Phi for All

Because Westerners are much more likely to be completely removed from the process.

Coming on the heels of the Brian Cox misconceptions, aren't you a bit worried about launching press releases about your two-day old hypothesis (a theory is much more heavily tested and peer-reviewed)?

This sentence makes little sense, but it sounds like there's a chapter of the Bible you don't believe in. Please tell us why.

Thinking that cows produce milk year round is a very common misconception among Westerners. Many also mistakenly think we steal milk from the calves by taking most for ourselves, but nature's redundant systems ensure that a cow produces way more milk than her single calf would need. This makes very little sense to me. If everything deserves to live and we should avoid killing anything, we couldn't move for fear of breaking this insane moral code. We already have laws in most countries that prohibit indiscriminate destruction of animals and people, and we understand more each year about the roles even insects play in our environment. As modern civilization progresses, I think we'll continue to increase the respect for lives we don't need to take to survive. But why should we impose some kind of impossible moral barrier that we'll have to keep breaking and feeling guilty about? I think you're conflating the deaths of animals bred to live and reproduce for our benefit with unnecessary destruction of human life, and that's a weak strawman argument. Seriously people, isn't the real argument that you're asking for a world where there are only x number of cows and we don't breed them or eat them, which actually denies the very existence of 1,000,000x number of cows who would have been fulfilling their evolutionary function by living to reproduce? As long as they're treated humanely and their deaths have a minimum of trauma (which we can't even guarantee for ourselves, btw), then what is so wrong with a life free from predation where they get to eat well, have sex, drink clean water and live for a few years before fulfilling the purpose they were bred for?

! Moderator Note njaohnt, since you haven't been able to provide even a scrap of your "tons" of evidence in the Christian Evidence thread, this statement is not only a lie but it's also a thread hijack, which is against the rules you agreed to when you joined. In case you didn't read any of the other posts, this thread is about how atheists will handle explaining life and death to their children. It doesn't even look like you read the opening post, since your answer to the OP doesn't make sense in that context. Lots of who have done it, atheists?

I didn't think you were. My point is that the packaging is often what makes the products appealing enough to jump off the shelf and into the shopping carts. And sometimes, the more excessive the packaging is, the more value it's perceived to have. Some packaging is a theft-deterrent as well, making the product too bulky to be slipped into the pocket of a shoplifter. We're making headway there with radio-frequency ID chips, but there's a lot of controversy about privacy and the tracking abilities of those chips. They may protect against shoplifting, but so far nothing is stopping those chips from sending information to anyone with the proper reader, even after you've left the store. I totally agree that much of the packaging these days seems excessive. Right now the manufacturers are more concerned with the things I've mentioned rather than how much is going into the landfills. If we want to change all that, I think the best way to accomplish the goal is the same way recycling got a foothold. If consumers start purchasing more products that offer biodegradable or less bulky packaging, the markets will start leaning that way. Then we have to make sure the corporate lobbyists don't arrange to have the legal definition of "biodegradable" changed to the point where it's meaningless.

It's not the emotion that's the problem. When someone offers compelling evidence against your idea, you either need to refute it or acknowledge it. If you just keep insisting you're right while that evidence is still out there, then it seems like you're just trying to anger the rest of us in the discussion. And that's trolling.

Dude, you accuse me of leaning and following a pattern, then you make a statement like this. "Shared prosperity" does NOT mean "spread the wealth" or "rob from the rich to give to the poor". Shared prosperity means fair taxation, using our numbers to make sure the least of us is cared for, and working hard so we can consume the goods and services we all generate to stimulate a healthy economy. Shared prosperity does NOT mean tilt everything in favor of a few, scrape workers benefits to the bone for a little more profit and avoid paying your fair share to help maintain our national infrastructure. It's fair business practices and integrity in lawmaking. It's actually believing that your people are what make your business great instead of just posting it on the corporate website while you lay off another thousand people at Christmas. Shared prosperity, where we make a wage that lets us be involved in our own economy and political structure instead of working two or three jobs to make ends meet while your kids wonder when you'll have enough energy to play with them.

