Phi for All

The formation of the ingredients and conditions.

This is a very good perspective on what I've been trying to get across. I appreciate that I'm not spitting into the wind with this, that somebody can recognize sound, valid arguments that don't ignore simple math because it's too scary. And I've been aggressive about it, too, perhaps overly so. It's frustrating when you point out all these problems, present evidence, provide solutions based on reason and rational behavior, and all you get in return is empty heads looking around in all the wrong directions, denying anything is wrong with the way we're being led, and purposely feeding their own ignorance by hugging all their fears and liberal caricatures real close, and trotting them out often despite the silliness of the stance. But you're right, this is about People. American People. We started this country to avoid this type of oppression, no matter what anyone claims about their own personal status. This isn't about individuals. This isn't about what you have now. This is about setting a standard for human development that paves the way for success for as many as we can possibly help. This is NOT about judging their worth as human beings, it's about acknowledging that they ARE human beings, and represent potentials we need to invest heavily in. I know the tars and the MigLs and the waitforufos are really on about personal responsibility. They've judged that some humans don't have it in amounts that satisfy their arbitrary, subjective assessments. I had hoped to show that privilege skews those assessments, that the circumstances of your birth are such an important factor that we need, as a country, to remove obstacles that keep us from fostering the potential brilliance of fellow Americans. We need to take our foot off the necks of these People the conservatives mock for their indolence. Educate them, fully fund social programs that have proven, smart histories, then see if your stereotypes and caricatures are valid. We really can't call ourselves civilized until we do at least that.

! Moderator Note David, you're certainly not stupid, but you're ignorant in this area, and you're refusing the very help you need by not learning basics. Arguing from incredulity, waving hands with no evidence to support you but your own insistence is NOT what science is about. Closing the thread. Don't open another on the same topic, unless you're willing to show more rigor.

Packing peanuts and thermometers.

Look up the definition of the fallacy. I never mentioned breastfeeding, yet you quoted me for my "awkward thinking", and then brought up breastfeeding to rebut my thinking about public sex. PUBLIC SEX, not SEXUAL ACTIVITY IN PUBLIC. Two different things, so STRAWMAN. Moontanman stated that "kids shouldn't interact with adult sexuality". I responded with what you quoted me on, "This is exactly my point, and I don't think allowing public sex is in line with that stance, even if it is a natural bodily function." How many ways are you able to interpret THAT? What about that exchange led you to believe I was using emotion to decide what's wrong? Seriously, if you're just going to blog at us, please stop quoting members and re-interpreting their words.

The GOP needed to elevate someone to sainthood. Nixon and Ford were poison, and Eisenhower was too intellectual and progressive to use as an icon. Too bad, Ike was a pretty well-grounded package. I ordinarily don't quote your entire posts because they are such a mixture of misinformation, misunderstanding, and irrelevant ramblings. But I wanted to point out to you the patterns you fall into in your weak rebuttals. You claim were doing fine, doing it right. Then you throw your vague and irreconcilable fears into a sentence or two. Then you go back to claiming we're fine. Then you argue (again, irrelevantly) about generalities in response to very specific questions and concerns. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's more than aggravating. You spit out what you think is right, iNow and others show you how wrong you are, yet you still maintain you're right, we're all right, everything is goooooooood. It's more than aggravating, it literally makes me sick to my stomach that people with your mindset are running this once proud country into the ground. Glad you're doing fine. I am too. Many, many, many more aren't. I'd like to fix that in the most effective, efficient, and profound way possible, by sharing my prosperity to help blend equality and justice again in the measures that made us great before. I'm going to go with the preponderance of evidence at my disposal, and predict I'll just waste my time in further discussions with you. It's a fair bet, considering the good it's done neither of us.

Certainly not if he can't remove other possibilities. Tell them you can do it no matter how they set up the test, and they might bite. But give them results of your own tests, give them no reason to think you've faked it or misinterpreted it, show them some supportive evidence and you will probably get someone who will at least give you some more feedback. Which would most likely be more tests, but that's what he wants. Without the bowl, you can remove the word "academic" from this sentence. Any testing without removing outside influence will yield NO results. It won't support either option, true or false. It will just be flawed methodology.

