Phi for All

Ironically, the more vehemently the right stands in the way of progress, the more radical the counter-measures have to be. The center doesn't like radical in either direction. It took 30 years to transfer middle class income to the 1% in the proportions we see now. If we can't start gradually recapturing that, what's the alternative?

Ooooooh, can I change my answer?

Since these children could also have grown up to be a wife-beater, a mass-murderer or the next Bernie Madoff, I fail to see what is so fascinating about them. Potential works both ways, so there's no guarantee that a lump of cells that's arguably human at that point is going to automagically turn out "amazing". Thanks, Greg H!

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Well, we have the crime statistics, and I remember reading that abortion rates were down in the US during the time of a 2001-2009 study. And I don't think it's unreasonable that fewer abortions and fewer unwanted children could happen simply because it's legal. Sometimes having choices takes pressure off the decision making process that allows one a form of clarity and perspective you can't get when you only see one way out.

An Independent president might also be less susceptible to the Republican habit of voting ideas down just because they came from a Democrat. And while I haven't seen as blatant an example of this coming from the Dems, I'm sure it factors into their voting habits as well.

Haiku: You make my head spin, and angular momentum won't stop me falling.

When abortion was made legal in the US, 18 years later we had a sharp decrease in crime nationwide. The only conclusion was that there were fewer unwanted children who turned to crime because of a lack of parental guidance and support. Very positive side effect. I also believe we've seen women have fewer abortions when they're legal. Something about having that ultimate choice available makes the decision clearer, if not any easier.

... and a Microsoft approach to product release. We send up the satellites first, then spend decades trying to work out all the political bugs in the system. It took 8 years to get SMPAG passed through the UN. It's a great step in the right direction, and gives us a real framework for global cooperation. I suppose I should be impressed it only took that long for all those countries to agree on protocols, but I get frustrated when politics trumps good science. I get frustrated a lot.

Not as off-topic as you think. To me, it's dinosaur thinking that might put another Bush in the White House. Big, dumb, dinosaur-thinking lumberers, with asses so huge it blocks their hindsight and makes them forget the past. "I'm sure Jeb will be different from George I. And Neal. And George II." The US has been leaning too conservatively for too long and we've upset the balance. This boat is listing right into bad water, so maybe we need a hard left rudder to balance things out. I wonder how Warren and Sanders would play with Congress?

Abortion happens whether it's legal or not. We have lots of data to back that up. The actual operation needs to be available safely no matter what you think of it ethically. I would do everything in my power to avoid abortion for anyone I had influence over, but my situation isn't universal. I think the worst aspect right now is how many of the anti-abortion crowd are trying to make women who have abortions seem like irresponsible sluts killing babies as a means of birth control. Until they need one themselves, then they're happy to whip out their No True Scotsman fallacy card and claim THEIR abortion was different.

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This is very important. This is like the motivation you need to lose a bunch of weight. But you also need something else to keep it off, or to keep from smoking in the future. It's been twenty years for me. I imagined a door I opened when I wanted a cigarette. To quit, I didn't just close and lock the door, I removed it completely from the wall, mentally bricked up the hole, told myself that smoking just wasn't an option any more. Then I reinforced that with every good thing that happened after that. No more ashtray mouth. No more burns on furniture. I didn't stink anymore, and I knew that because all the other smokers REEKED. Whiter teeth, more money to spend, longer life, breathing well, tasting food again, every day it seemed like there were new reasons why I was never going to smoke another cigarette. I'm not even tempted anymore, don't miss it at all, not even a little. To me, it's become silly. Can't imagine what I was thinking to let myself do something so dumb.

Too true. I was reminded of that lately in a discussion with one of our ultra-conservative friends. He was firmly convinced that gay pride parades were bad because they made heterosexuals violent. He blames the gays for having them and forcing all the straight guys to go downtown and beat them up. And somehow he considered that conclusion was both rational and educated. It made sense to him.

Like it was an intellectual affront to any reasonably educated citizen with a rational worldview? I'm gonna say NO.

Oh. I didn't mean to suggest "unacheivable" by pointing out why it's been historically difficult to govern space policy. I just meant to suggest it's... been historically difficult.

Positive and negative, the way you're using them, are entirely subjective. They mean different things to different people, yet you want to use them in a definition of faith you're asking others to understand. I get the perspective, I'm just not comfortable with your methodology, it's flawed because it's subjective. I use strong imagery like war because it has a yin/yang aspect rather than a less sophisticated positive/negative one. War and killing can be good as well as bad, depending on whether you're the victim or the victor. If you don't like war, lets use lies. Lies are bad, negative, horrible things always, right? But if you're a parent, the first time your child lies to you is actually a cause for celebration. Lying is an extremely complex mechanism for assessment and management of future risk. It's a high function reaction that shows the child is not only thinking about the future, he's thinking about ways to make his future better. That's really positive, don't you think? It provides a great platform for some ethical training so the impulse isn't stifled while the socially unacceptable behavior disappears. You have a lot going on in this definition, but the main thing I'm looking for is how you apply faith when an explanation is given for something. If I explain that the sun will rise tomorrow because the Earth will spin on its axis so you face our star again come morning (plus, I make a prediction based on gathered evidence and actually tell you to the minute WHEN the sun will rise), and you believe me, what are you using to believe me, your faith? If I tell you that your consciousness can never die and that you'll become pure thought when your body goes, and you believe me, what are you using, faith? And if I explain that you're really lucky and the sect of Christianity you and your family belong to is the correct one, and you'll all be going to heaven while everyone else goes to hell, and you believe me, are you using faith then? These three explanations have extremely different reasons one might believe them, but you seem to be using faith on all of them. How can faith be a meaningful form of belief when it's applied evenly to three completely different explanations? And if it's not applied evenly to all, then why not, what makes some explanations require less faith than others?

