Phi for All

I didn't watch it, but I can tell you many of the problems we have with any video. We have no way to quickly check them the way we do a written OP. Videos FORCE members to watch them just to see if they're worth watching. If we let you post them because we trust you, how do we apply that evenly to everyone else? It would be a huge extra burden if the staff had to watch them all. Quoting them is also either difficult, inaccurate, or you have to keep re-watching them. Unless you're discussing the presentation itself, it's not a good way to roundtable between people having a conversation. We're still a discussion board, and videos feel too much like lectures. Many who join to post videos don't stick around to talk about them, and that's soapboxing. We allow general videos introducing an overview of an aspect of science so you can set the stage for those who may not know about it. It wouldn't be out of place to provide a video about gravitational waves before you asked a question about them, allowing everyone an option to watch or not. As long as the members can participate without having to watch, videos aren't a problem.

! Moderator Note First, if swansont is involved in a mainstream thread's discussion, he doesn't moderate that thread. He's always been extremely good about this in all the years he's been doing this. In this thread, he's a professional physicist discussing the science. Second, anyone who reads this thread can tell you're being emotional about a rational stance. swansont made a comment about personal opinion not being meaningful when applied to science, and he was right. Your objections are therefore more about the fact that he disagreed with you, or that he wouldn't let you strawman him or move the goalposts (as both you and wtf were obviously doing). Third, if you have a problem with another poster, use the Report Post function. We have a whole procedure for that. No need to take a thread off-topic to voice your frustrations.

You're still replying "Screw your labels!" to a thread asking about a particular label. Why don't you simply NOT participate? That's what I do when someone opens a thread about a question re stamp-collecting. I don't post, "Who cares about that?"

! Moderator Note You need to seriously read the replies you're getting if you think they're just talk. People are trying to help you understand something you've misunderstood for years. It's all done out of respect for the science and math. Show some yourself, please. It's intellectually dishonest to ignore people who're showing you where you're wrong. If you can't engage in meaningful discussion using the rules of this site, I'll have to close this thread. Please listen to all the "talk and talk".

No, it's just what happens when private ownership isn't well balanced with public needs and funding. Everything becomes about growth and profit, and things like people and the environment take a back seat if we don't keep vigilantly regulating how we want our society to treat us. Several branches of science find their studies converging on the fact that we are adversely affecting our overall climate. Really, the only objections to consilience are monetary ones, that it will cost too much money to risk being wrong. It's silly though, since an investment like that could only result in a much cleaner and efficient use of resources and an enormous improvement in quality of life for thousands of species, most especially humans.

That's the case currently, with the uber-conservative governments we both have. Again, pollution tends to go down under administrations that care more about breathing and drinking than profits. I think conservatives like the amazing investment opportunities that occur when you let things get really, really bad before you fix them. NatGeo has a list of environmental abuses under Trump: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/

Not all religions are as negatively judgemental as you.

This seems like an off-topic response no matter what thread it's posted to.

This would certainly cover two scenarios that always bother me, the person who has led a righteous life without a specific belief (or follows a non-Christian religion), and the person who has never heard of Christianity but is nonetheless a very good person. It also seems like the OP's third category, where deeds matter more than worship. I think if this category still believes in god(s), they're still theists. Does one have to believe in a personally-involved god(s) to be a theist? I would call a category like this "tolerant" or "inclusive". I'm sure follower in other categories have different names for them. The series is saved from mediocrity by some excellent edgy characterizations yanked from Neil Gaiman's comics, and eventually grows out of it's procedural format to become a very fun show. Surprising LOL moments, which are always a treat. If I had to believe in a god(s), it would be one who intervened in our lives this way. Do-overs when you screw up bigtime, keep at it until you get it right, then your life (and time itself ) continues, hopefully with everyone wiser, happier, and better off than before. Church of the Infinite Mulligan.

Interesting. Why not focus on living a good life then, and skip the whole belief/worship cycle? How do these Christians interpret the old favorite John 3:16 re belief in Jesus? More like the series Lucifer (where the devil actually gets a therapist, ala Tony Soprano). Hell is a never ending loop of the time you most regret in your life, the part you feel the most guilt over. You can leave anytime you like, but you can never check out until you've resolved your guilt.

You're asking what category your third believer falls into? I'm not sure I've ever heard of a religion's afterlife that welcomes non-believers. Is that what sanatana Dharma does? A friend of mine wrote a paper while in seminary about a Christian heaven where God doesn't judge who gets into it, but rather the person themself decides if they're worthy or not. If not, they stand outside heaven, miserable that they can't get in until they accept their own worth. Your third scenario reminded me of that paper, since all are welcome no matter what they believed in life.

Greed, or the desire to have more resources for your own family and loved ones? Greed, or wanting to provide a better life for your children than you had? Greed, or wanting to insure a lasting legacy of security and prosperity? Just claiming "most" of the violence is due to greed needs to be backed up by something. Evidence suggests there are more motives than simple greed. In my lifetime, I've seen pollution cut dramatically when the US administrations care to invest in stricter regulations, and despite the extreme greedies always trying to loosen them, the air and water in my state are better than when I was young. It may be difficult to see from your perspective, but I urge you to do some investigation that will arm you with more than just incredulity. There are a LOT of people taking climate change very seriously. Many of those who aren't are doing so to protect their livelihoods (and thus their families) in the oil & gas industry, so again, simple greed is too lazy an explanation. We can do better, but you shouldn't ignore what's already being done. And allow for many more things to be influencers. Money is only so important these days because the extreme greedies want it to be the metric by which all are judged. Most folks put money much farther down their wish lists.

