Phi for All

! Moderator Note You were asked to link to the specific post(s) in your blog that showed the calculations, not to repeat the link to the home page. Now you are in violation of our rule 2.7, which prohibits non-relevant links that advertise your blog as a whole. Link to blog has been removed altogether. If you can provide a link to the specific calculations you referenced in the OP, you can add it in a subsequent post.

Why so surly? I was pointing out a difference. Did you think I was somehow bragging on our lack of refillability?

I still don't understand the psychology behind the US buying so much bottled water. I know in France ordering bottled water is more expensive than ordering a glass of wine. Here, bottled water is cheap and it's everywhere, like we used to all be dehydrated or something and now we have this miracle cure. It's convenience, that's all it is, imo. We're besotted with things we can buy, use and toss, the more the better it seems sometimes.

I could be wrong, but I don't think any bar in the US would let you bring a reusable container, plastic or glass, back to an establishment for a "refill" of anything. Health codes, I've been told, which seems more like, "We don't trust you to clean out your own container well enough to avoid the sickness you'd probably sue us for." I'd love to be able to take my plastic storage containers to the store for a refill of bulk cereals. Convenience stores will let you refill containers with fountain soft drinks, though. I wonder how they get around the health codes? Good example. And again, you have to have a company in the middle to swap out the jugs to make sure they're sterile before reuse, at least in the US, afaik.

Let's make the distinction between Reusing an item and Recycling it. Reusing sterilizes the container, relabels it (if necessary) and refills it (or some variation, this is an assumption), whereas Recycling actually grinds or melts it down and molds it into the same thing again or something similar. Plastic can get pretty beat-up looking when it's reused too many times, although with milk bottles (we have those in the US as well, usually from dairies that deliver and pick up the reusable bottles) you can't see the scuff marks easily. I can't think of any other containers, plastic or glass, that are reused except for milk.

I like the idea of using glass to save plastic and oil for things that plastic and oil are the best choice for. The recycling deposit some states in the US charged for glass bottles was effective at keeping glass refuse out of the environment. If you didn't want the nickel yourself, there were always lots of kids who were happy to make some money. Safety is a bigger concern for glass. Broken glass cuts skin pretty easily and there's no shortage of folks who like breaking glass. For every plastic job lost there'd be another created for glass replacements. Weight could be a big concern. Shipping costs would go up since we couldn't make glass thin enough to be safe AND as light as plastic. Edit to add: Glass is one of those smart investments, something that costs more to begin with but lasts soooo much longer than the alternatives that it's actually much cheaper in the long run. Also, for items like storage containers, glass retains it's shape forever and its non-porous nature means it doesn't absorb stains and odors like plastic does.

Also according to your article: I've seen some very experienced businesspeople on the phone and I can tell you it would be difficult to properly analyze their conversations from audio recordings alone. And how do you maintain the integrity of any analysis without consulting with those practicing within it? That's not a condemnation, it just seems counter-intuitive to me.

Family is a concept that has helped us grow as a society, but it needs the freedom to adapt along with other concepts. I don't think gender distinctions have affected the family unit negatively as much as urban isolation. We used to band together in larger groups for mutual aid and socialization. Fear of modern predators has forced family units into smaller groupings and that seems very counter-intuitive to me. If we're afraid of gangs/terrorists/criminals/whatever, we should be uniting instead of isolating ourselves. Just curious, don't want to go off-topic, but what's a "saw shop"? Is that like a male-dominated factory?

If you're not attacking mods, why did you pull my quote, out of order and out of context, from way back on the first page just to accuse me of not discussing your topic? Honestly, I had stopped responding to the thread because you seemed so agitated by our explanations.

! Moderator Note Please, one post per topic. The other five threads have been deleted. Btw, allcaps in a bold, decorative font is really hard to read.

It sounds like you can evaluate problems within your own character and work to overcome them. That alone makes you way above average. Trying hard and having it pay off is a big confidence booster. Just remember your successes and how hard you have to work to get them, and keep the perspective that it's a good thing and not a burden. "Someone like you" is absolutely made for college, and I think you're going to enjoy the challenges and keep doing better and better.

I don't think family values hinge on gender distinctions. I think family is about unconditional love and acceptance. I'm not sure how many voters the President won or lost, but I know my respect for the man went up a notch, and I hope he continues to fight for family values that reflect modern reality.

