Phi for All

Very well said, thank you. I'm really grateful that you've taken the time, immortal. Your POV in this thread has been an insightful counterpoint to PeterJ's absolutist, mind-reading, condescending, mumbo-jumbo approach. You've kept this thread interesting and you 've done it without insult and derision. Thanks again.

Very true. I worry that we'll have another "Patriot Act" type legislation railroaded across our liberties in the name of economic stability. Inevitable problems with manufactured solutions are the only conspiracies I truly believe in these days. Many people in power see these times of crisis as big opportunities as well.

OK, obviously trying to boost traffic to the SJC YouTube portfolio. Can't seem to get enough attention. Closing the thread temporarily while I confer with staff members who aren't involved.

The beginning of a downfall AND an oppurtunity for change, imo. Much of the world is starting to see the failure of their leadership, the corruption of values they hold that have nothing to do with organized efforts to make them afraid to live, and the stupidity of continued aggression among a species that gains its true power from cooperation and communication. As long as we remember that we hold more power together, I think we'll turn this crisis into an opportunity. We need to avoid drastic measures and not let fear guide our actions.

No sir, that won't cut it. You're the one making the extraordinary claim. If we have questions, it's up to you to answer them. The burden of proof is on you. It's now possible to gain some clarity since you're answering us, and for that I wanted to say thanks. But make no mistake, there is so much evidence to support the concept of a spherical earth that you'll need to refute that I think it's going to try your patience to a great degree. If you think that's laborious then why did you posit such an idea on a science forum?

I just want to devote a whole post to saying thank you, Steve Christopher, for taking the time to answer some of these questions we've had. Regardless of what we think initially of your hypothesis, your honest answers are sincerely appreciated.

How does any satellite work? They're all built to orbit at certain distances, the lowest of which goes out to 1240 miles. Telecommunications, weather tracking, television, space telescopes, these all seem to support the Orbiting a Round Earth hypothesis. If not, how are companies and governments spending billions of dollars and accomplishing these technological feats with equipment designed incorrectly?

People (myself included) often post things that need correction, because NOT correcting them lends a sort of tacit support, especially on a science forum. Replying to every sentence is supposed to show support, clarification and rebuttal where it's appropriately due, though I admit it can often seem tedious. Sometimes we need to let people know that ALL the battles are worth fighting if they're posting trollish garbage. As for Mods swarming when blood hits the water, imo it's only occasionally an overreaction. Sometimes we just want a poster or two to know they can't get away with crap, and sometimes it's just because we're all interested. And much of the time it's because someone used the Report Post feature and we're just trying to do our jobs. I should note that when we're actually posting in a thread, we don't use any Moderator functions, other than to point out the rules, which anyone is free to do, short of threatening enforcement. We try to have a Mod who isn't involved be the arbiter if there is even a hint of an interest conflict.

Nothing but threats and personal attacks, no answers, no explanations, no evidence. Is this how knowledge is gained? Really?! It's like the ghost of Kim Jong-Il has come back to haunt us. "Accept my outrageous claims and ask no questions, you unwise tardos!"

So... we're just supposed to accept an idea you won't answer our questions about? How is that "wise"?

You're forgiven. Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: behold, the young woman shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. "Young woman" doesn't equal "virgin", especially if she's conceiving and bearing a son (Hebrew text available here). Micah 5:2 Therefore will He give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth; then the residue of his brethren shall return with the children of Israel. Seems pretty vague to me. "Birthplace" should be more specific than "country". Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto Me because they have thrust him through; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. "Thrust him through" does NOT equal "pierced in the side". The Greek word plvra, or pleura, used only, out of all the Gospels, in John 19:34, describes a lateral stab to the ribs that brings forth water and blood from a single wound, not a double wound as would happen if he were "thrust through". There are many discrepancies with Biblical prophecies. That's why your source goes to great length to mention how astronomically improbable fulfilling all of them is: Did you notice how they slipped in the "modern science" with one hand while the other was waving to distract you from the fact that they just got you to accept their numbers without actually reading any of the scriptures for accuracy? This is a logical fallacy called Begging the Question. Their argument's premise already assumes their conclusions are true.

Here's the full account from Ezekiel 26:7-14 on the Siege of Tyre: So, basically Ezekiel prophesies that Nebuchadnezzar would pound Tyre to rubble, take the city, walk every street, and make sure nobody would ever rebuild it again. In fact, though, Nebuchadnezzar spent 13 years in siege on Tyre and failed to take it, and it stands to this day. Your source's comments about Alexander the Great's subsequent attacks have no bearing. Alexander was NOT Nebuchadnezzar. Interestingly, the "prophet" Isaiah also prophesied the same thing, except Nebuchadnezzar would only make Tyre desolate for 70 years. So, two prophets down with a single false prophecy. From Ezekiel 29: 8-12: Egypt has never been desolate. Egypt has always been inhabited with people and beasts walking through it (since Biblical times, anyway) and so has its neighboring countries, and there was never an Egyptian diaspora. In verses 19-20 from this same chapter, Ezekiel again credits Nebuchadnezzar the Conqueror with taking over Egypt: Egypt was never conquered by Nebuchadnezzar.

This is a great point. Remember that most of the time you hear about people doing <insert any negative behavior here>, it's a function of either heresay or 24/7 media coverage. Back when CNN started and the 24/7 news monster was just a baby, there was a woman named Susan Smith who drowned her two boys and blamed it on a fictitious transient. When it was finally established that she killed her own kids, CNN reported on two other instances where parents had killed their own offspring. Even though the stories were separated by thousands of miles and several months apart, the coverage made it seem like there was an epidemic going on. Just because we hear about all the negative stories doesn't mean the world is full of hypocrites and thieves and murderers. As zapatos points out, any group is going to have its share of all types.

