Phi for All

! Moderator Note That was my first reaction as well, until I realized MigL misunderstands what is meant by "systemic" in this context. I hope going forward he understands we're talking about the process more than the people. It seems to be the key to understanding the "bad apples" argument.

I think it's because God needed a scapegoatsnake. He realized he'd lied to A&E when he said they'd die if they ate the apple, so he puts the serpent into the garden to tell them it's OK to eat the apple. God gets to curse the snake with a forked tongue and make it crawl on its lying belly, and boots the ungrateful tenants who now want clothes as well as a garden. And nobody remembers who lied first.

! Moderator Note You should have reported other members using fallacious logic to argue their points, the way they reported you. There's no need to waste your time on a discussion when someone isn't being honest. If you point out someone's fallacy and they keep using it, or they continuously fall back on strawmen to misinterpret your words, I urge you to use the feature. It gets staff attention.

! Moderator Note Not sure what you're trying to do here, but you won today's Report That Post pool. Please stop playing Fallacy Bingo, or whatever is making you argue in such a disingenuous manner.

! Moderator Note If someone asks, feel free to make this recommendation, but starting a thread about a YouTube channel is against our rules. Sorry!

The explanation of life itself could be as simple as organization. Living matter spreads energy from the sun more efficiently throughout the various trophic levels than inorganic matter does. And now they taste like anchovies, thank you very much.

The key here is to keep them running businesses, and not trying to warp their ability to make money into something it's not. Like political savvy, or science acumen, or anything that's not about making money. Didn't y'all have to sell your first high-speed train to some Canadians? What do these trains run on? They aren't maglev, and I always think of that as the ultimate for trains (not a train guy, though).

! Moderator Note You lifted this verbatim from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-great-failure-of-the-climate-models. Trying to pass off the words of others as your own is plagiarism, and it's against our rules. Further, if you're just going to post copypasta and NOT answers questions posed to you regarding the material you're using, you're not arguing in good faith, which is also against the rules. Further posts that are less discussion and more agenda-driven will be tossed in the Trash.

Referring to a group of people as "trash" falls under my definition of racist. As in, "Hitler wanted good for people. It's just that his actions were incorrect towards taking out the trash(religion)." He also referred to Hitler as an OK leader, neither good nor bad. And in this context, I'm surprised you don't see this as supportive of the Nazi stance on Jews being sub-human. But please, feel free to defend him since you found no offense in how he spoke about black humans. I invite you to point out where his stance educated you.

This is where I feel you're wrong-wrong-wrong, and it's a fundamental mistake that's polluting your whole outlook on this issue. Calling out reprehensible behavior is NOT meant to hurt anybody, it's meant to STOP THE HURT. Once again, you're making the wrong person the victim. Perhaps you should decide on a definition of racism that allows no equivocation. For me, anybody who considers any group of humans to be less than human is a flat-out racist. And you know what? If that's truly the way they feel, if they think they're better because of the color of their skin, I want this divide you're talking about to be spotlighted. I want to know who persecutes other humans in this way, and I want the whole world to know I disagree with them completely. I have no problem spotting racism, and I feel racists can't be trusted to live among others in a gun culture with a lack of informative media like the US. They undermine the very meaning of living together in a society. I'm more concerned with racism's true victims than with alienating obvious racist assholes.

! Moderator Note After six pages, it's clear you aren't arguing in good faith. First you claim not to understand, then you're an expert. Every time you're pressed on a point, you ignore it and jump to another example. This isn't how discussion works if one is concerned with filling a gap in one's knowledge with something trustworthy. You've had ample time to support your arguments rigorously, and you haven't. Don't bring this up again if this is the way you're going to "discuss" science.

This is artificially proscribed. One of the tenets that holds this site together is that one group of humans isn't inherently inferior to any other group of humans, and we're getting lots of folks like essereio who disagree. Please explain your position on the spectrum of "all other opinions", if you feel you aren't being represented fairly by one of our core values.

From what I've read, the GOP is using her position on Hitler to further their attempts to paint the Nazis as socialists and globalists, and to remove the fascist label from themselves and stick it on the Dems. The fact that she's black seems to be currently overpowering the combined ignorance of all those stances, and it lets the GOP redirect much of the anger from the Floyd protests to their own questionable causes. Stunning use of propaganda and misinformation, but it has as much to do with the murder of George Floyd as the Koch Brothers had to do with the original Tea Party movement.

And in the context of religion, we're imagining something that we can't otherwise sense, and I think that's the key. At an age when humans were looking beyond simple hunting and gathering, those who could use their minds to interpret things that couldn't be seen or felt would hold a special place in the society. If you're coming from a more or less religious upbringing, you may want to investigate TalkOrigins.org. They have a LOT of evolutionary material to help cure the disease of creationism. Even if you've never been a creationist, the information is written for those new to evolution.

! Moderator Note The arguments against this concept have been clearly laid out in this thread, and they overwhelm anything that's ever been offered as support. Leaving it open is just a magnet for ignorant replies, so we'll keep it closed, and redirect any future posters to read this thread and see if their argument has been addressed.

I can't really say if it's a lack of ability, or a different choice based on criteria we aren't thinking about. What if their view of "social" is what's different, rather than their skills unraveling clues? A person on the spectrum might think it's rude to stare at people so much. It may make them uncomfortable, so they don't do it to others automatically.

