Phi for All

Sometimes a particular employer can be an inspiring driver in these decisions. "Extremely rural" sounds like code for "bring your own economy, no local jobs". How do you see yourself working after you finish your courses? Would you be commuting to the city where the science-based jobs are more likely to be? Are you looking to stay rural but work on projects from a remote office? How does being a bit Aspy-flavored affect your decisions about the way you work? Do you think it places any restrictions on you?

Is there a local company that might provide an interesting match? You could ask them what skills and education you need to work there.

It's hard not to see the OP argument as one painting a fair market capitalism as a preferential societal model by pointing to the worst attempts at other models. Are we ever going to see fair market capitalism? Are we ever going to remove the corporate influence from our politics? Are we ever going to stop lobbyists from pushing deregulatory legislation that weakens consumer protections? Are we ever going to stop subsidizing wealthy old industries like oil and give new solutions a chance to show their real value? One could argue that the US might be making the same types of mistakes with capitalism that the USSR made with communism. A strong economy is not necessarily built with a minimum of tools. A strong society needs more than money. I suppose the difference between the views of fascism vs communism is that many communist principles could be adopted as beneficial by a voting public. Most fascists deny being so, because it doesn't help them get elected. Most fascists are found out after they're in office, which they usually grabbed either forcefully or by pulling the wool over the eyes of the public. When you've been in a democracy, who wants a totalitarian single-party state?

If we're back to talking about ownership, I can see reasons to allow state ownership into the mix of public and private ownership. Our current power grid is a good example. Private ownership of solar power requires government subsidization, but we're at the point now where we could power the whole country on solar panels alone, and electricity would be dirt cheap. So cheap it doesn't attract private investors. So either the public or the state could run a solar grid providing what capitalism can't. Communism has always seemed like an ideal that's constantly corrupted. Where they fail is not because of state ownership, but because inevitably a group can't hold to the ideal and they mess it up. Tragedy of the commons, really. I think ultimately where too much state ownership becomes detrimental is that centrally planned economies reduce the very efficiency you're looking for in building dense cities with lots of surplus potential.

This is another thing his tweets do, they cause his supporters to ignore fact-checking. It's VERY important to check everything he tweets for accuracy. He misrepresents a great deal in his tweets, and passes ignorance along like candy.

! Moderator Note Don't drink and jump. Just sayin'.

Charlatan! Next you'll be claiming trees grow from the air and not the ground!

You missed his point, and he said it quite well. The ideology didn't cause the killing. Shouldn't you blame the ones who couldn't make the concept work, rather than the concept itself? Is charity a bad thing because somebody steals money out of the poor jar?

I saw a video where a bunch of strangers were put together and pretty much separated automatically into basic ethnic and gender groupings around the room. Then they started asking them to group differently (people who play piano over here, people who have a tattoo over there). It showed how surprisingly matched up people who looked nothing like each other could be. I'm convinced our society is far more aligned than we're led to believe by those who profit more from our conflicts than our alignments. I would fight these biases by finding the similarities that will overcome our differences.

The Tea Party is actually analogous to what happened to Soviet Communism, imo. It started out in NY as a legitimate objection to an unfair tax/burden-on-the-workers being imposed, and had a certain popular appeal. Then it got subverted by financial interests that were only partially aligned with the original goals, but had their own agendas and were more than happy to glom on to a popular movement and corrupt it from within to meet their needs. Workers started being underpaid in the US (based on productivity and middle class wages) around the time of Nixon/Khrushchev. A heavy emphasis on money as the definition of character was being emphasized in advertisements in the sixties, and in society in general. The movement against communism produced a fixation with wealth here that is all too apparent today. Ruthless wealthy businessmen are held in more esteem than teachers or engineers or scientists. I'm not sure any 100% solution can work for humans. I would like to see us put some value on people and the good things they do for our society, and not just base it all on how much money they can accumulate.