The Medicines Control Agency (MCA) and the Medical Devices Agency (MDA) were merged into the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on 1 April, 2003. It was probably the MCA who approved drugs in 1998, operating as an agency of the Department of Health.

This is a classic example of where someone didn't respond to reason, or even reasonable requests, so we resorted to ridicule to get the point across. No one ridiculed the poster, just his idea, even though he made personal attacks in half his posts. I think this bunch of tardos is wised-up enough already.

Sorry, it's hard to read your post since it's raining here, and the inverted bowl of my world is filling up rapidly, and of course, since I am the center of the universe, the whole world's rain ends up here very quickly. Gotta go, water is up to my <glub> <glub> <gorble>

None of this answers the questions you were asked. It's not an accepted, peer-reviewed hypothesis, and we put all such ideas in Speculations until they prove otherwise. It's not disrespectful, it's just policy. What's disrespectful is to not answer direct questions. We've been outside the range of what you call the glass ceiling, and the earth doesn't appear inverted, it appears spherical. How do you explain this?

! Moderator Note Please give citation or links when you copy/paste from other sources. Otherwise it looks like plagiarism, which is against our rules. Do you have multiple people using your account? You seem to vary your font size (and your ability to spell "know") more than a single user usually does. Use of your account by more than one person is also against the rules you agreed to when you joined.

But he WAS the bad guy. He joined, he was supposed to read and abide by the rules, and he didn't, right out of the gate. Trying to be diplomatic with someone as aggressive as that is like trying to stop a steamroller with a gentle slap. If there is any hope of getting them to change, the aggression needs to be met with a high degree of disapproval. Often it's difficult to determine if someone is truly functionally disadvantaged or just being a complete asshole. If you join and immediately start in with dysfunctional behavior, who can judge whether that was your intent all along, or maybe you're off your meds or you were just having a bad day? The key is to express disapproval in a proportionate way, not simply meet aggression with aggression. If someone insults you personally, you let them know how weak that kind of argument is, you don't insult them back. People often come here with an attitude and get piled on by just about everybody. The ones who care about staying get the message when THAT many people call them out on their behavior. If the behavior is modified, people lighten up and start responding with respect. I've seen it happen a thousand times here. If someone acts like a jerk in one thread and acts responsibly in another, you'll see the same people responding to both threads with appropriate and proportionate replies. Well, good. We're all here to learn, and I'm glad it seems to be working. Except that Phi guy tells too many bad yolks....

Yeah, "the media" said "science" did this. Funny, I can't find anything on this major breaking story. Usually, "the internet" tells me everything.

It's more about, "Hey, I work harder than Bob does, I should get more! And Nancy just answers phones all day, I should get twice the stuff she gets!" Or maybe I decide that I should only work as hard as Bob does, or get myself transferred to the phone-answering department. I get the same stuff if I do, right? There's the rub. Who decides? And do those who decide get more than me? Frikkin' Bob has a speedboat, why can't I get one? Are we not making speedboats any more? See, I'd be OK with a car and a laptop that did what I wanted them to do and nothing more. I like the efficiency of making making every product the absolute best it can be and averaging the cost by making a bajillion of them. But many people wouldn't be satisfied with the same stuff everyone else has. I said I'm not picky, not that I'm stupid. If frikkin' Bob gets a speedboat, you better not screw me over! We're all equal now, or so you say. I WANT MY SPEEDBOAT!!! Obviously, but what if I want the toaster with the twelve different darkness settings instead of the standard eight? And does it come in red, as well as chrome and taupe? I actually think there would come a point where people realized that having all the stuff you want isn't necessarily the great thing we think it is. Lots of unforeseen obstacles. While I can applaud the efficiency of having a great deal of standardization (oh, the money we could save!), the current free market system ensures that most of what people can afford is available to them, in whatever flavor, color or quality they desire. On the other hand, maybe that's what we really need to outgrow, our need for a variety of "stuff". But if the money spent in medicine goes towards cures, not symptom-suppressors, that at least would be a huge savings. As long as the new problems that crop up are approached with the same goal, what's wrong with that? On my island. Which is by invitation only. Of course, you're all invited.

You always run into motivation problems. How much work do you have to do in order to get x number of y products delivered to you? I want a speedboat and a new car and a really good laptop, all the best made quality. Plus I want all the other stuff I buy normally. How much work at what job will get me that? Who decides? Do they get more than I do? In theory, if EVERYONE did a productive amount of work, say six hours per day, four days per week, at a job where you were providing goods or services that helped society or managed the distribution of those supplies and services, this type of system might work. There would probably need to be some kind of standardization (since everything isn't "sold" anymore, there wouldn't need to be hundreds of different designs for many products) so we could mass-produce all the new stuff for folks. I'm not a super-picky person though; to me, if a product does what it's supposed to do, does it well and lasts a long time without a lot of maintenance, I don't much care what other bells and whistles it has, or how good it looks. I know there will be some who disagree with this and would always call for more variety. There would be a tremendous amount of desire for everything to begin with, since so many have lived without so much for so long. I think you would probably get some kind of Communistic problems that would threaten the collapse of the system. Eventually, you'd probably end up with a Tragedy of the Commons scenario, where people would misuse this ability to get whatever limited resource product or service that's offered. The idea that others are getting more for less will almost always make its way into our psyche and ruin things for all.

So making them tax-exempt is merely to placate them, to keep them from plotting the overthrow of the government? I think money they take in that goes towards charity and upkeep costs should remain tax exempt, to keep separation of church and state. Funds that are used to expand/improve the ministries and pay salaries should be taxed.