padren

I think that is pretty much what I was saying - and I do understand the fear of being labeled 'communist' for redistributing wealth via tax, even if it is to protect the value of that wealth. Just a curious thought - have people ever attempted schemes to take added money back out of circulation? Technically, it would be hard because obviously the dollars have to have value before they are taken out, so it's expensive... but money seized in drug busts could be taken out of circulation instead of extravagant coast guard yachts. It would probably be a drop in the bucket though.

Not to nitpick, but the Keynesian Money Supply stimulation analogy is pretty heavily flawed. When you increase money supply and give it to people who will spend it quickly you aren't "faking them out" but are taking little pieces of each person's dollar in the economy, putting together to make whole dollars, and giving them to those who will stimulate the economy. Consider this scenario: There are 10,000 shares in a company, all of which are owned and no one wants to sell any of them. The company is in trouble, but they can bring in help who will make the company more profitable so they survive the rough patch - only problem is that person wants 1,000 shares, and no one will give them up. However, they could agree to print 1,000 more shares, which make every share worth somewhat less, but would slice an equal amount of value off every share out there without any physical redistribution. The person may reject the offer of 1,000 shares, since they were asking for 10 percent of shares - not an arbitrary magic number, at which point they'd have to print 1,111 total shares so the old share holders don't give a single one up yet the newcomer gets 10% of total shares. That way the whole mess of trying to have someone who owns one share ending up with a fractional share is avoided. Everyone suffers a 10% loss, but the reason is to get something more for that 10% or at least stop the value from plummeting more than 10%. Personally I think the idea of increasing money supply is a poor tactic at best and really just a form of triage - and all together unfit to solve chronic conditions. However, taxes that result in a redistribution of wealth for trickle-up economics can do the same thing without increasing the money supply.

Thanks to your post I have - excellent recommendation. I have to say Alan Greenspan's recanting of market self-regulation really hit me when he first made those comments. Debate wise appeals to authority are of course as fallacious when the experts of the opposing side recant their position as they are when the opposing side tries to laud their expertise over everyone - but as far as experts go that one is sure one heck of an about-face. I had never known the story of Brooksley Born, too bad she got shafted so completely. It always amazes me how market self-regulation is touted as this great Darwinistic system where every mutation is explored and the strongest survive. It's a noble view but in reality a diverse market means some do a little better and some do a little worse - then everyone jumps ship to whatever is doing even a little better. It is about as analogous to evolution and genetic diversity as the human genome would be if we could control our own genes and modify them at will to copy others. Should that ever be possible the human race would have the genetic diversity of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt - not exactly the sort of diversity that protects against the unforeseen. Regulation allows us to throttle the limits of these adaptations so not to dissuade the diversity in the markets but be aware of when it becomes dangerously uniform. I just can't believe how stubbornly they insisted that "everything everybody is doing is already a good idea, so there is no reason to regulate it." The whole point of regulation is to step in when everyone else is already committed to going over the cliff because it's "such a good idea." It's just sad that while Alan Greenspan goes though this wonderful adventure and comes full circle to realize that, just maybe the regulations following the great depression weren't completely ridiculous, that the rest of us had to go along for the ride with him and all his friends. "Thanks guys."

Religion I think, is really the single largest thought experiment that people routinely engage in: Asking "What if?" to big questions, and have over time felt out a great many ways of answering that question. The "What if" tends to be tied to finding possible answers to the big questions of why is there a universe, how did we come to exist, why we are conscious and such. The single largest factor, is there are a great many explanations that people can use to answer that "What if" with. In the end though, they all fit the format of "thought experiment" because they are explanations for phenomena (the existence of the universe, etc) without ever being able to be confirmed by phenomena they exist to confirm. Now, that doesn't mean any specific religion is wrong, just that it is unconfirmable by it's very nature. Pretty much all religions seem to speak of a time when Gods walked the Earth or at least interacted directly with people, of which we have the stories from those times passed down from person to person. To anyone in contemporary times, those stories are explanations but without having been there they cannot be confirmed. So what does that mean to someone like me? I consider myself agnostic because I think it is impossible to know if there is a God - any being that is 'almost a god' in power could easily rearrange our brains and make us think it created the universe regardless of whether it did. It is simply a question that will always be beyond our senses to be able to answer in an honest way. That being said, I live my life largely as a functional atheist because, unless I experience the presence of [a] God, then for all intensive purposes God is absent from the world I live in - God is functionally a non-factor. Either He exists and does not let Himself be revealed, or He doesn't and there is nothing to reveal. Either way - the end result is the same - there is no way to functionally factor God as an element in day to day life with any consistency. If you go looking for God's influence you can find patterns - just as many patterns as exist that lead people live their lives based on Numerology, Astrology and countless other similar pattern theories. So I guess, where I am going with this with regards to the OP is if you find yourself in a heavily religious environment try to avoid proof/disproof and treat the "literalism" as a thought experiment, and find what underlying value can be taken from it. Whether you believe God created the world in 6 days, and on the 7th day he rested, and as such commanded all his children to rest on the 7th day is irrelevant - the question is do you find value in that teaching? I personally find it helpful to have one day a week I take off, take time to pause and enjoy the world around me and be thankful for it. Whether that observation came about through Biblical writings or not is irrelevant - the writings are untestable anyway. Likewise, there are decent philosophy on all manner of things. It won't help you when someone is trash talking evolution, but if when you feel disconcerted, try to think of the values you do value that have come from your religion and where you share commonality in appreciating those values with the rest of the community. But the important thing is to investigate those teachings and see what you value from them. When you do that, the values you choose to take from them are truly yours and how you came to them is far less important, and regardless of what you feel in the future about where they came from will not make them less valuable to you.