Hannah Gadsby calls it the Puffer Fish because it's a triggered defense mechanism. I think of it as a visceral frustration when you suddenly realizes that the perfectly engaging train of thought you were enjoying is NOT the club car full of people you thought it was. In fact, everybody else seems to be on a different train (an obvious, boring one) on a different track (going no place interesting), and you resent feeling like an intellectual hobo surrounded by baggage. Your train was SO COOL, and it was headed to amazing places, and you simply can't believe nobody else is on board, so you lash out. Swell up like a puffer fish. I think we all have little unconscious tests we perform when we're talking to others that assure us everyone is on the same page. We can usually see when someone's eyes glaze over, or widen in shock. We hear sounds of agreement or skepticism. We can see small smiles, frowns, nods, shakes, and tilts that give us clues to how we're being received. I've noticed folks on the spectrum in my life often get so caught up in their thoughts that they ignore all the clues, or just don't look directly at you enough, so they're shocked when their audience doesn't "get it". And I can relate to that. It's very frustrating when you explain something clearly and concisely the way you understand it, and your audience doesn't arrive at the same conclusions. It must be doubly/triply frustrating when your audience clearly thinks you're being too testy about something they clearly don't understand.

If you get really good at setting expectations, you'll find it helps with everybody on the spectrum (which I suspect is broader than we think and may include a lot more of us). It may simply work on everyone. It's the equivalent of someone like Elizabeth Warren always having a plan. It allows people to make their own plans based on yours, and it's very comforting and satisfying, and makes folks feel great about following your lead. I recommend watching Hannah Gadsby's new Netflix comedy special Douglas if you can. She's been diagnosed with high-functioning autism, and she has this brilliant convention where she tells you EXACTLY how her standup show is going to unfold before she starts, in order to set your expectations as an audience member (I hope she continues this format in future shows). Then she does the show, and it's amazing how much funnier it is because you know what's coming. She also touches on several spectrum-related behaviors you should be aware of (beware the Puffer Fish). Thank you for taking the extra time, and also for recognizing that the way these beautiful minds work is just different, not abnormal. Your student appreciates it more than they're probably telling you.

A better scientific word for harmony is equilibrium. When you say "symptom", do you mean "property"? My cardiologist tells me there are only 3 layers of heart muscle, the epicardium, the myocardium, and the endocardium. And "which throws the blood into a vortex which which encodes the emotion in its tilt" is a big bunch of vague words thrown together in a salad. "Blood into a vortex"? What mechanism does blood use to encode emotions, and what is the "tilt" of blood?

I'm rather disappointed by this. I often use the phrases "I think" and "I suppose" in order to signal that I'm expressing my opinion and not facts. It would be a shame if that was no longer effective. I really take offense to the term "bleeding heart" in this context. I also don't see what's wrong with passion when it's there to back up a reasoned stance. The "heart" can engage those who've stopped using their brains. I think it's dangerous to dismiss someone in a discussion based on how passionate you think they are rather than addressing their arguments.

! Moderator Note Let's be aware that while guns are an aspect of this topic, it would be all too easy to let that aspect take over the discussion. Let's avoid a split, and stay focused, thanks.

In a "heated discussion", the key is to manage your arguments carefully. Present them simply, support them well, and insist on focus and clarity from the responses. Don't let someone put words in your mouth, or make the argument about something else that's easier to refute. This makes attempts at strawmen and goalpost moving more obvious. People arguing conspiracy are trying to assume their suspicions are true, but lacking evidence they usually use Begging the Question and Argument from Incredulity to prop up unsupported reasoning. Over the years here at SFN , we've learned that conspiracy isn't suited to discussion, mainly because its theorists can''t argue without fallacious reasoning and intellectually dishonest tactics. And after all, when there IS actionable evidence, it's not a conspiracy, it's a crime, right?

... and then murder him.

At least here, I think it's important to make the distinction between assertions that can be supported and those that can't. Here, most members can judge an idea on the merits of its reasoning, and even unpopular stances can be discussed if we're allowed to argue those merits, and know that all reasoned responses help make a thread meaningful and worth the time we put into it. Somebody should learn something. Unfortunately, many of the folks that claim they aren't free to discuss a subject don't bother with a reasoned approach. We still get people who claim to have read the thread on Eugenics but then post arguments based on junk that's already been debunked or falsified. They regurgitate something they've heard or make it up in their own heads and ignore reasoned rebuttals. Nobody has time for that kind of lazy crap. I'm hugely biased, but I think we strike a pretty good middle ground when it comes to letting folks speak freely. Even with opinion, we allow folks to speak their minds as long as they can give us some context and show their reasons. What about complete freedom to say anything you want? I'm profoundly uninterested in the kind of shocking, unsupported garbage most folks post when allowed to "speak freely". If the only thing I'm going to learn from the discussion is that you've had bad experiences with immigrants in the past and now have the unchangeable opinion that they should all be castrated, then it's not worth my time.

You know what? It's pretty clear that you're here to push ugly as an agenda. I'm perfectly OK with your shitty personal outlook, and it's not my business why you disparage so many people, but we're not the place for your hate. You don't listen to the science, you ignore any detractors, and you attract other shitty people to the site. I don't say this a lot, but I just don't want you hear anymore. I've been defending your right to an opposing stance because it's good for others to practice standing up to bigotry and racism, but now I'm going to recommend you be banned. You're not healthy for a reasoning person to deal with, and if you aren't getting paid to be a shit-stirrer, you should probably look into that.