Phi for All

I don't really see the point of discussing anything with you when you argue this way. Even you can't possibly believe "a simple off handed comment" caused all this reaction. You don't use reason very well.

I think you're completely wrong here. What is offensive is the idea of prejudging individuals based on broad stereotypes of groups of any sort. That's not an emotional stance, since we can easily show how prejudice damages a society. The emotional stance is the racist one, the one that uses no reasoning. Do you think racial hatred is the best way to deal with the development of our world? Will intolerance end up being the best course? I think you equate taking offense with "hurt feelings". You need to stop redefining well-known words. Ignorance is a human condition that's easily curable. The only offense is when it's willful.

But can you knock down the real argument? We know you can hit the strawman...

It is a US thing. It's traditionally used exclusively for women, and it usually carries with it a desire to demean, along with all the bundled up viciousness some men hold towards all women because of past perceptions about a few women. The US has a problem with violence-minded misogynists.

You're entitled, I guess, but I don't see how that word could EVER be used by a woman with the contempt most men who use it often put into it.

The tipping point for all priests, marketers, and con men.

Absolutely. And as you can see from the responses, as usual it's completely misplaced. I think the anti factions make more money because people tend to stay tuned longer to stories that rile them up (the Howard Stern factor). But the pro factions are very easily manipulated, so they make great clickbait and are immensely profitable. It's TV news, it's all about the $, not the information. I agree with Strange, I don't like using the "c word" due to the vehemence for gender it displays, and the shroud of hate men who use it regularly seem to cloak themselves with. When women use it among themselves, it strikes me the same as black people owning the "n word" and using it daily. I suppose when you own something you have a right to use it, but if it's such a loaded, horrible word I'd rather nobody used it at all. But it's worthless to ban the words if the sentiments still exist. The folks who always sought to take the high road aren't in office anymore. In the age of Trump, quiet voices of reason aren't heard, critical thinking links don't get clicked on. It seems the People are choosing blare and rage and pitchforks over thoughtful approaches. There's a difference between hate speech and angry reactions to hateful behavior. The thoughtful and compassionate voices that need air time are probably more numerous than we know, but their ratings are bad compared to the liars and haters and opportunists we have leading us now.

You're making the mistake of conflating ideas you've developed that make sense only to you with those obtained through a reasoned approach. If you had actually used critical thinking and a trustworthy methodology, your "reasoning" would be obvious to everyone. It's a common mistake these days. "Reason" doesn't mean "think about this a lot until it makes sense to you". "Logic" and "theory" suffer similarly.

Thanks, Sensei, that's the part I'd forgotten (what with all the rubbing, I guess), and it wasn't making sense. My bad.

I'm uninterested in making it sound better. I understand well cooked. It seems like the article claims all food should be fairly well chopped up into small pieces before cooking. I'm not sure about that being "preferable". Are they assuming people don't chew enough on average? Why is grating or even blending food so smoothly preferable to shredding it?

The way I read it, the death would be direct if the person suffered damage from the tree being blown down onto them. It would NOT be direct if the tree merely pinned them, denying access to water so they died of dehydration. It's a bit like saying a gunshot victim died of heart failure.

What is being "rubbed"? I define rubbing as massaging an oil or powder into the skin of something.

! Moderator Note And I was going to leave all your stuff in the thread, but you've convinced me it's all trash.

I know they meant "meats" instead of "meals", but I wonder what they want you to rub into it. I use dry rub herbs and spices on many meats, but I wonder if they mean something else? Or is this a translation problem?

My wife's father used to joke that Slavic culture is pessimistic by design. He was told all kinds of dire things would happen if he didn't do X. When he was "moved" to Germany during WWII, it was the first time he was exposed to optimism. "If you eat this good soup, you'll grow up big and strong!" I'd like to think being positive is more effective, but I honestly can't say for sure.

! Moderator Note The "terrible" factor matters very little. It's your style of attacking the people who are attacking your ideas that's unacceptable. It's a fallacious way of discussing anything, and it's not allowed here. If you can't argue to support your ideas without demeaning your detractors, then you can't stay here. Everyone should focus on the ideas, and not the person who has them.

! Moderator Note Too many personal attacks from you. Others attack your ideas, and you attack them instead of defending your woo. If you can't obey our civility rules, you aren't welcome, Ant Sinclair. Please do better when discussing science with the rest of the members.

It seems we only count direct deaths, and I'm not sure exactly how they define that. If a person is pinned beneath a falling tree but dies of exposure, is it a direct death related to the storm? Does it only count if the tree causes fatal internal bleeding? We know for fact they don't count when someone's kidneys fail because the electricity for their dialysis machine was knocked out by the storm. These deaths aren't counted as having the storm as a direct cause, even though they wouldn't have happened otherwise. According to this report, Hurricane Sandy had 147 direct deaths. Puerto Rico's governor put the damages from the double hurricanes at US$95B, making it twice as costly for less than half the death toll of hurricane Sandy. It seems pretty clear that the lack of response from the US is being downplayed heavily, the same way it was during Katrina.

Especially when you can be assured there will be ZERO liability because the patients knew going in that the treatments are a risk.

So far, NOTHING this administration has done has been to benefit normal people. Everything has a hidden investment agenda for the extremist business people who seem to be aiming for 100% private ownership of everything. This is exploiting desperate people. This is like extending credit in a friendly game of poker to someone who has been losing steadily, using the justification that he has a right to earn his money back. It's a scam, imo. Why have an FDA if you're going to approve unproven treatments?

! Moderator Note OK, far too many repurposed definitions of well-understood terms, no evidential support, and no science at all. This is NOT what our philosophy section is for. There are plenty of places around the web that are happy to discuss your wild guesswork, but the owners of this site want a higher standard for discussions here. We want them to follow a proven methodology that gives them the best chance at meaningfulness. Anyone can come up with wishful thinking, and we don't want to waste member's time with it. This is why we ask everyone to support their ideas rationally, with evidence where possible. Thread closed.

It's not the acids that help curb hunger and lose weight. It's substituting these drinks instead of more calorie laden drinks like sodas and beers that lets people lose weight.

! Moderator Note Capiert, please deal with the replies showing where your idea breaks with what we observe in nature, or with misunderstandings you've had about what you've read. Further discussion in this thread relies on whether you choose to absorb this information or ignore it.

There is nothing, NOTHING I believe in using faith, so NOT all of us "have faith in one form or another". Once more, faith is defined as a strong belief that needs no reasoning or evidence to support it. You just "know" it's right. I don't believe in anything that way. Everything I believe in strongly is backed up by evidence, and if I haven't seen all of it personally, I know how to find it and test it myself if I find any of this knowledge conflicts with nature. I think what you're mistaking for faith is people being led by their emotions rather than reason. That's happening a lot around the world these days, and it looks very much like strong beliefs but it isn't necessarily due to religious faith. Fear is a common motivator, and when people use their hearts before they think things through, events often take a bad turn. Jealousy, greed, even hope and joy can influence us negatively if we aren't using our brains to reason the best course.

IOW, "If you agree with the definition of belief I've purposely widened to the point of meaninglessness, then everything is taken on faith". It's clear you have a caricature perspective of the mysteries of quantum physics, one which popular science articles often hype to make their articles more attractive. The real science is based on evidence gathered using methodologies specifically designed to minimize human bias and guesswork. This is obviously not belief based on faith in something we can't know, nor is it belief born of wishful thinking. It's belief based on trustworthy evidence and reasoning. We trust in this science mostly because we can show how this is the way the observable universe behaves.