of human nature. I believe that, the way it is being used here, human nature, the desire, the instinct has always been changing, but it is much to slow to be noticeable by the population, because of course it changes through the process of evolution. So to us many of these characteristics can be seen as a constant. Human culture, social behavior, human behavior are rapidly changing. Sure some things are fairly constant from our perspective and stay fairly the same for thousands and thousands of years, but there is always change, everything changes. But to the point, how effective is framing a government around human nature though, what does that really mean? We all pick our nose? We have to hunt, in some manner, to eat? Framing a government is much more complicated than that. Governments need the ability to adapt to new challenges, new problems, and/or new pursuits. That is why I believe a government that essentially does nothing, believes there is nothing new under the sun (like the Coolidge Administration this essay praises) cannot meet the demands of our ever changing world. Finally Bascule said, I noticed this, but pointing it out really made it clear. It seemed as if the essay was misconstruing the word neo-conservatism. Thanks for pointing this out.

If they were trees like on Earth, it might actually be easier to colonize such a planet, as opposed to a planet like Mars. I would think a planet with trees like on Earth, has a somewhat similar atmosphere to Earth. A barren planet on the other hand may not have an atmosphere designed for humans, or an atmosphere at all.

Despite what you seem to think, Nukes are not cheap, in any way or form, http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/50.aspx If you look at this link you will see that nuke are not cheap. On the other hand, the probe, deep impact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(space_mission) The type of probes I proposed may be more expensive than that, but even if they were a $500 million a piece, the prices would be comparable to nuclear weapons. The only downfall is the technology for nuclear weapons is here right now. But launching a nuke is not cheap, especially considering nukes weigh quite a bit.

Well, don't get on my jock about it .

If we had to colonize another planet, and their was life on that planet, I am sorry, if its bacterial sort or microscopic, I would be totally in favor of destroying that ecosystem to preserve our species, and possibly other species of our planet. That is if we were technologically capable of colonizing the planet.

As skeptic said, it is just the conversion of mass (m) into energy (E). Want the conversion for energy (E) to mass? Just solve the equation for mass (m). m=E/c^2

I would like to see what a 100 megaton blast could do. I have always thought a better idea would be to send a bunch of drones to latch onto a side of the asteroid. When they latch on they then can deploy rockets that will alter the course of the asteroid. This situation is overall much safer than using nukes, more controlled, and more predictable. Plus the idea of multiple drones that are the same build, is simply better odds. Some may get taken out, but if you send a hundred, there is a good chance of getting quite a few on the asteroid.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/58275/title/Backward_planets_may_have_flipped_into_place I read through and I though interesting article. Maybe systems like this are more common than we previously thought. I wanted to find out some more about the individual systems, specifically how far some of these systems were from Earth. So I followed the link to the other article in the third paragraph down, that further explained the information gathered on extra solar planets. http://www.sciencenews.org/index/generic/activity/view/id/46658/title/Extrasolar_planets_at_full_tilt There I found a few of the names of the extra solar planets COROT-Exo-1b http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COROT-1b WASP-17b http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASP-17b HAT-P-7b I couldn't find the distance the planet is form earth on wikipedia, but I found out it is also referred to as the kepler-2b. So after looking that up on the Kepler mission website which gave me, http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/kepler2b/ 1 parsec= 3.26156 ly, So its about 1000 light years from earth. HD 80606b http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_80606_b Just some interesting information to look at all at once.

Well since this wont be a logo, I think it would be cool to have it featured somewhere on the site. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged And I think we should try to include a shirt somewhere along the lines of this. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMaybe just replace the G-unit with SFN, in the same font though. What you guys think. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI hope no one thought I was serious

I think that in on to four generations this will be a non-issue. Globalization and the growing global community will influence many new generations towards not celebrating the confederacy, because that culture is slowly fading away with time. I don't know really what to think about it, partially because I think it will be a non-issue in not to long from now. So just let them celebrate it while they can I guess.

The second least senior executive should vote no on every proposal, and attempt to get everyone else to vote no. Once it gets down to the second least senior executive and the least senior executive, the second least, would now be in the position to choose how to delegate the money, and his proposal will pass because 1/2 is 50%. The most senior executive and most likely the second most, and third most are going to get sacked, no matter which way they decide to split the money up. The problem is that every person next in line to decide how to split up the money is going to vote no on the current proposal. And the person who ends up with the ultimate position of power in the end is the second least senior executive, and he can choose to keep it all, and his vote will make the 50% needed. Maybe, the third least senior executive has a good shot to counter this though, if the deal comes to him, he can delegate half to him and half to the least senior executive, leaving the second least senior executive out. And two out of three would pass. For this reason, the second least senior executive, is going to want to deal with the fourth senior executive. If the fourth senior executive comes in and offers half to to second least and half to him, he/she could pass that delegation with the 50%. This will cause the least senior, and the third least senior to want to team up with the fifth most senior to delegate the money between them. Then the second, fourth, will include the sixth and will want to team up to delegate the money between them so they don't get left out. In response the least senior, third, and fifth and seventh will team up and delegate the money between them as 1/4ths. So I seem to have come to the same conclusion as DH, which makes me feel pretty confident in my conclusion considering DH seems to be a pretty smart guy.

According to the above definitions human behavior can fall under the umbrella of human nature.

Iecho the above, and haven't we had an evolution vs creationism thread before?

