Phi for All

! Moderator Note Off-topic trash talk has been trashed. The topic is in the title. Let's stick to it.

! Moderator Note NO. Please stop opening these threads that start with unsupported or false assumptions. Putting them in the Lounge doesn't mean these claims are automatically accepted. You need a more rigorous approach to starting topics. This is a SCIENCE DISCUSSION FORUM! Thread closed.

Forget marking up the world. The world doesn't care. It's very old and sometimes a bit senile. Think instead about your environment, the sphere of influence you have in society. You're 18 now, and you think you're meaningless. I think you're just wrong. You aren't meaningless, you're just insignificant in your own mind. Realizing that we're nothing compared to the universe is a humbling experience. But we're human, and that means we have sacrificed much in evolution to get these big, intelligent brains. You have a great deal of potential in those brains. We all start from meaningless nothing, and we build a unique life with meaning for ourselves. So what if, cosmically speaking, you're nothing? Now that you know that, maybe you can become something?

! Moderator Note scherado, you've been asked for clarification in a mainstream science section, by members who've taken time to join this discussion. Either be civil and answer questions put to you, or this thread will be closed. We don't tolerate trolling here, and you are obligated to clarify and support your assertions. Please lose the attitude. We're all here to learn. And don't bother responding to this modnote. Please use that TIME responding to the thread topic.

! Moderator Note We don't do conspiracy here. The evidence necessary to support it apparently doesn't exist. Thread closed.

Your reasoning is fatally flawed, most likely because you misunderstand the concept of quantum fields. You need to learn to stop reaching for the supernatural every time there's a gap in your knowledge. Reach for a textbook instead.

I definitely want everyone to stop assuming things about either party and its members. waitforufo has shown me time and time again that his perspectives on my views are completely wrong since he's usually arguing against an assumed caricature of liberal stances. And I know from past threads that many people who think they oppose each other are actually quite well aligned, if only they'd stop making dumb assumptions. But the GOP is obviously prejudiced against People they consider strange/different/other. They consider them WRONG, and to me that says they consider them not as deserving as a "normal" person. As evidence in support, I invite you to read this year's GOP Platform. Count the number of times they chastise gay lifestyles. It's ridiculous, like a jackhammer, they just won't let up. They seem adamant about caring only for those "who respect traditional family values" [emphasis mine]. For education and healthcare, they equate social structure with dependency and addiction; the government helping strange/different/other People causes them to be dependent, and also robs normal people by redistributing their normal wealth to the unworthy strange/different/others. There is also language that suggests "natural marriage" between one man and one woman is the best way to insure you don't have damaged children. Let me make this clear. I'm not arguing for the Democrats, since I believe they suffer from the same stress of trying to cover too many ideologies. But it seems very obvious that the Republicans are much more interested in driving wedges into our society that promote hatred and prejudice, and are pushing agendas which can't end in anything but misery for the majority. Unless they think all the homosexuals will line up for conversion therapy, where do they think this strategy is going? I'd like to see some bipartisan compromises, and the GOP doesn't seem interested in the least.

That's another big problem in the US, people thinking about insuring health the way they insure cars and houses.

What about GOP Rep Mo Brooks from Alabama? He's on record saying people who lead "good lives" deserve to pay less for healthcare. Isnt the flip side of that record exactly what I said earlier? https://www.google.com/amp/s/articles.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/05/rep_mo_brooks_people_who_live.amp I'll find more, it was easy, but I'm on vacation enjoying the New England autumn, and mobile linking sucks.

If you aren't talking about leadership (where they use coded language instead) then hell yes! Many GOP members I know personally feel the country is full of lazy gay drug addicts who've brought all their health issues upon themselves, and don't deserve the same healthcare as decent God-fearing folk.

I'd like to hear someone defend the GOP concept that not all Americans deserve to have access to healthcare. Most of the twaddle I've heard so far is a bunch of Puritanical crap about disapproved lifestyles. Is there a real argument out there as to why the GOP feels Americans in general shouldn't be covered? Let's face it, if the money goes to the states, we lose a lot of negotiating power, we lose coverage for millions, and from what I read about this new bill, the money isn't earmarked for healthcare at all. The states could decide to give it to private insurers as a subsidy, or they could use it to update the governor's mansion. To me, it looks like the GOP wants to spend as little as possible on People (with People money) unless we're already in a position to pay for our own healthcare. Why the short-sightedness? Don't employers want workers healthy enough to work? Have Americans become superfluous within their own workforce?