I have to share Tar's quote here: Brilliant!

No, I am speaking as a community member who has noticed that it appears you've had some trouble understanding where others are coming from when they have criticized your posting style. From what I can see many people are frustrated by your posting style and you have not liked their comments, but also you haven't changed your style. That gives me the impression you do not understand why they do not like it. No one wants to heckle you or give you a bad experience but we just want you to follow the rules since they are there so everyone has a good experience. You will have a better experience then too. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMeanwhile:

coberst, start a blog. That is a far better format for your style of "information sharing" than all this forum posting. People post here to discuss ideas together, not simply post ideas they want others to have discussions about. Your "fire and forget" posts do not work in a forum format. Start a blog, then people can follow it on RSS feeds etc, and post comments. If you post in the forums: ask a question in your own words and then discuss it with those that respond. Otherwise no one will bother reading it since no one wants to participate in a discussion where what they say is ignored and you just post more random stuff without participating. I'm trying to be very clear so you understand why people don't appreciate your posts. It's not just bascule or just any member that "doesn't like you" but you really aren't being respectful in your posting style. We take time to read what you say, and put time and thought into responses. If you just randomly post more articles and don't participate then you are just wasting everyone's time. Think about it from other people's perspective and try to be more courteous please.

I have to say I liked these:

If you are going by ST:TNG then it already explains the humanoid factor in an episode. Thus, in a true "star trek" style universe we'd discover that a species of sentient life existed, found itself alone, and seeded all the humanoid species of the galaxy. While that is a type of "intelligent designer" I don't think it's the one you were looking for.

Out of curiosity, doesn't think really open a can of worms on every ruling he's ever made where race was involved? Marriages are one thing, but I would suspect it'll now be in question whether black people have been treated fairly in sentencing or if they tended to get more time because "while he has many black friends and isn't a racist, black people just statistically are more likely to re-offend" or some such thing. Every time he's sent a white person to drug rehab but a black person to jail, the question of bigotry and racism is now wide open. I am really curious if this will go farther than just his removal.

Was t-shirt weather when I woke up Of course, that was 4:30 in the afternoon, so I missed most of it... but great day

It's always that way - when someone does admit to being a bad person, it's usually with a serious qualifier, as such "according to society and the idiot masses, I'm a bad person... because I won't go along with..." Otherwise, someone has to be half broken due to addiction or a behavior they can't figure out how to change that they see as bad before considering themselves bad. The rest of the time, they aren't "racist" because they see that was saying "race x is inferior" and they don't believe that... they just feel that culturally black people can't be trusted... or statistically interracial marriage fails children - or whatever BS they are predisposed to believe that justifies their racism as something else. But the short of it is everyone tries to come up with "right answers" and "bad" usually is the antithesis of "right" in most people's minds. Humans try to come to "right" conclusions, and if a phenomena such as racism is "bad" and they "rightly" come to certain conclusions that could appear racist, they'll quickly point out that they aren't and the reasoning they "rightly" arrived at.

Technically it means being born in the US or naturalized, without going through expatriation. What it's worth there are people who are Americans and don't agree with any of those values, as odd as that is. I think you are pretty much on when it comes to the question in a philisophical light as seen by the majority of those that live here.

I like Bascule's idea, though I think there should be a way to promote cooperation - if the funds are worth 3x the base amount if a cure is found by a date, then two companies would have a vested interest in working together. That may not work so well (just using a multiplier) but it does seem to be ironic that in such an age of information we have the technologies and formulas for promoting health and overcoming disease as some of the least shared and most closely guarded secrets. Perhaps if we had prize money for not just cures, but medical advancements made public domain that ended up leading to cures. Research could be done and innovative techniques discovered, and then promoted and shared - so that if another company uses that to cure something the supporting companies get retro-grants. Kind of a "if you have information that leads to an arrest" for medical research. The other thought, is setting a value over cost for medicines that - if the company charges less than, they get a tax break, and if they charge over, they get a tax increase. The whole issue does require some sort of reform though. Really it's an issue of extortion - when life depends on a service or product, the consumer has no power because they will find a way to pay, even if they have to lie and steal to get it or suffer greatly.