I'm not surprised at all that youve once again missed the point, and tried yet again to say that the state we're in is all normal, that we're doing it right. What I've said, over and over, is that the programs keep getting underfunded, yet you still expect them to work well or be scrapped. The conservative mindset has done this with every program they disagree with, and pretended later that the liberal "way" just doesn't work. Like Bush II did with FEMA and the EPA. Put some gratuity appointees in those positions whether they have experience or not, and then wait for Hurricane Katrina to overwhelm him, calling into question the whole agency. Compare that with what the liberals do, making sure there's competence and funding involved, so much so that even someone like Chris Christie thanked President Obama for his timely and efficient response to his state's disaster hurricane. Even you have posted in the past, wondering at the sanity involved in setting up No Child Left Behind without adequate funding. Now, of course, we see that he purposely cut the funding so the private sector could cash in on what he did with public funding. His brother Neal is still making money from that. So this isn't just a cyclical, Oh-well-we-tried, some-things-don't-work-out situation. It's been engineered to benefit a small percentage with general public funds. And let's be honest here, kissing corporate ass, bending over and hiking up our skirts for them just because they create jobs using the People's infrastructure is exactly what fascists like. It's like the lube that makes the rape more pleasant for both sides. I guess I just don't get it when you and waitforufo say we're doing fine, doing it right, when we can point to greater periods of overall prosperity historically, and identify what made it that way using hindsight (it's supposed to be 20/20, isn't it?). You don't seem to see the massive problems we've got since you're both calling for status quo. Even when the historical solutions have provided so much more return on investment, and given more people the opportunity to achieve what you've both got. It makes it seem like you want to keep a lot of people below you, people who might just achieve more than you did if they had the same privilege. But I'm a humanist. I think we all prosper when we remember our humanity, and stop judging the worth of others when there's such disparity in privilege and circumstances.

Well, the programs available keep getting robbed of funding by a conservative mindset that thinks the way you do. It's really no wonder that you think poorly of them. But it's a lot like holding your foot on someone's neck and then mocking them for not standing up on their own two feet, don't you think? What if some of the liberal ideas were put in place, the ones from Eisenhower's days about taxing the wealthy, and the new ones about educating our People to a modern, post-American Revolution level? We could actually stop pretending the meth addicts in West Virginia had all the options you have.

I'm thinking the big glass bowl on a small portable flat base so he can place that on a multi-folded blanket or something that will remove vibrations from the table/building. Place the camera so we can see everything he does, no flipping or jump cuts or hand-held shakiness. Maybe add some clear tape around the base to seal the bowl, and stay at least a meter away from the apparatus while he's trying to move the wheel. And swansont had an excellent point earlier, Eldad. Since you're trying to move this with your mind, can you use a wheel that isn't designed to take maximum advantage of heat and air currents? Again, if you can do this and there's no evidence of outside influence, it advances your idea and gives it more strength. This is how science tests phenomena.

Forget the accusations of you "tricking" us, and move forward with your experimentation. The suggestions made will help you convince skeptics you're doing this with your mind, or show that something you simply forgot to take into account is responsible. We should all accept that you're not deceiving us until there is evidence of that. Let's move on.

See how much time you re-wasted making your obtuse, strawman points, that don't actually address what was said? See how little time it takes you to give a complete non-answer to the actual question? So your little brother's happiness trumps the overall social trends of a mighty nation. You think your personal support of him alone is a better than re-organizing a national effort to help him and millions more with fairness and justice. You don't understand investing in Americans, except the ones you know are worthy. Can I put this down as a stance from you, finally?

Missouri Revised Statute 191.918 has a caveat about discretion that basically invalidates a mother's right to breastfeed in public, if an officer deems too much was shown or it was too enjoyable. Idaho has NO LAWS that protect a mother breastfeeding in public, and to me that's inviting charges of illegal public sexual conduct. The threat of being placed on a national sexual offender's database is as good as an anti-breastfeeding law, imo. Shaming is powerful, and erodes so much of our society.