Maybe you are unable to trust females, and it is hard to ever engage in a good conversation with someone you don't trust. Maybe, the lack of interest is a result of this deep distrust. I'm not a professional though, just someone commenting on the situation.

I signed up with Qwest, here. Formally US West, but they didn't make me sign a contract. I bought the service over the phone and received the modem in the mail. I accepted the terms and agreements that came with the modem, and read through them because of this. It says nothing about Qwest's right to restrict packets, or limit bandwidth to certain sites, domains, and/or ip address' in my contract.

Originally, Jryan presented an essay on conservatism. I critiqued it which you can refer back to in the previous post, I made an argument against a segment of text I had read in the essay, one of several. I says, that, "the fundamentals of human nature and the texture of human experience do not." Well, I didn't comment on human nature, I commented the implication of human behavior not changing. Which I derived from the broad term at the end, "texture of human experience". I figured that the human experience, living life as a human in our world, is dependent on the behavior of other humans around you, therefore the idea that it doesn't change is ludicrous. That was a small point in my initial post, that jryan picked out and I only mentioned it briefly. Jryan than responded with a question, which was obviously an attempt at making his point. Then bascule, iNow, Sysiphus(don't think i spelled that right) and I responded with many examples of how human behavior has changed, not completely, but that human behavior certainly is not constant. Jryan then responded, Then jyran continued and stated that, we seem to be confusing human nature with human behavior. When it was him initially he who started using the term human nature. I began to use the term human nature, because I thought when he was using it, he was referring to the initial point I made(in response to the essay he presented), which was about human behavior. So there was obviously some confusion, and I take blame in confusing the two terms, but it was due to an debate shift by jryan. Furthermore jryan was also arguing a point put forth by bascule I think, that we are living in the most peaceful time in human history. Making a point that violence is much less prevalent now, than in the past. This point also falls under the realm of human behavior, and jryan was arguing against that as well. So I don't see how he has made any clear point as you state Paranoia, The only point I see him taking is the point opposite of whatever my and/or others (with like minded political views) point is. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJust so no one confuses the points, according to wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_behavior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature So no wonder jyran wanted to shift the debate to human nature, because the concept of human nature is more in correspondence with his argument. Oddly enough though, human nature seems under this definition to cover the topic of human behavior. Here is the definition according to the Oxford Pocket Dictionary, 2009. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O999-humannature.html

Come on Jryan, you cannot believe this bunch of crap. How has human nature not changed in the slightest? Sure in some areas of the world there is still behaviors going on that have for centuries, but overall human behavior has changed drastically. Do you go and hunt buffalo for your food? Do you dance the rain dance to make sure your crops get watered? Would you ever trade your daughter to her future husband because he has the best livestock to offer? Is it acceptable to beat your wife if what you use to beat her is no wider than your thumb? These are all examples of human behavior that are not as prevalent anymore and in some cases have been outlawed. To imply that human behavior doesn't change is just madness. With technological change there is inevitable social/behavioral change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_behavior'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_behavior All these factors effect human behavior, many of these factors are always changing. So how can you argue that human behavior has not changed in the slightest? Its just dishonest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights http://www.wsu.edu/~taflinge/biology.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human http://www.csupomona.edu/~jvgrizzell/best_practices/bctheory.html All of the above shows examples of how human behavior has changed, is changing, or can change. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged And what basic instinct was it that employed us to create the railroad? Was it sex? Was it survival? Was it society? Those are the major ones, and I could see the argument for society, but to imply that the building of the railroads was heavily based on instinct is a lie. Did instinct tell us how steam engines work? Did instinct tell us that we could design trains? No, simply our instinct gives us the will to live, and the will to work together, and our will to procreate. Sure if we didn't have those instincts trains may not exist today, but what is your point, we should have government that is only based upon the basic human instincts of man? Sex, Survival, and Society?

Eh, I don't know about installing XP for gaming all together. Even though it is light, windows 7 is not too bad and comes with directx10 support.

Maybe, just maybe. I think the most likely way of it happening, unfortunately is a party split.

There would be no such thing as western societies, as you know them, if it was not for the Enlightenment. And if you were referring to the good that existed previously in western culture (Europe at the time), before the enlightenment could you elaborate? Are you referring to the black plague, the crusades, Church rule, or are you referring to serfdom? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment To elaborate on the point iNow was making, do you think that if the Pope told all Christians in a broadcast tomorrow, "to take back the holy land" that they would grab their guns and go? I seriously doubt it, but during the crusades, that very thing happened. There is a perfect example of how human behavior has changed, we are more likely to question religious authority.

I would as well, but I think Paul would stand a better chance as a third party.

Yes, but I think the point to be made, is most everything you or I know was at some point copied from other individuals.

Whether I have taken a Quantum Mechanics class is not the point. The physical description of the wave is the wave function. The values of the wave function are probability amplitudes, and with the wave function you get the probability distribution. How is a wave function not a probability wave? Again, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_packet Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedNow you seem to be changing the point on semantics, you originally said this though and that was what was dead wrong, The reason it does not have a definite location is because it has a probable location in all possible paths from A to B. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_integral_formulation

Light can be measured as quanta, or wave packets of light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_packet Furthermore, how can you imply that the probability wave of a set photon is not an accurate description of the photon in reality. Essentially the math is based off of all observable evidence pertaining to photons. So at this point you can either concede your point, that the physical description of light cannot be described by a probability wave, or you simply aren't looking at the facts.