Sisyphus

Agreed, though it's probably best not even to call vacuum the "medium." Being near it doesn't slow it down. It only exists moving at C. Photons travels at C -> photon is absorbed by atom (thus ceasing to exist) -> atom emits a new photon.

It is true, technically. Light appears to slow down in different mediums because photons are successively absorbed and re-emitted, but individual photons are still always traveling at C. Or more precisely, unlike sound, light isn't a wave through a medium, so it's not really correct to talk about air or glass or whatever as the "medium" through which it travels at all.

I'm not interested in hashing "who is worse," but that column is awfully silly from where I'm sitting. "First it was astroturf, then" etc., as if "the left" is a single entity that keeps "changing its story." They won't swing elections -> "don't bother voting," and the status quo will last forever? criticizing their rhetoric -> "disdainful" of free speech? describing demographics -> resenting success, or something? Yeah, this sneering, hypocritical straw man that represents all criticism of the Tea Part sure is a jerk!

So your point is that you want to be prejudiced based on somebody's real life appearance, rather than an image they choose to represent them?

8) "a long standing anthropomorphic representation of society's survival instinct"

What do you gain by knowing someone's face? You say "to know them," but what you "know" about a person just by looking at them is just prejudice, exactly what we want to avoid.

Yup.

You're right. If losing even 1 competitor is worth more than $1 million, it would be #4's proposal that is accepted. The votes of 1-3 don't even matter, because 4-7 would vote no on everything until then, when it would be 4 and 5 for yes and 6 and 7 for no. 4 is safe voting no on 1-3 because he knows he can count on 5 when his time comes, because 5 has to avoid his own turn.

The momentum of a single photon is directly proportional to its frequency. It has a magnitude equal to planck's constant divided by its wavelength. If I understand the experiment correctly, then I think the gas would indeed slowly rotate.

I agree that it's unanswerable without more info. You've got two commodities (money and reduced competition) without an "exchange rate," and a situation where the utility of each might well be different depending on where you are on the list and/or how many remain. It could well be that eliminating competitors is more important than money for everyone, in which case the guaranteed result is #6 getting a million, #7 getting nothing, and everybody else getting fired.

Just be glad you haven't seen my face.

Sure, if you decrease outside pressure, it should have the same effect as increasing inside pressure.

Remember that you are stretching out the elastic balloon. The inside pressure has to fight both the outside pressure and the elasticity of the balloon. Think of stretching out or compressing a spring - to maintain a shape other than its nautral shape requires a constant force.

Relevant how? Are there useful conclusions, or are there not? Also, how is Hitler a "moral relativist?" Nazis seem pretty damn sure they're right. And finally, what, exactly is the alternative to a personal moral code, aside from simply total ammorality? If you have morals, you chose them yourself. The only distinction is whether you accept them unquestioningly from somebody else (like your parents, or Hitler, or the Pope) or whether you figure things out for yourself.

1)As ParanoiA says, what "tax deductable" means is that it's deducted from your taxable income. So if you earn 100k and donate 10k to charity, you are taxed as if you earned 90k. If that were, say, a 30% tax rate, your taxes would then be 3k less. 2)You're talking about a charity auction? Well the host is presumably a charitable organization, so those laws would apply. I'm not sure about the bidder, but my guess is that that wouldn't be tax deductible, since he's not donating the money, he's buying what he bid on. I could easily be wrong, though.

See, that's the thing. I don't think using birth names and photographs of our real faces is more civilized. I think it's more civilized to start with a blank slate. Not my intention. I've probably had half a dozen avatars in my time on this forum, and I don't use the same name or avatar anywhere else. It generally doesn't even occur to me that someone would give it as much significance as you have. Maybe I'm just more used to it? I've used screen names to communicate on the internet with people I know and people I don't know since high school, and it seems perfectly natural to me, so maybe it's just "cultural."

As per my previous thread on The Economist poll, nobody actually wants to cut spending, either, except in the vague, abstract sense.

What happened several weeks back?

If you're going to simplify it to the usual "economic and social" and "liberal and conservative" axes, then that might be true, but that isn't the argument being made.

I came across this essay from 2006 at the Cato Institute. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6800 It suggests that the conservative-libertarian fusion of the past is largely exhausted, and that an alliance of liberals and libertarians is actually more natural, if only each could get around their respective kneejerk hangups. The argument is that libertarian means naturally support progressive ends and vice versa, and offers numerous examples of shared ends and suggestions for reasonable compromise regarding seemingly insurmountable differences (like the entitlement system). I thought I'd share it because I like its optimism, and because I think there are a lot of members here who would be sympathetic to the viewpoint.

I consider a name and a face irrelevant to the "who" in this context.

I did read it. It seems like you're conflating several different concepts: 1) "Creator" (of the universe? in what way?) 2) "supreme being" (supreme how?) 3) "That which is unchanging" 4) "the Universe that we no, and the universe that we do not know." (So, "the universe.") 5) a being with intent, that limits homo sapiens 6) the "Creator" referred to in... the Declaration of Independence, I guess 7) the character depicted in the Old Testament

I've thought the same thing. Taking the analogy further, you can see that each slice is related to the immediately adjacent slice in predictable ways. If all you ever saw was middle slices, you might conclude that there always has to be a next slice in both directions, because the relationships between adjacent slices predict it.

That's not a definition of "God" then, that's just saying something about "God," a word which remains undefined.

Already we're in trouble, if "creator," "supreme being," and "that which is unchangeable" (meaning "anything which does not change with respect to time"?) are being treated as synonyms.