Wow, you're always hard to pin down, but you're (usually) not obtuse about it. How about the same situation, but the guys are looking out over the Grand Canyon. Forget about safety, forget about what they should be doing differently to gain the same view. Pretending to be obtuse in order to make things work out for you in a discussion won't work twice (or at all).

Oh Ed, I never considered that angle with breastfeeding before. Making something seem uncomfortable because there's now an alternative is classic brand marketing strategy. It's worked to sell many products, but also gave us some of our weirdest taboos.

I prefer iNow's answer to that post as well. I have no interest in performing for his Gish Gallop approach. I do all that work posting relevant facts for thirty questions, only to have them dismissed in his usual short-sighted, fuckem-I-got-mine-everything's-fine manner. And there's no dispelling this kind of fear, except with the very knowledge and perspectives waitforufo and other conservative mindsets reject. These are self-imposed, anti-intellectual hobbles to reason, but they must feel pretty good around the ankles, and they do keep things moving really slooooooooooooooooooowly.

conway has requested a ban, and we've responded with a year's suspension, to give him time to let his ideas mature. Kudos at least for recognizing a problem, conway. Best of luck.

You still misrepresent me, even though I feel you are reading my posts. You're making up the bit about not giving credit for discussion. Isn't it inherent in replying that you're at least giving that? And isn't there a big difference between "At least you're willing to discuss this" and "You never address the valid points made, but instead sick up these well-refuted, ignorant talking points as if they're a sound, valid rebuttal"? I do see how different my approach is from iNow's. Do you see how different waitforufo's approach is? In fact, I wrote about how solid iNow's was, and I watched it get dismissed in the very way I mentioned above. I don't DEMAND that people recognize my opinions, but when solid facts and sound logic get dismissed by "some people may get hurt by your suggestions", I feel like an emotional response is all the conservative mindset understands. You don't seem to grasp historically what's worked to make America strong, and the whole idea of long-range investment in People, but you're not really willing to kick widows and orphans to the curb like you have pot-smokers and poor minorities because it's hard to paint them as unworthy. I feel there's hope when I find common grounds, but as soon as any big-picture solutions are suggested, the conservative mindset gets scared and starts pulling out the irrational arguments again. No offense, but maybe you should address the points, join the discussion, instead of misrepresenting what I say. Can you talk about iNow's heavily researched arguments instead? Maybe try to rebut instead of dismiss? And no using the passive/aggressive "I have strong opinions about America, but I don't have to support them because I'm Canadian" approach. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

Thanks for asking. I've observed, in my lifetime, an America that was rooted in it's People. We made investments in Them, which paid off in so many ways educationally, technologically, and economically. We were at a point, when I was just becoming aware of such things, where the wealthiest seemed to understand that each should give to the public trust, from each according to his ability, for each according to his needs. Then the age of the efficiency experts dawned in the corporate world, and when they were finished being efficient, they set their sights on ways to trim bone instead of meat. They needed a way to judge the worth of the people receiving supposedly inalienable rights and government benefits. They worked to shift their tax burdens to the People while also shifting benefits for all into benefits for them alone by raging against social program spending. It all looks as if the conservative mindset wants to deny that all humans, let me repeat that, ALL HUMANS, deserve our basic help. There should be things Americans especially can't have taken away arbitrarily, just because conservatives don't think they're worthy if they don't jump through the right hoops (food, shelter, education, healthcare, things needed to cover the basics of staying alive in the 21st century - not the 18th). Hey tar, my wife shared something with me this morning. It was a couple of pictures showing the difference between equality and justice. It showed three people watching a sporting event over a fence. One very tall, one medium, and one short. They were each standing on equal boxes, so they had equality, but the short guy still couldn't even see the game. The tall guy had a penthouse view. The second picture shows justice. The tall guy gives his box to the short guy, and now they aren't equal in that regard, but everyone is now enjoying the game. Why does the conservative mindset seem to want to deny everyone getting justice, and enjoying life? You impose so many "You're not worthy" clauses to every bit of legislation that it's caused us to have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Do you really believe we're that horrible? We're raking in record profits while the conservative mindset has allowed corporations to ignore their duties to the country that gives them charter. We have poverty and starving children still, but they aren't worthy in so many people's eyes. I believe we need to remove the barriers that are keeping Americans ignorant and fettered. Most of those barriers seem to be adaptations of the conservative mindset. That is what's with it.