I think they think the representatives they elect from their "side" are supposed to be automatically accepted, and too often aren't held to any stricter criteria than "Yay, our side is winning". The other side is always worse, and even if your side clearly lies more often, the other side tells bigger lies, or more costly lies, or somehow worse lies than your side. With only two major parties, everything can look black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. It's simplistic and it works.

! Moderator Note Moved to Speculations due to non-mainstream elements. Please read the special rules for discussing topics in this section. Do as much as you can to provide supportive evidence for anything you assert or suppose.

Unfortunately, the term "logic" has been hijacked (Damn you, Spock!), and has become synonymous with "common sense" (which is also an unfortunate term, since it's often neither). They've come to mean "Something about this clicks, and I think I may understand it!" And once we think we understand something, it's easy to convince ourselves that we DO understand it, and that our explanation is the Truth. Confirmation bias is a vicious vortex, and it takes some serious critical thinking skills to escape its influence.

! Moderator Note Do more to support it then. We don't discuss guesswork here, even in Speculations. Find some evidence. This will make discussion meaningful scientifically.

This is a big part of why objectivity is the better approach, as iNow said. People who think in terms of Truth often get pretty emotional about it, which clouds reason. That leads to a lot of guesswork they assume must be right, making them even more adamant.

If this were in Philosophy, you might get different answers, but in the sciences truth and proof take a back seat to the preponderance of evidence. Most of the scientific method is designed to minimize opportunities to fool ourselves, so we are able to trust our explanations as being the best supported. Also, in science a theory is the strongest form of "truth" there is. A theory has mountains of supportive evidence, but we don't call it truth because we want to keep testing it against what we observe, always.

Comcast has been having problems nationwide. It's probably part of the delays I get.

! Moderator Note No. I was willing to think you were just having a mental block, but after the excellent explanations given (thanks, all), your continued persistence in misunderstanding is indistinguishable from trolling. You seem to be purposely missing the point, so this discussion is over. You aren't allowed to bring it up again unless you do it in the spirit of learning. Thread closed.

! Moderator Note This is a science discussion site. We need science in order to discuss it. This doesn't qualify even for our Speculations section. It also requires members to go offsite in order to discuss this, which is against our rules. If you can give an overview of your concept that people can read without leaving, you can open up a thread in Speculations. You'll be asked for supportive evidence, so be prepared. I have to close this one, since this is a mainstream section requiring mainstream solutions.

It depends. Physiologically suitable? We can live with less oxygen, but it makes life a lot harder. Environmentally suitable? If you put us too far back in time without all our tools, the predators become a bit overwhelming.

I think Sensei is talking about how unacceptable it would be to delete one member's part in a discussion (and possibly replies), robbing threads of meaning and context. Cladking's threads definitely need his input visible if understanding them is the goal.

The only answer is how much we care to help keep it suitable. My dentist tells me to only brush the teeth I want to keep.

You don't have to, but this is why you should. Banned for speaking the truth = criticized heavily by the membership for your version of it. Driving you out? At best, a short putt. Deleting your posts is out of the question. We've never done it before, and won't start with you. Best of luck elsewhere, thank you very much.

I think his tweets distract from the fact that nothing is getting done. It was bad when Congress was fighting to deny a black president his goals, and now I fear Trump's goals are all done in the dark, and his tweets and outrageousness are just a distraction. He spouts carpetbagger weasel crap about some complicated issue that gets attention, and with the other hand he removes protections for consumers. I find it odd he removed a law that requires ISPs to take reasonable measures to protect your data just months before the Equifax data breaches were announced. Trump is a horrible businessman but a master magician who has learned the art of distraction. He says outrageous shit and we stop demanding he explain his mountainous conflicts of interest. He rails against the NFL and we stop questioning his praise of the violence done by his supporters. Distract and plunder.

I don't understand why the first sentence is praiseworthy. Acknowledging when you're wrong is a sign of maturity and intellectual honesty. I don't understand the second sentence either. It's like saying the life of an oil rig worker is a lot tougher than that of a politician. Tough is relative, and in the context you use it, it's meaningless. I don't know why anyone but an extremist capitalist would think a businessman would make a good politician.