Truly awesome, tar. Congratulations! This is the really ironic part. The after-meal cigarette is the one most smokers crave, yet when you quit the food tastes so much better you don't want to screw it up with bitter tobacco. Personally, I think the after-meal smoke is also the most perfunctory (finish the meal, lay down your fork, light that cig). It's good to have a plan to break up that pattern.

Your language choices tell me you aren't ready for this. I hear no conviction in your words, no strength, no positivity about making this healthy choice. You're "a bit more serious" and you're going to "see what [you] can do". What you need is this: "I'm going to quit smoking today for the rest of my long life. Smoking will no longer be an option for me, simple as that. I've tried to "lock the door" on smoking, and that didn't work, so today I'm going to remove that door completely and brick up the hole. Smoking is NOT something I do anymore, period. And every time I think about smoking, I'm going to think how much better things smell and taste, how much more money I have, how much healthier and safer I've made myself. I'm not going to be tempted to have one because I simply don't do that anymore for a LOT of good reasons." The physiological cravings are usually gone in about three days. After that, it's all in your head, and that's where you are the king. You can do this, but you have to believe you can do this. Don't let yourself talk yourself out of it.

The idea is to quit smoking, not pick up another habit to replace smoking, so substitution is not a good idea, imo. Some people chew gum, or do something else, but I think it's important to just quit the smoking. Can you drink tea without having a smoke? If you stop, the tea will start tasting better on its own, and that's the kind of incentives that work best, I think. You need to start thinking of all the bad things smoking does to you (the smell, the expense, the health issues, the trash, the ashes, the burns...) so you can appreciate not smoking. Smoking needs to be a bad thing in your mind, not something good you're denying yourself.

Why is the evening the hardest? Why is the rest of the time easily controllable?

The same one I have about stamp-collecting, or religion? It's just not something you participate in. It doesn't have to be good or bad, it's just not for you.

To use a limited analogy, human knowledge about our universe is like navigating a frozen lake. To cross it safely and surely, you need to walk where there's enough support to do so. If you test every step meticulously before making it to be sure the ice can hold the weight, you will find the best path, and others will be able to take that path as well. It takes more time, but the results are the most trustworthy they can be. Bad science often makes leaps instead of testing the ice, hoping to land safely so it can look for its next leap. Conclusions based on these leaps can't be trusted, and others won't be able follow either.

When you're completely serious, we should talk. That's when you'll be able to quit. Until then, you're fooling yourself.

People who are good at making money are valuable to a society, but they shouldn't be valued more than people who are good at teaching, or building houses, or organizing large groups, or fixing machinery, or working with computers, or advancing science. Unfortunately, we've allowed extremist capitalism to set the standard, and the standard is how much money you're worth. It's a STUPID way to judge the worth of a member of society. Where capitalism fails us lately is in areas where the profits are small but long-term. Although a long-term problem, food distribution has little profit in it, and doesn't attract investors. It's probably an area that should be handled on a non-profit basis, as part of a social program or a government run distribution chain. For the rest, we just have to remember that capitalism is all about unrestrained growth. It will do everything in its power to grow, and if it isn't tightly regulated, it's going to grow into areas where it harms more people than it helps. Capitalism isn't better at anything except growth. Apply it to durable goods, you'll sell a LOT of cars and furniture. Apply it to prisons, you'll end up with 25% of the world's prisoners. And we get no actual information from the media, just more attempts to make everything seem equally controversial and deserving of our time. And much of the labeling is perpetuated by the media, since it makes writing the "news" so much easier. We really do need a national dialogue about our definitions, don't we? My frustrations center on a certainty that most of us are on the same page about many things, but are holding on to outdated or misapplied definitions for our stances. I really believe there are some areas where people assume the differences between opposing labels are insurmountable, and I think this naturally skews the way they think of tax dollars supporting us.