One of the most long-winded strawman fallacies I've ever read. Considered. Rejected for poor logic and arguing something I never said. Please consider thinking before putting words in people's mouths.

The probability of you (as an average person) stumbling upon something missed by people who have dedicated their study and lives to science is exremely low. Sure, it's happened before, but still within that statistically low probability. And that's why we have discussion forums like this, and why this particular site also has a Speculations section for those who think science has it wrong. If you post there, make sure to read the rules. We like evidence to back up any assertions made (because that's what mainstream science has already done and continues to do, build a preponderance of trustworthy evidence). So to answer your question, you should figure out what it is you want to share to begin with, maybe a synopsis that gives us some meat without giving away any intellectual property. We'll do what scientists always do, we'll check your arguments and evidence and discuss what's right and wrong about it. Lather, rinse, repeat at each step. This should give you a pretty great idea about whether you need to start protecting your ideas, or if they're based on misinformation and misunderstanding. Science isn't about proof. It's about piling up the evidence that supports your idea, while simultaneously looking for ways it's wrong. That's what we do here, we give a fairly rigorous look at all new ideas, and I hope that's why so many people come here to do what you're doing. We aren't going to sugar coat anything, and you'll get replies from amateurs, talented hobbyists, and professionals at all levels and many disciplines. Enjoy, welcome, and good luck! edit to add: Stop using stupid to describe what you feel sometimes. The word you want is ignorant, which is easily fixable using the exact method you chose (good job!). You can't fix stupid.

What is it with conservative mindsets?! It's like you're translating my words with your nifty right-wing decoder ring. Where did I say waitforufo's questions weren't valid? What I actually said was that he ignores valid, sound answers and rebuttals to his questions and arguments. Your decoder ring is obviously broken. Or perhaps it was designed that way. That's anything but fair. That's the problem.

Oooops. 1. David Bowie, Alan Rickman... 2. Michael Jackson, Sammy Davis Jr, Judy Garland... 3. Robin Williams, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain...

I've been venting on tar because I've gotten tired of watching valid, sound arguments get waffled away or denied outright. You're cut from the same cloth, so I'll defer to iNow's excellently informative response to your most important question. His response is reasonable and undeniable. Seriously, all of his points are fact checked - read them and check yourself instead of making up what you think he's saying. If you'd stop trying to dress his arguments up in rags so you can just point and laugh, you might appreciate a surgical and nuanced insight into very specific problems. You've never given credit for sound, valid arguments made by your opponents in a discussion. You appear to find it much easier to whip out the smug brush and paint it all despicable and unworthy of consideration.

Tough to breathe through sand, I would imagine. This is a big part of what I'm talking about. You've complained about so many inadequacies, but the minute you think there's something liberal or socialistic that might help, you suddenly claim "we are already doing it right". Nobody knows what you stand for, so it's very hard to take your claims seriously. You complain with no purpose, you strategize using misinformation, and you seem unable to grasp so many fundamental concepts. We have all these historical instances of potential success to draw upon, other countries who have solved some of the problems we face. We even have our own successes to build upon. The GI Bill educated so many that wouldn't have otherwise had a chance at college, but rather than recognize that success, you want to doubt whether educating more would be even more effective. That's part of your crazy. We get a healthcare system that insures more people for a bit less money, and you doubt whether going all the way with it is a good idea. We have all this precedence for success, but your narrow-minded fear keeps blocking progress, helping make the lying liar fat cats fatter, while your brain idles in neutral, and the rest of us who care about liberty and justice get to watch you vacillate. It's ugly, and it's frustrating. You give our money to industries that are well-established, then you give us excuses why this makes good business sense. Unbelievably, you gripe about the public feeding from the public trough, but don't bat an eye when the corporations hog the table. They're called public funds for a reason, and I find the mega-corporations reasons non-compelling.