Your chart is for perception of corruption. I'd like to know how they rate those perceptions. Their parameters are probably for things like officials taking bribes rather than politicians working corporate-favorable legislation into bills. Corruption perception may not include lobbyists working within the legal parameters established by corrupt politicians. Now THAT is a specious argument. You know I advocate government control only where profit motivations are in direct conflict with the interests represented. I don't know where you get off claiming that's an ideological change. I'm closer to being an Eisenhower Republican than I am an ultra-liberal Democrat like Michael Moore. Eisenhower warned us about trusting the military industrial complex. I'm not going to go back and rehash everything we've discussed before. I never said corporations are evil or rich people are bad and you damn well know it, yet you keep misrepresenting what I've said. I'm going to let Ike say it for me, because he predicted our current fate. From his farewell speech to the American people in 1961:

Yes. Yes you can.

You're being misled. The progressive movement has nothing to do with Marxist Socialism. This is right wing propaganda meant to straw man the real goal, which is to rein in the corporate influence on our democracy and take things like health insurance out of the hands of profiteers. We've discussed this many times and it pains me to have to go back over old ground. Are you really going to make me look up your responses to health insurance for profit? I think you simply don't want our corruption to be worse than other nations our size, but I'm afraid we're the frontrunners in that respect. It costs us twice as much to do things when, due to our size and affluence, we should be paying less. Did you ever see the breakdown on what Bush's no-bid Iraq War contract with Halliburton cost us? You'd think a single company doing EVERYTHING would be able to lower costs as opposed to multiple companies each doing a portion of the work, wouldn't you? We paid almost double in every instance, from craft services to oil well firefighting. Other countries may have corruption as well, but the US does it through channels and gets We, the People to sign off on the graft via patriotism, buried bill provisions and spun media stories. Again, this "share the wealth" crap is propaganda, same as "class warfare". What the progressive movement wants is for the wealthy to share in our tax burdens, and pay their fair amount towards the superstructure we all use. If the wealthy pay more, well, their companies use more resources and create more wear and tear on the roads. Capital gains, where much of the wealthy's wealth comes from, is taxed at a lesser rate than your income. That's just wrong.

! Moderator Note Your thread hijacking has to stop NOW, JohnStu. Respond to this idea or start your own thread.

A machinocracy?! I prefer We, the People, however flawed.

In my opinion, it's not how bright the politicians are, it's how corrupt the system lets them be. The government is a tool, and it needs to be shaped properly so it does its job well no matter who wields it. It's not just about establishing laws, it's about protecting the common good. I think there are too many conflicts of interest in most governments. In the US, we let the wrong people tally votes, people with a vested interest in one of the winners. We allow corporations to finance political agendas that benefit the corporations. We erode public trust every time we allow lobbyists to unfairly garner tax breaks or favors that no one else gets. What we need more than anything is smart AND ethical people in government, but power like that often attracts the worst. I think the system needs an occasional overhaul to fix the problems and get rid of conflicts and what isn't working to protect the common good.

Great point. These animals are ultimately left with two alternatives, exist this way or don't exist at all. If they had the choice, do you think they'd choose to live the life we're giving them or would they choose not to be born at all?

I consider his not hiring union labor to be hypocritical. I don't know how movie budgets work; does the studio set the budget or does MM? Either way there is hypocrisy there on someone's part. It's the only thing in this whole thread about hypocrisy that even IS hypocritical. Suing his partners over royalties is just business though. It sounds like he audited the Weinsteins and discovered they were holding out on him. I laughed at how your article made the Weinsteins seem like old ladies on a fixed income that Moore was kicking to the curb. If you were being screwed out of almost $2M, would any amount of money already in your pocket make you think that was OK?