I think this is a big problem in the US, this (mis)understanding we have about socialism, capitalism, and communism. Too many people think it has to be all one way, that if we allow funds to be spent on public projects it diminishes our capitalist endeavors. I think the problem is that we approach ALL of our spending from a capitalist POV, so the parts of society that are owned by the People or the State aren't managed effectively. The Bush II revamp of Medicare is a classic example, where the People's ability to negotiate for better prices is struck down to benefit private industries. Our socialism is watered down and ineffective. imo. Your paycheck (which you get as a net amount with taxes already taken out) has to stretch to cover your expenses, so if you aren't making enough, you find a better paying job. If you budget, you don't use your gross pay to do it, you use your net. OTOH, you might easily put off a purchase if the taxes on it put it out of your budget's reach. That's why I say it's better to tax income than spending in most circumstances. Give them a chance? Isn't that what we've been doing for the last 60 years or so? It's not taxes that cause the problem you point to, it's wages. They've been uncoupled from productivity ever since the Nixon years, with the difference going straight to the 1% Exactly right, it doesn't have to be. I think the first step is to stop electing extremist capitalists to fix the problem with extremist capitalism.

My philosophy is that you were able to earn that money because of the way this society is set up (or at least that's what societies should be doing, putting opportunity in the paths of its members). You agreed to follow the laws and mores, and do your part. In return, your potential for earning increases significantly compared with complete independence from society. Because you chose society, you can now specialize in something you can trade for, instead of having to hunt and gather all your own food and stuff. You could have gathered your family and bought an island somewhere so you all can live off the land in isolation, never needing roads or parks, or even stores and manufacturers, but you didn't. Taxing your earnings is an incentive to earn more. Taxing your spending means you might avoid spending, and that doesn't help the society's economy. As others have mentioned, sales tax affects a larger portion of a poor person's income than it does a wealthy person's. Why don't you think it's "fair" to tax earnings?

Any hypothesis predicting an intelligence behind the universe needs to show how natural explanations for various unintelligent phenomena fail, or are more complicated than an unseen intelligence. This is just the first one I found in this thread. You make the claim that you've been dismissed out of hand without evidence, when JUST ABOUT EVERYONE has asked you for supportive evidence. If they've dismissed you, it's because you NEVER GAVE US ANYTHING BUT YOUR INSISTENCE. Please think about this. How can we dismiss you without evidence when we were the ones asking for it? My ideas aren't the topic of the thread. You are losing focus. And didn't you read the part about this NOT being censorship? We're disagreeing with you, not stifling your ideas. You need to learn the difference. You have not shown a single scrap of evidence for an intelligence behind the universe. You're not alone, nobody can. Every single phenomena we know about doesn't require an intelligence, so science is pretty adamant that introducing one is superfluous UNLESS YOU'VE GOT SOME COMPELLING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. If we defend the scientific method, we do it because it produces the most trustworthy explanations, not because it's ancient, or holy, or seems right, or even because it makes sense. It's as far from a religion as possible. ID attempts to assume there's an intelligence and then explain the universe from there. It's an intellectually devoid assumption that reeks of superstition and fear. Did I mention it's not necessary? The null hypothesis makes much more sense.

To be clear, locking threads because they break the rules we've developed over the last 15 years isn't censorship. Unless someone's being unnecessarily foul, we usually lock threads because of what people aren't saying. In this case, it was because "just look around you" is not the kind of reply we want when we ask for evidence.

It's natural vs supernatural. Science isn't saying "no" to the supernatural, it's saying "Hey, not the right tool for the job." No religious beliefs needed, so science is not morphing into a new religion. What's morping is your definition of both science and religion. One is becoming so broad its meaningless, and the other is purposely narrow to drive your agenda in asking the question. You generalize and assume far too much, and many mistakes you've made have been corrected by others yet ignored by you. Your arguments suffer from this. You'll probably have to leave soon since you can't seem to understand that we don't allow people to make assertions with no support the way you do. It's against our rules, because it's a really, really stupid way to discuss science. You don't get to claim things here without support, and you don't understand what support in science means, so you keep shitting on our forum and screaming when we try to clean it up. You are NOT worth the trouble you cause, and your ideas are baseless until you can support them rationally. What is stopping you from backing up your ideas with more than wavy hands and screaming?

If you keep the asteroid in space and use it there, even the iron is worth a fortune compared to lifting it from Earth.