John Cuthber

But it's the people who actually do stuff who generate wealth, and those people are not typically conservatives

And how did you come to the conclusion that Liberals can't make money?

The interesting question is what do we need Conservatives for? I already asked that, and I have yet to see an answer.

In general, it's the people who have enough money who are Conservatives.

If you check carefully, you will find that I didn't say anything about your life. Some of the things you said are flat out wrong. This is a science web site. Do you think false things should be left unchallenged on a science page?

Having lots more vitamins (for example) in the bloodstream is only going to make a difference if you were previously deficient, and I doubt that you would be if you were in the habit of drinking juice. Also you comments about store bought juices are factually wrong- pasteurisation isn't super-heating. It doesn't "Kill" nutrients-partly because they are not alive, but principally because they are reasonable stable chemicals. This is a bit odd too "When you buy orange juice from the store you're essentially buying glorified sugar water with an orange flavor. " The same is pretty much true of home made juice." And, if you like fruit juice what's wrong with sugar in water. That describes practically the whole of any juice. Are you one of these people who somehow thinks "natural is good"?

How do you rule out psychosomatic effects as an explanation for what you have perceived when you drink juice?

Do you know what psychosomatic means?

I think it's a little more complex than tat. The Conservatives don't per se want to control people, they just don't want to help them, because that costs money However, since helping people is pretty much hard wired into most human behaviour they need to find ways to convince people to ignore their instincts and avoid helping. For example, most of us, if we meet someone who is clearly in need of help- for example a refugee from some war or unable to find work, would at least offer to share food with them as long as we were not in great need. We even set up government systems to help with organising that process by collecting tax and redistributing it as dole (OK govts also do other more complicated stuff too, but that's beside the point). If you don't want to pay taxes you need to convince people not to behave in what is normally a natural way. And in order to do that , one way is to convince them that the recipients of the benefits are not "deserving" in some way. So you paint them as liars, scroungers thieves or whatever. In order to do that you need to invent ways in which "They" are different from "You", and that's the point at which the controls enter into it. For example, if you notice that many recipients of dole enjoy a spliff, you make that illegal and then you can criminalise the group who weren't actually harming people. Once you label them as criminal you have a "reason" to stop giving them support (in spite of the fact that logic says that those with substance abuse problems need more resources, rather than less). So you introduce "controls" like banning cannabis- because it lets you label people on the the list of dole recipients as "undeserving" , and thus drops the tax you need to pay. It's not directly a desire for control- it's just that control is a means to the end of cutting tax. Or, in short, Conservatism is selfishness. Does that sound a bit harsh? OK, here's some more direct evidence.

Actually, the origin of the term is that they wished for government expenditure to be conservative. The Liberals wanted liberal spending (and, by implication, higher taxes). If you look at the list of "ideals" in the OP, most of them cost money. Achieving them means paying taxes.

Anarchy is nothing to do with pragmatism. I started doing that, and I commented on some of the more obvious errors, but it really wasn't going well so I stopped + went to bed. Raider, As far as I can tell it was me asking this question which triggered the creation of this thread. Perhaps you could answer it? I'm looking for a reply along the lines of Statement of problem; Blah Statement of Conservative policy on that problem Blah Explanation of how that policy solves the problem Blah and, for bonus points How the Liberal. Democrat response doesn't fix the problem. Just 1 example will do fine, and you should be able to do (at least, a simplistic, unrefined version of) it in 6 lines of text.

I got this far and remembered about the "trickle down" theory... Great; and what better way to encourage them to be the best they can be than to ensure they have the best education they can get? Which is -kind of- the antithesis of Conservatism which thinks they should get the education their parents can afford. Stop using the internet; brought to you by government scientists... Me too; and that's why I can spot the cognitive biases that politicians exploit... Indeed; have a look at how the Conservative politicians have "improved" the world. "seem" is a very big word. Imagine, for a moment the idea of a democracy where the will of the people is strongly aligned with the will of the government. Compare that whith a world wher the will of the government is entirely defined by the will of the very rich- a plutocracy, rather than a democracy... Which one would support "big government" which controls the excesses of capitalism and he free market? I could carry on, but it's late.

