Phi for All

I think I could have insulated my whole block with the dust and pet hair I get from my vacuum cleaner. Dyson should come out with a machine you can just reverse and blow into your attic and walls. Of course, you'd never be able to sell your home to someone with pet allergies....

I read this more as a longevity question, rather than end result productivity. Survival in discussions seems more related to the flow of ideas, the cooperative efforts of all involved to help channel the discussion and keep it moving positively. You're completely right, a two post thread could be said to be the most successful, if it's a simple Q&A. Some of the more in-depth discussions we've had about the future direction of space travel have been extremely enjoyable because most participants are offering collaborative perspectives, rather than trying to refute something or argue from a spinning circular soapbox about a perceived flaw in physics. I agree completely. Sound concept + Poor execution = Friends with no benefits.

I hear a lot of equivocation here, and this is a problem for you, so you know I'm not going to let you get away with it. The problem isn't that you got drunk and mouthed off. The problem is it's never your fault from your perspective, which makes any apology seem insincere. I'll bet this is why your friends are angry. You were told you were being an asshole, but not quite an asshole?! How does that work? You were told you were treating your friend like she was your girlfriend, but not quite?! What does that even mean? Did you hit on her or adopt a cat with her? You think someone MUST have drugged you, it couldn't possibly be the more likely explanation that you drank too much or were in a strange mood or both. What if nobody drugged you, do you think that makes you a bad person for making a bad choice? I have to ask, and I hope you'll take this in the spirit in which its given: do you think this is part of what your friends meant about acting like an asshole? Because it's frustrating to deal with someone who is always right, impervious to blame and well-stocked with reasons why the problems he caused are someone/something else's fault. It's just an unconscious tactic you've learned over time. You can drop it if you choose. It doesn't make you a bad person, but I think it's a bad choice. In this situation, I'd be willing to bet that, if your friends are making a big deal about this, it's because you're trying to blow it off, not because it's really that big a deal. Does that make sense? As ajb says, you should accept that you messed up, apologize sincerely and appropriately and move on.

I'm not sure any of those choices are MOST important. Certainly it's possible to remain on topic yet fail as a thread. Arguing well helps a single argument, but not necessarily the whole discussion. And how the topic affects the community is not necessarily a guarantee it will be a successful thread. I think this is closer to what's really important to thread survival. If a discussion bogs down because those involved can't agree on definitions, or because one side is using assertive statements the others can't agree with, there's little productive benefit. I think it also helps if everybody passes the "teacher's hat" liberally. Nothing is as frustrating on a discussion forum as those who come only to "teach" us something. They don't collaborate, they don't discuss, they're here to soapbox about a certain subject they feel they own, and that kind of preacher isn't interested in learning. Better to discuss things with people who wear the teacher's hat when they have something to share, then pass it to someone else because they're really here to learn.

I like this. I can see a whole lot of flames in the next 8 days if we don't, and it's the simplest solution. It just doesn't sound like we're going to get much supportive evidence from the OP. Invoking secrecy via privileged government inner workers means a discussion based on conjecture, logic hurdles and slippery-sloping doomsday links. Any other suggestions, or should we put a pin in this until after next week?

T-shirt heat today, it's springtime in the Rockies. Tomorrow it snows.

Since this type of conspiracy tends to include every bad thing happening everywhere, I don't think anyone will ever know the full plan.

I must be losing my touch, because my whole point was that those labels shouldn't be applied to people, but rather to their stances in context to varied issues. I was born an Eisenhower Republican, so I've been progressive all my life, but I'm not a liberal when it comes to the clothing young women wear, and I'm not a conservative where education is concerned. If you detect any favoritism from me, it's only because I feel the Republican party can't honestly represent all the mixed stances who try to shelter under that umbrella. I'm only moderately more pleased with the Democrats. As has been pointed out, beware words like "every" and "all" when you're talking about politics. This is trivially refuted simply by looking at the demographics of both parties. If what you say is true, there would be no old "liberals". I think you make a mistake trying to tie things like personal responsibility and the value of hard work to a political party. It's inaccurate and divisive. There's a lot more common ground out there than either major party wants you to think about. We needlessly poison the discussions when we approach issues like welfare without starting first where we all agree, that we want to help a widowed mother of three avoid homelessness, and we don't want to help those who could work but choose to scam the system instead. We need to start there instead of where a political brand wants us to start. And that's what ties us back to the OP. Starting out assuming people are fools guarantees you won't even come close to understanding their perspective. And if you don't understand the perspective (understand, not agree with), it often leads us to be dismissive of it. And we shouldn't, we need everyone's perspective in a democracy.

! Moderator Note One thread per topic, please! It keeps the discussion from fragmenting.

Even more likely is that Buzz Aldrin pulled off the ultimate prank.

Maybe because there really are no conservative people, only people who will act conservatively in certain situations, and usually because it seems most prudent. I don't know anyone who has a conservative/liberal stance on EVERYTHING, yet plenty of people style themselves as one or the other. In my experience, conservative options are simply some people's default mode. But you're right, it's not that difficult to show how progressive actions can be the safest choices, in which case they become the conservative option. The fact that so many politicians choose direct confrontation makes me think they do so on purpose, to mark the distinctions and further polarize their stance from their opponent's.

"Gut feelings" are just a desire for intuitive explanations, imo. We often want reality to be in lockstep with the way we feel about it, and that's totally backwards. If I put my emotions first, there's no way a bullet fired from a gun hits the ground at the same time I drop a bullet from the same height. It's not intuitive, and until I remove all the flash and bang and feelings about guns and other emotional variables, it's hard to focus on just the gravity of the situation.

I'm afraid just about any scenario you can come up with where you're alone, with no credible witnesses to corroborate what you experienced, will never pass scientific inquiry. Results need to be testable, repeatable by anyone who tries it. People have been telling stories like this since before we started recording them. It seems like "proof" to them, but nobody else can repeat what happened. An atheist, or a skeptic even, would have to have a great deal more support for an explanation that seemed supernatural.

"Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue over who killed who." -- King of Swamp Castle

You should blog. This sounds like you want to teach us something. It doesn't sound like you want to discuss anything.

The Russians will insist on driving and the Americans will have forgotten where they put the car keys. Everyone will be safe.

So nudity is wrong for some reason? This is a strawman response to a previous strawman! I think we should stop lobbing shots at each other's countries and stick to the real subject here, which is not nudity or homosexuality or religion. alkis3 obviously represents a far right perspective in Russia, and intolerance to liberal attitudes is a hallmark of such a perspective and should be no big shock to anyone. So how can we discuss this without all the nationalism and religious outrage, so we might get past the most obvious and oft-repeated arguments? Is this just the Russian version of US religious right political stances, or is there something else going on here?

I must have misunderstood. I was unaware that Russians were being forced to attend these parades. How barbaric!

Russia, judging by you, has some misconceptions about things like homosexuality. A lot of these misconceptions are perpetuated by religion, which usually places itself at odds with science (reality). This is why Pussy Riot staged a protest in a church, because politics and religion shouldn't be mixed, it's always proven to be very bad. I don't know if Pussy Riot thought about this, but maybe it was all done so you would come here, and learn that who you're attracted to is not a choice. Everyone is a little different, but basically if you like the opposite gender you won't be able to be attracted to the same gender. Some small amount of people are attracted to both genders, and some are attracted to the same gender. The point is, you don't get to choose the gender you're attracted to, any more than you can choose the color of your skin. So perhaps the real message is that you shouldn't hold things sacred. Beliefs are fine, but when your beliefs can't stand any type of questioning, if they're so fragile that a little reality makes them shatter, and some girls singing a song in a church threatens the very foundations of those beliefs, then maybe you should think more objectively about what you believe in.

You should blog.

Not the point. What I think of the Russian government is irrelevant. Homosexuals in your country think it's as bad as it is, for them at least. I'm sure for you it's great. A good democracy will try to help as many as possible be great.

Seriously?! It means nothing to YOU, so you don't think it's important?! And you seem unwilling to acknowledge differing perspectives. Maybe gay people in Russia don't "want to show clearly that they are gay", maybe they just want to show that they represent a statistically significant portion of society. Maybe they want to show that they recognize the plight they are all in, being in a very homophobic country with a reputation for disappearing people who go against policy. Maybe they just like getting together with peers who have common experiences. I'm sorry, but I don't think you're ready for democracy. You seem very intolerant, and unwilling to let certain people become People.

I wasn't singling out Putin. I was trying to show you that there may be other, more likely reasons why a politician does what he does. I realize that the majority opinion in Russia may be that homosexuality threatens your country. This perspective taints everything else as well. You claim that gay parades are bad because fights break out, and so you protect the real culprits, the heterosexuals who feel threatened by homosexuality and start fights at a gay pride parade. This is like saying you want to get rid of all the cats because your dog chases them. Listen, it may sound counterintuitive or wrong, but a healthy society needs dissention. Bad laws need people to break them to show how bad they are. In my state, so many people got put in jail for smoking marijuana that the citizens here decided it was a stupid law, so we made marijuana legal. Now we don't send people to prison for doing what others do with alcohol or medication. I know, you don't agree with the "clown" way that Pussy Riot sent their message, but you should be willing to defend their right to do it. Surely your religion is strong enough to withstand a few people objecting to its involvement in Russian politics? And guess what? Pussy Riot made you feel strongly enough to go out to the web and get other opinions, so that's a victory for them. They don't have to change your mind to make it work a little harder. They just have to expose you to their perspective. There should be no fear of being exposed to other perspectives.

Or perhaps Putin finds it very easy to claim people are being bribed to damage Russia's image. So many people are willing to believe in conspiracy, and leaders know this.

While the drive towards controversy is present in both genders, I'm not sure your experience here can be applied generally. There is a tendency for men to question the logic of women, and most of the responses can seem like trolling if you already think women have faulty (or at least different) logic. I think women have a more strategic outlook where men tend to think tactically. If a man says, "The forest is on fire, we need to put it out", and a woman responds with, "Maybe it's best to let it burn", the man might likely think the woman is trolling/crazy. Maybe she is, or maybe she's thinking about the more long-term health of the forest.