We could manage to perhaps just tax estates on the same level of any other property transfer, but being able to transfer property to others is pretty unequivocal if you have the notion of private property, and I don't think you can do away with private property. Besides wealth, there are far more value things that are passed on in families - social and business connections. A family's wealth could also survive multiple generations through a corporate entity. If a man starts a corporation and passes the top position on to his son is a transfer of position considered a transfer of wealth? I think multi-generational wealth will be a longstanding feature in society for some time to come. If there is any real single cause of the wealth gap it is the willingness of the majority (the relatively poor) to tolerate it. Btw: How did we get onto this topic now? This thread is really all over the place.

Fairly nonsensical statement. It has also always appeared to many observers of our world as a kind of liberator. Can you argue that it was anything but technology that freed us from subsistence farming? We will always be "enslaved" by the fact we exist in a hostile environment subject to various pressures and a powerful need to eat. We "need" our machines and are thus shackled to them only in the sense that they are a preferable means to meeting our ultimate needs - food, shelter, and where possible luxury. Without them we'd be just as shackled (actually, more so) to the fields and our hand-held farming implements. Is Corporate America in the business of hiring assassins now, or is "hired guns" just a pleasant euphemism for people paid to create innovative solutions? I think it paints a far too broad and dark generalization of the people who do this sort of work. If there is a rise in "hired guns" it's thanks to the success of education and access within a wealthy nation - there wasn't an absence of them in Roman times or any other. We just have more access today, and it's a good thing. Just what exactly isn't in that general catch all of "influences" that we are supposed to "rid" our judgments of? You cover self interest, political interests, religious interests - pretty much every reason (selfish, or selfless) is encompassed. You could possibly content one could simply be motivated by "truth" but we only know the world through our senses and how we model it internally, which is based on our experiences and - due to the uniqueness of our individual experiences - our natural biases. If you take on a selfless act it is because you hold that to be a good action to take - directly because of your experience, which cannot be free of bias. The only thing we can hope to do is challenge our model when it fails to reflect reality - instead of warp our perception of reality to fit out models. Being aware of our biases helps us be aware to challenge our models even if it's uncomfortable, but you can't be rid of bias. That is the challenge of every human being. Everyone feels discomfort when the model in their mind of how things should work out fails consistently to predict how things do work out. No one can rise fully above distortions because we perceive in a distorted manner. All anyone can do is refine their tools and models, but they'll never be perfect. You can't fit the world in your head. I can't help but to find the distinction of "intellectuals" a little too black and white - it's far more an attribute than it is a label or hat. We live in an age where intellectual capacities can achieve amazing things, far more than in any other time in history. Of course people with those capacities will gravitate to where they can have the most impact, and will likely be best compensated for their impacts. I still don't think you are "properly defining" intellectuals though. I don't think of anyone as an intellectual or not, nor has it ever occurred to me to do so. I've noted a variance in desire to engage in intellectual pursuits in people, but that's it. I would be willing to bet more has been written on philosophy, religion, politics and social issues being written in the 21st century so far than in the whole of the 20th century. I honestly have no idea where you are going with all that. Can you clarify? What is the "hallmark" of an intellectual exactly, and who even recognizes an individual's achieves as being in the capacity of an intellectual? People are either insightful or they are not, more often or not, but they rarely carry a label like "intellectual" or such. I would expect knowledge has always been a commodity, it's just more apparent now. Your comment on 'servility' seems odd as we are living in one of the least servile times in human history. I think the gist of what you are saying is "intellectuals aren't objectively commenting in the background, but being paid to write biased speeches and justify positions without regards for truth" but again, I think there are just more jobs and room for intellectual work - and more people qualified to do that work than ever before. As far as the "intellectual dissenter" goes, we have a ton of those, but it would be nice if there were more less biased ones. Of course - how many have there really been throughout history? And yet it's easier to be an artist, a musician, or an author than ever before in the history of human kind. The capacity to write and self publish and have your writings viewed by millions of people has never been cheaper, faster, or more accessible. Of course governments and private industry fund research into matters that they feel warrant research, but there are a lot of things that get funded that would surprise you. Which "pipers" called these tunes? On the topic of ideology people see what they see in the world and that shapes their views, which shapes their opinions, which shapes their biases, which shapes what they see in the world. When this leads to convergence and a sort of mental flocking behavior, I suppose it could be called an ideology. I don't think anyone should "try" to be apart from, or in any given school of thought - they should just try to be honest to their observations, their considerations, and and critical of their own metal model of the world. But why do we care about identifying intellectuals and what they have to say? We have a planet full of humans, who say lots of stuff, and we filter the things we hear people say based on where we think they are coming from. It's not like there are people that stand above the fray - everyone is in it, and what they say resonate with some and not others. PS: I hate to say it but you should distill your thoughts more, and copy/paste less. The proliferation of “” vs "" demonstrates it was pasted from a word processor, and if you want to have a discussion share your distilled thoughts, not Bhikhus. That's just my opinion at least - but it really felt like it was big on flowery terminology and poor on distillation of thoughts within a chain of interconnected ideas.