Right now, IAWN (International Asteroid Warning Network) representatives would report a NEO to their respective governments, which would (theoretically) have SMPAG coordinate an actual mission to deflect. History working with various world governments regarding satellites, however, has taught us that NOBODY wants anything to do with taking responsibility for what their stuff does or fails to do in orbit. Space policy governance is always overshadowed by secretive military policy enforcement. And China will just do whatever the frack they feel like doing, most likely with very little coordination with anyone else.

Figure out a way to avoid the historical trap of WTA voting eventually winding up with just two major parties trying to represent the will of hundreds of millions of people and maybe we don't need to fix the voting system. I don't trust either major party agenda anymore, and I'm so very tired of the two sides pushing against each other to leave us nowhere. The stupidity is really starting to get to me. The US is slipping in so many identifiable areas, and so much of it is because our leadership wastes public resources on party-ing. When you vote a sensible, smart, necessary bill down because it came from across the aisle, you're party-ing too much. I like Sanders stance on media ownership, and hate Clinton's. That's something else that needs to be fixed in 2016, imo, 20 years after Hillary's husband broke it. Warren and Sanders would be great custodians for the ACA as well. It's far from great, but could be if the Republicans don't get in office and start dismantling everything good that's been done. Maybe Bernie can make people understand that we could have the best universal healthcare model from any country in the world and still pay less than what we're paying now. Please let this be true.

I think the growing income inequality issue needs to be addressed strongly, and I don't see Clinton or any of the other Dems being very effective in that. Stripping income for the last 30 years from the middle class and piling it on top of what the 1% already makes has led to a US with poor tax revenues, a lackluster economy and a population that struggles to buy what its corporations are manufacturing elsewhere. I think Warren and Sanders would make the most interesting chief executives in our history. I think it would be a very hard sell though, and would probably end up as a close race rather than a landslide for either side. Maybe after they fix income equality, E&B can move us away from winner-takes-all voting. I think 50-50 political races are harmful to the country as inaccurately representative of political creed.

Right now, in space, every country wants the benefits without the responsibilities. We could really use some smart cooperation here. Building a global defense system might be a great cultural and economic project for all. Just don't call it Skynet.

I used to think negativity was always bad, but like much in life, it balances positive quite well. Negative things aren't bad things. As I mentioned, doubt can help. Failure makes us try harder. Death makes us value life. Trying to ignore the negative or put a white hat on it decreases its value to us, imo. Even fear, arguably one of the most negative and pervasive states of mind, can keep us safe and make us take stock of our future and our preparedness for it, if we use it correctly. It's not the negativity itself that's good or bad, but rather what you do with it. I think it can be a tool like a knife, helpful or harmful. This seems to imply that Faith is at the top end of the scale you're using, something to work towards, something you can increase to a theoretical maximum (IOW, 100%). You seem to claim faith is the strongest form of belief, but fail to provide anything more than feelings to increase and support it. If there is nothing above 10, or below 0.1, aren't you saying faith is 100% belief? Any factor you use in an explanation should be solid, trust-worthy. Also, please explain the difference between what you're saying here and what I observe in reality. Negative thoughts seem to "amplify" on a very strong scale on a regular basis. Some argue that negativity has more power for individual harm than anything else ("He's his own worst enemy"). I'm also not comfortable with where the whole positive/negative thing is going. It seems far too subjective to be any kind of useful definition. Uncle Leo's side lost the war, and everyone said THEY were evil and sadistic. But Uncle Leo talks about the war like his country was proud to be ridding the world of what THEY thought was evil. We thought they were negative, dark and cowardly, they thought they were positive, bright and courageous. Both sides believed strongly. Shouldn't a definition of faith be more objective? No, because it's just as likely in the first scenario that you still might NOT go to the store for some reason, just as many reasons as you might go to the store in the second scenario. And I'm unclear about why you're applying any form of belief to a conditional situation like going to the store. What is there to believe in in that context? What explanation are you being asked to subscribe to?

Unbaked = trowelable foam. Baked = doorstop.

Our greatest systems are possible because we cooperate and pool resources, so basic infrastructures that benefit the vast majority can further help society prosper and work cohesively. That doesn't mean all capitalist policies need to be abandoned. The US after WWII is a great example, imo, of a smarter blend of socialism and capitalism than we have now. The Fed was putting Joe Sixpack through college with the GI Bill and building interstate highways, airports and dams, while corporations and unions helped build a strong middle class led by a 1% that was making record and reasonable profits even while paying three times the current corporate tax rate. Many parts were far from perfect, but more people prospered in a way that helped the whole country progress, instead of furthering the ambitions of the 1% at the expense of everyone else. IOW, there are many perfect situations to apply socialist policies without doing so in all situations. I wish we could figure out a way to apply them towards the whole medical profession, because I don't think standard business models work well. Business models are all about growth, and medicine is all about reducing the amount of illness.

But I doubt everything that isn't based in reality. I also don't believe in "truth" as an objective measure either. I'm more of a "preponderance of evidence" kind of person. What I trust is what I can observe and test to be real, and that's actually quite different from asking me to believe strongly in feelings and intuitions and supernatural explanations. And by the scale Andromus and many others use, faith is an abiding, unwavering, 10-on-the-scale type of belief which is marred by doubt. That seems to suggest there's some sort of purity measurement rather than a strength measurement going on here, like you can't have pure white sand if there's a grain of black. So how do you make something stronger than 100%?