Rewiring genetic code may be ultimately more practical than implants for some aspects. Actually, this brings up another problematic design in humans. Whenever we lose normal tissue, scar tissue forms to quicken recovery, something that helped us when we were at odds with other predators. But this means we can't regenerate lost limbs like a salamander, even though we have all the requisite genetics to do so. In our present environment, it would be hugely advantageous to form the blastema salamanders use to cause cells to become pluripotent and regrow whatever was lost. Imagine getting hands back after amputation, or even regrowing organs lost to disease. The most profound affect would probably be getting new teeth whenever they're lost! We're close to correcting this bit, according to some studies. Here's a good article on that: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/regeneration/

If you take a closer look at the numbers, you'll see that they don't add up. For one, the US numbers don't include Fraud and Narco-criminality. Secondly, the only numbers for All Offenses that total correctly are for the US; all the other countries are off by thousands. For instance, Germany (which also doesn't list anything for Fraud) lists the totals as 7736.33, but my calculation gives 4140.83 (which is less than the US). You say you didn't feel like going through all the numbers in the interpol stats, but apparently you only went through the US. And let's face it, without the numbers for Narco-criminality, none of these numbers are meaningful. The US has 25% of the world's prisoners in our facilities, and 25% of those are for drug-related charges.

Actually, centaurs would be hexapeds, something that we just don't have among vertebrates. We have aquatic common ancestors, legs evolving from fins, arms evolving from legs. It would be highly unlikely for a mutation like another set of legs to turn up among humans. It's just too big a change in skeletal and muscle structure. There's a big difference between current problematic human body parts and actually doing something to improve our physiology, especially something as tremendous as an extra set of limbs. I don't think our quality of life would be improved if we had four legs like a horse, or wings like a bird. They sound cool but such changes would create more problems than they'd be worth, and might possibly cause the things that really set us apart to wither. And evolution doesn't cause traits like an extra set of limbs. Random processes cause them and evolution just helps them stay if they're useful.

I was wondering when you were going to use that "Steevey" account to give yourself rep points. I'm sure you realize having a sockpuppet account is against the rules you agreed to when you joined, in addition to being a pretty pathetic and counterproductive way to boost your reputation.

Why? We'd still have the compression problems that vertebrae are prone to when stood on end. And I always wondered at the efficacy of having two spinal columns join at the forward centaurean pelvis. That would be a LOT of pressure on such critical areas. The best design for compression would be something more like a jointed column, but that would create problems for the organs. I don't know, perhaps we just need longer arms so we can lean over to rest on them instead of sitting, taking pressure off the spine. But then the hands might grow to be less articulate, and then we'd be screwed.

Once again, you start with a sentence that makes any further discussion moot. This is the way you view governments, so nothing I can say will ever get past this insurmountable wall. More of the same. You're Begging the Question, automatically judging government to be "without limits", "hey, let's all just start from THAT premise, folks, so my argument is that much stronger!" You can't base a valid argument on such a poor foundation. Justin, we've had some good discussions. You've made some good points in the past, but now I feel like you're having to distort my points or move the goalposts in order to keep your arguments valid. You NEED me to be some kind of anti-capitalist communist in order for your stance to make sense. I think a big part of our freedom in the US is being stifled by the unfair advantage big business has with their political clout, their ability to stay in the face of candidates and politicians in a way that a normal person can afford to do. I feel big business has had too great an influence in forming new laws that give them even greater power. It's just as simple as that. I'm not trying to mess with their ability to make a decent profit, but I think they should be focusing on ways that utilize the market economy, not under-the-table manipulation free from proper market pressures. This bullshit with paying lobbyists to invent tax loopholes to garner 1000% returns on the investment doesn't help the market, and it robs the country of millions in taxes and billions in subsidies. It robs Peter and says, "Screw you too, Paul!" It's NOT business, not the way I think of business, it's CFO meets lawyer meets shady politician, and I think it's been killing this country, robbing us of our ability to compete, and cutting the throat of the American worker. When you shrug and say, "It's in their nature", you're telling me that nothing I say will ever make this NOT about your personal view of what business can get away with in this country. When you claim, "Government is tyrannical by nature", I have no hope of ever talking to you about the best ways our government can help make our lives better. And when you talk about progressive laws being about playing on people's compassion for one another, you'll never be able to understand what the consequences of allowing businesspeople to manipulate politicians are. Think about your freedom in the coming months, when you see the unbelievably disgraceful, deplorable amounts of money being poured into political manipulation as we get closer to the presidential election. Think about the fact that no matter who gets elected, the biggest corporations are still going to be writing the laws to benefit themselves instead of the country, as payback for all the "investments" they've made in OUR government. At a time when we could use some jobs from these guys, we won't get them because we aren't good for the bottom line, trapped in an economic niche they helped create, that they make us believe is the greatest in the world, but refuse to help us correct or even maintain because it isn't profitable.

This seems highly unrealistic to me, no offense intended. Using "how mods do things" is in no way a fair representation of any democratic political system, and expecting people to relate what is happening today by calling attention to such unrelated events is not grounded in reality. Private forums are N-O-T democracies and our rules have little bearing on laws and constitutional rights.

Are you talking about THIS forum, ScienceForums.net, or another forum you participate in?

Taking a ferry is completely different. It's not driving on a road, it's being transported on a boat. It's a service provided by a company, not a roadway to provide ease of public transportation. The kinds of toll roads I'm talking about, the ones being taken over by private companies, are mostly back east, so it's hard for people like us in the west to visualize, what with all the room we have and alternate roadways. In many eastern states, the tollways are the ONLY practical routes to get from one point to another. If you could even afford the time to take secondary roads to get where you're going, if enough people started doing it, the small town roads you'd use as alternatives would quickly clog, causing the towns to react in various negative ways. I'm saying that this is an instance where the state can provide public access and maintenance to these roads at a lesser cost to taxpayers. These roads are a benefit to everyone, even those without cars, since goods that non-commuters travel them also. And if a corporation is allowed to own these roads, where are your free-market principles when that corporation's trucks don't have to pay like everyone else? Doesn't that give that corporation an unfair advantage? Here in Denver, we have a problem with one big trash company, BFI, that owns the biggest landfills (which used to be owned by the state). It's a real conflict of interest because they regularly try to squeeze out the competition by increasing the fees smaller trash companies have to pay to dump there. But BFI pays off politicians to keep the laws from stopping this unfair practice. I see this as a similar situation to the tollways. And these are just the kinds of laws that the corporations work to erode as soon as they're in place (or corrupt as they're being written). The corporations have the resources to stay in the face of the politicians on a daily basis, and they always will when it means such a huge return on their investment in our political system. Corporate lobbying through the US Camber of Commerce to extend the Bush tax cuts are a matter of public record. Here is a letter from the USCOC's EVP of Gov't Affairs which states: Yet a report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office states that tax cuts are the LEAST effective measure to ensure job creation. The corporations got the Bush tax cuts extended and guess what? They still sent jobs overseas. I'm not going to bother listing any here because virtually every major corporation in the US did it, is doing it right now, and will continue to do it. And it's clear, since the Bush tax cuts really couldn't help create jobs anyway (the CEOs who stood to gain the most by the tax cuts weren't hiring workers with their own money, they were using the corporation's money, duh), the whole thing was a scam to protect personal wealth at taxpayer expense. Nice strawman. "I'm not like you, I don't want to strengthen government control over the populace!" I absolutely HATE it when you pull this garbage, Justin. It makes me feel like I'm just wasting my time. Please stop trying to widen the brush I'm using to paint with. It IS our own fault, but the fix is stalled by people like you who defend the practices of big business because you think any objection is an attack on ALL free market policies. You refuse to see that the corporations, not ALL of them, might have been allowed to take things too far in their favor. Why does it have to pit only two companies against each other? Any company that was on the opposite side of the "green" meter probably hated the whole program. And these are just the companies that needed it most and would NEVER have moved this way without the EPA's campaign.

I can't view any claims of faith healing seriously when there are limitations that seem illogical if the claims were true. Why could faith in God or prayers to God heal cancers and other diseases and disabilities, but be unable to cure someone who lost a limb or digit?

I'd have to say that the design of the spine for a bi-pedal creature is very problematic. It's not really as useful as it could be, and while I realize that we haven't been upright all that long in evolutionary terms, it's clearly something that causes more problems than positive uses. Balancing our skulls properly and being able to utilize our longer leg bones is not a good reason for all the back pain and diseases and injuries we're prone to by having our spine and spinal cord designed as it is.

I always enjoy hearing well-formed arguments that run counter to the way I perceive things. The best of them stop me in my tracks and at least make me refine my own perspective, if not incorporate them as part of my understanding of the big picture. Most of the time, I can empathize with the sentiments that come from dissenting perspectives. They aren't always that far off from my own perspective, they just attack from a direction that seems counter-intuitive to me. Like the perspective that public welfare is bad because it's exploited by those who really don't need it, while few would actually withhold public welfare from those who truly do. I think what bothers me most these days is the criticism that attempts to widen the brushstrokes I normally try so very hard to keep covering just the points I wish to make. I get frustrated having to reiterate that complaints about a specific area aren't condemnations of the system as a whole. If I criticize big corporations for taking unfair advantage of political clout while hiding behind the mantle of economic independence and free-market policies, I get accused of being against capitalism as a whole. It's frustrating when you say what you mean and then have to correct someone else's interpretation based on what they want to think you mean. Thanks for this. Convenience and personalization are things I'm becoming more and more leery about. It's a Pandora's Box with pretty wrapping paper that just begs to be opened, often at too big a price. +1 I think even bringing the problem into the light is a step in the right direction. I seriously wonder how many people would look at a rating system like this and suddenly realize there really is a problem with the way they've been viewing the opinions of others. But you're right, many might change their habits or at least be exposed to dissenting opinion and I don't think that's ever going to be a bad thing.

The reality is, you're trying to define what a "real" man is for the rest of us. Personally, I don't think being "in charge" is a gender matter at all.