This is pretty basic stuff. Substitute almost anything, good or bad, for "dying by suicide" in your above question, and I think you'll have your answer. How does one person blowing up a building encourage others to do the same? How does one person eating an ice cream cone encourage others to do the same? Emulating observed behavior is one of the foundations of how we learn, from a very young age. It's a spectrum ranging from avoidance to admiration to hero worship, and it's very powerful. Also, I'm not sure I agree that sending a message that suicide is NOT OK is necessarily stigmatizing it. You can decry an action without implying anything about the person performing it. I want to be able to say suicide is a horrible thing, without implying a person is horrible for contemplating it. Does that make sense?

! Moderator Note Gaps in our knowledge cause us ALL to be ignorant about many things. It's not an insult to point out where such gaps are creating an obstacle that prevents someone from learning. The only time ignorance is bad is when it's willful, and that doesn't seem to be the case here. It's plain that you've missed some essential piece of the puzzle that makes you skeptical of the explanations SR offers, and are simply convinced something is wrong with SR rather than with your understanding of it. Please be patient, ask questions, deal with the replies without trying to constrain them, and I think you may find a "Eureka!" moment right around the corner.

! Moderator Note I don't think you realize the disservice you're doing to yourself by restricting the way you learn from discussions. Requiring a physicist with the US Naval Observatory to answer yes or no questions on one of his areas of expertise isn't going to help you overcome your ignorance in this area. Why not take advantage of people who understand relativity better than you do, and have taught others successfully? After all, if what you claim is true, computers and GPS wouldn't work. Since they do, perhaps you're mistaken. That would explain your problems with SR much better than "everybody but me is wrong", don't you think? In any case, this is in the mainstream sections, and if you continue to soapbox about your misunderstandings, I'll have to move this to Speculations. If you can ask more questions (with answers deeper than yes or no), and take the replies on board, the thread can stay in a mainstream section.

By US standards, too much of your valuable private investment opportunities are owned by the public. To make matters worse, your public programs are focused on the people rather than profit. In the US, it doesn't matter if ownership is public or state, everything bends over painfully for private interests. Prepare to pay more for less!

Now there's a guy who can get a haircut during a hurricane.

I think you mean "better used" the gift. As it is, we're extremely cooperative compared to most species. Combined with high degrees of communication, tool use, and hands we don't need to walk with, we've been able to survive and thrive in most environments. We've aggressively become the only species capable of leaving the planet. We've made mistakes, of course. Personally, I think higher intelligence will always mean the possibility of bigger mistakes. They're also an opportunity for bigger learning experiences. It's easy to imagine us in better circumstances "if only". I'm sure if we hadn't devoted so much time to aggression, we'd have a very different society today. I'm just not sure it would be better. What if our aggression is a natural consequence of our fierceness in protecting our loved ones? What if our conquering tendencies are powered the curiosity that leads us to explore new territory? I have a LOT of trust (not faith, not hope), that humans are becoming more cooperative all the time. Evidence shows that we're just as apt to be warlike, but we're doing more and more together these days. Or we were until the recent nationalism craze. Two steps forward...

I sent them a PM about how post count is suffering in Politics, and let them know we miss them.

! Moderator Note When a thread is closed, we lock the topic. If you can still post, it's an open thread. Now that there's no more confusion about whether or not we want you to answer questions, perhaps you could address some of the concerns already posted in this very open, very active, very curious thread.

My hairdresser is confused by the stapler, so you may be right. Still, I wouldn't advise you to mow during a hurricane, especially if you've just had your hair cut. Unless you're golfing too.

You're lucky, mine refuses to cut hair even when it's only raining.

... with both feet on the floor. For some (), crossing the legs when sitting down is a habit, and it definitely messes with your BP readings.

! Moderator Note Questioning you isn't an insult. In science, an idea needs to be tested rigorously before it's accepted as an explanation for anything. You've claimed well-tested maths are wrong, and it's up to you to show why. You haven't done that here in this thread, so why should anyone discuss your ideas with you? We need to know that you have a point before considering it. So far, your point hasn't been made. EVERYONE here wants you to talk about mathematics and physics, but in a meaningful way, and that means you have to accept that you may be wrong and now have an opportunity to correct that and move on to better intellectual challenges. If you can't resolve the questions in this thread, please don't compound your mistakes in another thread.

! Moderator Note The members participating are trying to do just that, but you aren't listening to their mathematical arguments. You're ignoring them, yet insisting they stick to maths and logic, which they're telling you are wrong in this case. Also, we attack ideas here, not people. There have been NO personal insults whatsoever. Disagreeing with you, or calling your ideas wrong, or telling you your logic is flawed is consistent with our rules on civility. None of those is a personal attack. Please engage with the questions posed to you, especially the requests for the maths you believe are wrong. If you can't do that, then you're just soapboxing, which is against the rules, and I'll have to shut the thread down. This is a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of professional knowledge that can help put you back on track with your mathematics education, if you'll acknowledge that.