I found this to be rather interesting, about Chinese ventures in Afghanistan: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/14/2098654.aspx It talks a lot about the "Global Chessboard" of influence between the West and China, and questions if the US lost out or is even getting short changed for our efforts over there. One part I found pretty telling though is how people there view the project: It strikes me as funny that it looks like "Good Cop/Bad Cop" with China as the Good Cop - doesn't bomb anyone but comes in providing jobs. I've always found it odd that nation building doesn't include local job creation from the ground up as a cornerstone element, but it also would be harder for the US due to the mix of perceptions. I think this missed opportunity for the US could kick start some adaptations in how we do things in the nations we want to try and stabilize.

I see this as an issue of the "in good faith" argument in discussions in general, and often the reason why threads here end up derailed into recriminations. When you actually try to discuss modern events, politics, policy and the like with anyone it doesn't matter whether they agree with you or not, just whether they enter the discussion in good faith that, they are discussing ideas with you and not just pretending to be open minded so as to "educate" you as to the "right" way of thinking when they have their turn to talk. With the first, you may not see eye to eye, and may never will, but you can usually discuss and even refine why you both take the stances you do and both improve overall understandings of some issue. Some people however try to appear as if they are engaging in a real discussion and at times even believe they are, but they are so close minded and set they are really just wasting your time while engaging in an exercise of reaffirming their own world view at all costs, and trying to convert you or write you off in the process with no middle ground. The key to a good honest discussion, is the ability to be reasonable. If both sides are able to see reason, and base their arguments on reason - they can make progress and the ideas they discuss are more important than either party, and whether either is fully persuaded by the other or not, both generally come out with a broader understanding. However, when people say, watch Fox News... a network designed to reaffirm a specific ideological view regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable it may be and regardless of all the facts it is very hard to believe they have any interest in a good faith discussion based on reason.

Any human reporting on anything can have a blind bias. Fox News, I am sorry, panders to a specific demographic and intentionally selects both what to cover and how to cover it to in order to aggressively seek to shape the reaction of their viewers to build greater viewer loyalty. Almost all news agencies do this to some degree by using the "be afraid!" tactic, but Fox does take that to a whole new level of partisanship and manipulation with a complete disregard for the facts. Maybe I should wrap that in a (IMHO) but I am pretty sure only people who actually watch fox news for news consider it a news network at all.

Actually, it was Sayonara³'s clever plan to put in the ground work with 10,530 posts and become an admin, then pitch his teeth whitening product in a humorous youtube ad following a shill request for information. He's pretty crafty!

Not to be too necromantic but I just found this article, which is amusing: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_apocalypse2012

Well, where you have blackouts you have low lights, candles, staying warm under blankets... and the complete inability to get the normal daily affairs of life done. People do choose other stuff over sex all the time of course, no single thing could ever be done all the time. As for affluence perhaps people have busier schedules - but I am not familiar with those studies.

I guess technically the universe could have stopped expanding very recently, and the blue shifted light hasn't gotten to us yet. As for the technicality of the question: The aliens could say that, but "appeal to authority" is still a fallacy and they'd have to provide evidence to substantiate their assertion, and if their statement was true they should have no trouble doing that. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJust a side note: 'red shift through weakening light' would not explain how we can see objects as far away as the deep field objects, since they are more light years away than the universe is old.

You know it's a joke right?

Casual sex is definitely unfulfilling when used as a substitute for intimacy, although casual sex can also be quite intimate in the right situation. I don't think people are brainwashed into thinking sex is fun - quite the opposite, they're enjoyment is diminished by brainwashing to feel guilty about it. Why do you think it's more likely that we've been brainwashed to think it's fun, when it could also just be you who is brainwashed to think it's not? If anything, far more social institutions have been trying to paint sexuality (for reasons other than reproduction) as a bad thing to feel guilty about - not trying to convince people that it's better than it is. Like I said, sex can be unfulfilling, though it usually depends on what you are after and what a given situation has to offer. I am certain no one is brainwashed into liking it though.