We are back to the idea that China is invisible (because I can't see it from here) which is plainly absurd. You can only see something if it is- or comes from- a place where you can see it. But, if It is in a position to project light into my eyes I can see that light, and I can make deductions from it about the outside world.

The idea of you telling me what I see is absurd- especially when I already told you. Strictly what I see is essentially the point spread function of the eye. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_spread_function I recognise the terms have different meanings. However, the reason I can tell you what colour the light is, is that I can see it. I can also see objects, but I can't see objects that don't exist- for example, a blue apple. I may mistakenly believe that I see a blue apple. That's faulty perception. A bit like you "see" a line as longer than another line in optical illusions.

Speed the ship up a bit and the light from the apple and the shirt turns blue. There isn't a blue apple in the universe- so that's obviously not what I am seeing. What I see is light from the apple which has been made blue. The light changes, not the apple. What I see changes. So what I see must be the light.rather than the apple. Incidentally, I forgot my glasses. What I "see" is an image of the imperfections in my eye's lens; regardless of the source.

Even if it was true, that wouldn't stop you answering the question. Please do so. What does Republicanism, or Conservatism, if you prefer, actually fix?

Great! Now, if you can just let me know what Republicanism fixes...

I checked with Captain Kirk. The colour of the apple didn't change; it still matches Scotty's shirt.. So that's obviously not what I saw change. However, in passing through space, from a source to a moving observer, the wavelength of the light changed. It's not just a visual perception thing. Any instrument that measures wavelengths and intensities will confirm- the light isn't red any more. The property of the light has changed, as shown my any available means- a spectrometer or an eye (or anything else- you can, in principle, shine a really bright light on the apple so that a lot of light is reflected off it. When that light reaches me I can use it to illuminate a scene and that scene will look and behave exactly the same way as if I used any other source of green light. . I can detect that change with my eyes. That's because I have seen the light. The trouble is that they are not two things; they are one thing which is- in your explanation- simultaneously blue and yellow. I'm not sure that helps. At best all this shows is that whether or not you can see light is a matter of what you mean by "see". However in a very abstract system where relativistic Dopper shifts happen you can only describe the light that reaches you- you don't have any way to know how that light relates to the object that emitted or reflected it. So the only thing that you can form a cognitive model of is the light itself. Whatever version of "see" you use; you can see light.

That's probably the important bit, given that nothing is "non toxic". You can use propylene glycol- low odour, less toxic. Much more expensive.

You need a better boss.

That's like saying that when a burglar steals your property, you should say "good for them". It's not their "good fortune" when they take stuff that's yours without asking

IPA smells of IPA. There's nothing you can do about it.

As I pointed out , the sodium vapour in a street lamp is blue, but what you see is yellow. So the yellow you see isn't the "source", it's the light you see.. If you look at an apple, it's red. If you look at an apple that's on a spaceship moving towards you very fast, you see it as a different colour, say blue. The apple hasn't changed, but the light has. How can anyone argue that you can't see light, when you can see the colour change? Yes, it's obvious. You can see light- that's why you can see the colour change. It's why you can see the yellow light from a blue thing (so it's not a matter of "seeing the source".

It would be better if you didn't base your argument on things that are factually incorrect. "It should be apparent by now that the retina does not just collect and transduce information about light. The signal that is transmitted to the brain has already gone through multiple stages of processing before it even enters the optic nerve." From http://courses.washington.edu/psych333/handouts/coursepack/ch13-Information_processing_in_retina.pdf

Some people smell more than others- not least depending on washing themselves and their laundry. It's not hard to imagine someone noticing it for some member of a particular group and forming the hypothesis that the odour was because of the group membership. That's exactly the sort of thing that would be reinforced by confirmation bias. You perceive the odour, but you only remember it when it's in the presence of the "right" people. Having said that, ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex