Phi for All

The way you phrased the first question demands an automatic "Yes". There ARE people who view the world this way, so what other answer could there be? But then you ask, "Are we nothing more than Lemmings looking for a cliff to leap from?", which is a generalization, to which the obvious answer is "No, not all of us". If these questions are not meant as a venue to spit venom, why are they so loaded towards certain obvious answers? Also, your first question generalizes "life and their surroundings". I think there are plenty of people who view certain aspects of their lives and their surroundings with a jaundiced eye, perhaps things like politics or their job, but not other aspects, such as science or their families. Your questions seem to cull specific circumstances and individuals and conflate them with society as a whole, and that makes it hard to answer meaningfully.

I think our people have been poorly educated by a system that's been systematically strangled in terms of funding for the last 30 years, and this has allowed them to be manipulated into believing they have no hope of "fighting city hall". We take it for granted that politicians will lie, we just assume that corruption is the way of the world. But yes, I think we are smart enough to see that we need to start getting more involved, that we need to stop this slide into apathy and acceptance we've been on. We can be vigilant, we need to be vigilant, and we need to put the capital P back in People. Freer? Are people in a democracy freer if they have more of a say in their political process through more specific representation? Are they freer if they keep a more vigilant watch on the promises made by their leaders, always ready to end a term of office if the elected representative fails to do the job they claimed they would? Are they freer if their expectations are met and their tax resources are used transparently and judiciously? More substantial? Obviously I can't observe anything like that on a national level in just a week. And Paris is a large cultural hub for the entire world, so it would be like asking if people in New York City do more substantial things with their lives than people from Ottumwa. Making the most of your life is an individual aspiration, so I couldn't claim to know if people in Europe do so because of their political systems, but I can tell you this: I think the average person has a better chance at the life they want if their leaders are working for the general welfare of the country instead of just the welfare of the guys who own the most.

To me, it's not the focus on money that's offensive. It's the phoney-baloney anti-drug stance that will quickly change when there's more money to be made by legalizing hemp. It's more than just flip-flopping, it's politicians and businessmen exploiting their own integrity for profit. And I'm probably more disgusted by the American people for falling for such dishonest manipulation. There are many good views out there, or at least good parts of those views, which need representation but will never get it honestly with our current two-party system. I wonder how the Libertarians view the Republican stance supporting capital punishment for drug trafficking?

Absolutely great shows, both. I haven't started season 4 of BB yet, can't wait. And I've read all the available Song of Ice and Fire books, and I have to say that Game of Thrones is, hands down, THE BEST screenplay from a book series, EVER. And yes, Tyrion is fabulous, Dinklage is superb at being Tyrion, and I will personally drive back down to Santa Fe and spank Martin if he takes as long as the last time to finish the next book (yes, George, that was me pawing through your trash five years ago, hoping for a little glimpse of you dancing with dragons).

The gas you need is bromotrifluoromethane, also known as Halon 1301. Great for putting out fires when you don't want foam or sand or water all over everything. Not great for wood or things that smolder though, since these fires can relight when oxygen is reintroduced. I don't think you'd really need a grenade, though. Just a good-sized canister with a thermostat that releases the halon when it gets hot enough.

So no public roads, parks, libraries? Those should all be privately owned, in your opinion? You see public works and publicly controlled/available resources as impediments to progress? Really? How so?

Actually, any strong emotion, not just anger, increases the heart rate and floods the body with physiological responses that inhibit fine motor control functions. I think one can have a level of anger that is manageable and actually beneficial if it brings on strong convictions and focused responses, as long as those convictions and responses are aimed in a beneficial direction. This is where most anger misses the mark, imo. It's not properly focused. And we don't always recognize where our anger stems from. I think a lot of anger is misplaced, coming from one source but applied to another. Yesterday, I was driving on a street with a 40mph limit, the day was beautiful, I was in a good mood, there were cars in front of me and cars behind me. I don't like following too closely and I probably left a bit too much room between me and the car in front of me, but for whatever reason I suddenly became aware that the car behind me was right on my bumper, less than a car length away, the driver practically frothing at the mouth. I looked down, realized I was going about 36mph, but there was only about four car lengths between me and the car in front of me. I sped up a bit and shortly we came to a right turn lane which the driver behind me turned into and sped past me. The man was red in the face, mouthing what I can only assume were obscenities, and he gave me the finger as he passed. I thought about it afterwards. I couldn't have gone too much faster because of the cars in front of me. I could have left less room between me and the next car, giving the illusion of more speed, but I feel it's unnecessarily dangerous and futile. I could have reacted quicker and sped up at a higher rate when the man behind me expressed his anger but I frankly thought he was being overly aggressive, I don't like to encourage tailgating as a means to encourage faster speeds and I've gotten used to conserving my fuel. I thought it was an incredible waste of good anger. If he was late for something, he had many opportunities to pass me, so I ruled that out. What had I really cost the man, maybe a dozen seconds? In the few minutes of thought I gave it, I concluded that the man was either angry about something else and just taking it out on me, or he thought I was purposely slowing down to vex him because he was following too closely (and I really only noticed him when he came right up on my bumper the one time). Either way, his anger was misplaced and improperly focused. I think there is a lot of that going on these days.

I agree, in terms of existing physiology. But where would the selective pressure come from in our present ecosystems? Losing our arms would be horrible for humans unless we could keep hands at the ends of them, and then I'm not sure the wing parts would be effective. Being able to fly is no real advantage to advanced tool users.

! Moderator Note Personal attacks are against the rules you agreed to when you joined this forum. Attack the ideas instead.

Technically, while we are speculating, we're still trying to use accepted evolutionary principles to do it, so the thread could stay in the mainstream fora. However, geologically we went completely off the charts with the flood that covers all the land scenario. We'd never have enough water to do that. I said flyers tend to be lighter weight-wise, with hollow bones and muscles meant mainly for flight. And with your flood scenario, I meant that you removed much of our diet when you removed the land, so we'd most likely tend towards smaller bodies requiring less food to survive. Of course, being omnivores, we'd get hit pretty hard trying to live only on what we could find in the oceans. There were birdlike creatures among the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs and birds share a lot of physiology and behavior. Catastrophic events tend to change environments and cause some marked evolutionary changes, but I don't necessarily think a catastrophe was required in order to force the changes into the birds we see today.

How is it a "sound" business practice to charge more for women just because it's easy to make people think it's justified? If you remove the obstetric costs, women are still being charged more for health insurance for the same coverage. The reasons given by the insurance carriers have been proven to be bullshit (like pointing to cities with high instances of domestic violence and then applying that to women everywhere). That's why the Affordable Care Act is not allowing the exploitation to continue. Only if you as a consumer and a citizen allow it. And it looks like, even though you seemed to object to the higher costs before I commented, you are now convinced the insurance companies are justified in continuing the practice. I don't mean this as a personal attack, but it seems to me like on the one hand you defend the free market, and on the other you think it's acceptable to allow discrimination if standing up for your wife means paying more. Aren't you the guy who asked, "What gives?"

Even when you remove obstetric care from the equation, gender rating against women shows that women are charged more for medical insurance than their male counterparts across the board using some really stupid metrics, like increased likelihood of domestic violence. In many states, it's not uncommon for a non-smoking woman to pay significantly more than a man who smokes. No matter what we'd like to think, there doesn't seem to be any justifiable reasons other than greed. The Affordable Care Act has banned the practice of gender rating.

In that scenario, I think the first mutation that would gain from natural selection would be webbed fingers and toes. More successful swimmers would get more food, become stronger and reproduce more successfully. After that, perhaps some kind of webbing that stretches between arms and legs, like a flying squirrel, may give both added swimming control and a limited gliding ability. Again, we have no examples of a six-legged vertebrate, so growing an extra set of limbs that may get modified into wings is an unrealistic stretch. Remember, wings don't evolve by themselves, they're modified legs. We'd require a completely different skeletal and musculature model to warrant having six limbs. This would require extra growth and in your flood scenario you just reduced a huge portion of our food supply. I think the tendency would be towards smaller humans.

Wings, being modified legs, require a whole set of musculature all to themselves. And avian creatures are much lighter weight with lighter bone structure than humans. All that aside, there really isn't any selective pressure for us to evolve wings. We just don't need them, no matter how cool it would be to fly. There is nothing about our current ecology that would make wings desirable. We'd have to change everything about the way we live in order for wings to make us more successful at survival.

When you say "angel-like", do you mean arms turning into wings or do you mean wings sprouting up from somewhere towards the back, independent of the arms? Arms and wings are modified legs, essentially, so we'd somehow have to grow two new "legs" to be modified by selection into wings. Although I would imagine the selective pressures would be more likely to give us a second set of arms, given our current environments. I don't think there are any examples of a six-legged vertebrate.

Confrontation is inevitable. Violence is not.

I'm way too busy studying for my 32nd degree as a Mason to be an Illuminati.

! Moderator Note This is pure preaching, opinion stated as fact with no evidence to support it. Even in the Politics section this kind of post offers no basis for discussion, which is the point of this forum. You need to start observing the proper protocols for starting threads here. This is not Sciforums or The Student Room. Ask a question (one that you're not already answering yourself) or pose an argument or this thread gets closed. This is just hand-waving conspiracy preaching.

It couldn't have been a horned space traveler from Neptune. They only bite people who are in jail.

It's quite typical for conservative positions to overlook political platform considerations in the US. Small government, from a conservative perspective, usually means "stay out of my business but keep subsidizing it". Legalization will suddenly make perfect sense when there is less money in keeping it illegal. Conservatives always mention the drug, but never mention the competitive textile, paper source, oil alternative, or any of the other threats to established markets that hemp represents.

Illegal immigrants only make up about 3.5% of the population, according to the Center of Immigration Studies (11M out of 313M in 2008). And they do spend the majority of the money they make here, so "without contributing anything to the American economy" is not a true statement.

Like many so-called "conservative" positions, I think there is currently more money and more political capital to be made by keeping hemp illegal.

By "personal attachments" do you mean emotional attachments? What kind of "life" is there to organize without personal attachments? What "issues" are unnecessary in life? What kind of "stuff" is worth doing that can't possibly involve a personal attachment? Is trust a kind of personal attachment in your philosophy?

I think it's quite simply that prisoners represent a great deal of money to be made from tax revenues, which are easily justified to the taxpayers because of the threat criminals pose. It's always amazed me that it costs about as much to keep an inmate in a state prison as what the average citizen in that state earns in income. Contracts for food and such are extremely lucrative. I think this is an area where states should be buying directly and not involve private contract vendors. Free market models are at odds with the intent of correctional facilities.

Forgive me, but this makes no sense to me at all. No pulse means no heartbeat, so the person is dead, yes? Does "continuously speaking in his lying position" mean this dead person is in bed but speaking in a language that can be understood, or is the person not speaking the truth, he's lying? Are you asking this about someone you know? Why would psychology be the appropriate study for this phenomenon instead of biology?