We evolved high intelligence and other traits that, in combination, lets us not only cultivate land for crops (which no other animal is capable of doing), but also raise animals for food (which no other animal is capable of doing). For now, both of these things help us maintain the civilization we have. We can't stop doing these things overnight or we'd cause the whole thing to collapse. We're using the advantages evolution gives us, like any other animal. And like most things, we're working to improve the process. Animal cruelty was much worse in the past. We need to continue to improve the huge animal processing facilities, no doubt, and I believe it will happen. Right now, science is improving tissue engineering to the point where we can grow organs and skin in a lab for medical use, and the same technology might just get us the perfect steak one day. Lab-grown, never part of a living being and who knows, maybe we can reduce the risks of heart disease as well.

Sources vary on how many sects of Christianity there are. I've heard between 9000 to 38,000 different sects, but some don't consider themselves as such. Catholicism, the largest, considers themselves apart from any divisions, sort of pre-denominational, the One True Church all others divided from. So good luck choosing which flavor any evidence supports.

You asked when the Starchild Skull's DNA was proven to be human. I gave you a link that explained it in detail, with references to the relevant studies. As mooeypoo stated, you don't have to trust wikipedia, but you really should address the references to the studies if you want to be rigorous and intellectually honest. And here at SFN, this is what we do. You asked a question, it was answered. You don't get to simply blow that answer off and keep insisting you're right. You need to do your part and refute the findings of that study, or admit that you were wrong. Otherwise, you're just trolling for emotional responses to your posts, and that's against the rules you agreed to when you joined.

You know what, it's obvious to me that you stopped even trying to make a decent argument. This is one of the most pathetic posts I've seen in all my years here. Denial, flippancy and sloppy, intellectually dishonest answers. You should cogitate, not just mouth what your pastor told you.

Why do you assume the repercussions will be negative (an assumption from tone)? I fail to see how people, as in We, the People, holding their political leadership accountable and addressing the problems caused by manipulations and un-American, deceptive tactics used by corporations will end up being anything but positive. You have admitted in several threads of this type that we have problems in this country that the politicians are unable or unwilling to fix. Who else is going to do it? Rush Limbaugh?

Right here.

Tons of ways, but it won't work. Plain packaging or no packaging will sell x amount of product. Branded packaging (even when factoring in the extra costs) sells 4x amount of product (some a little lower, some much higher). Packaging makes lots more money than it costs. Case in point is this popcorn at Costco. Flavored popcorn in fancy wrapped cones with brilliant printing on them. When you total up the weight on the popcorn itself, you're paying around $10 per pound, for flavored popcorn in printed cellophane. I buy some stuff from bulk bins, but unfortunately that business has been taken over in the US by a middle man distribution company. The merchandise they stock is not the high quality you'd get if some of the better manufacturers simply sold their products in bulk without packaging. Some packaging is necessary just to protect the product. Who would want their shoes shipped from wherever if they were loose and scuffing up against all the other shoes? Boxes help prevent that, and make it easier to stack and ship. I think recycling is the best solution. Make sure the stuff you buy is in recyclable packaging.

! Moderator Note Personal attacks are against the rules you agreed to when you joined. Always ask yourself if your argument is aimed at a person's ideas or at the person directly. Choose to attack the idea, not the person.

The fact that science COULD speculate on an actual beginning of the universe but officially DOESN'T should tell you a lot about the integrity of the scientific method, and about the precision of Big Bang Theory. We can measure what happened after the expansion began but only up to a fraction of a fraction of a second after. The initial expansion, right as it first starts, involves too much energy. We can only be sure of what happened once the energy drops to levels we've been able to measure with particle physics experiments, at around 10−11 seconds after the event started. Science can say, "Right now, we don't know what actually happened before the universe was 10−11 seconds old". It doesn't need to fill that gap with a creator. We're learning more about those kinds of energy levels all the time. Someday the gap will be gone, filled with knowledge and not superstition.