Phi for All

You keep bringing up Darwin's work. While he was a pioneer in evolutionary theory, I notice you don't bother to quote the incredibly vast body of work that's helped refine the theory since his death almost 130 years ago. Your every question has been answered here, yet you still say "science is wrong". It's clear you aren't actually listening to any of what's been said, and you certainly aren't reading what's been recommended. Don't worry though. Science will continue to be rigorous, even if you can't be bothered to.

"Right" and "nice" are too subjective to be used as meaningful qualifiers.

! Moderator Note Thread moved from Science News to Speculations due to its speculative nature.

A range of options is almost always best for almost everything.

! Moderator Note Thread moved to The Lounge from Science News

I still can't get anyone to adequately explain why we still subsidize sugar. I understand why it used to be necessary, but why do we still do it? And why, even with the subsidies, does US sugar cost twice as much as the sugar from other countries? This is why cheaper high-fructose corn syrup is being used in so many products, adding to the obesity problem.

Personally, I think our democracy has been anesthetized. We have so little time to educate ourselves on important issues so we listen to crafted words that fit what we want to hear. Is this being done by the wealthy and the mega-corporations? I think so. Is it a coordinated attack? Perhaps, but I'm not as sure. It seems crazy that anyone would want our children's education budgets to be cut while keeping subsidies for well-established industries like sugar and oil. But if I were CEO of a big multi-national with an eye towards privatizing all education, I'd make sure public education looked pretty bad so people would see my company as the solution. And you watch; they're claiming teachers make too much now, but just wait until it's all privatized, then we'll pay even more and everything will have great justification. I got an email recently quoting how much teachers in Wisconsin make. The author made sure to use the word "compensation" and not "salary", but I think most people who read the email will think of the numbers, which includes salary, benefits and everything, as what the WI teachers "make". This type of spin is used all the time and many don't realize it. The other part of this issue that really bugs me is how most people think we're so divided as a country. When someone mentions defense spending, conservatives say, "We need the military to defend our borders against invasion", while the liberals say, "We shouldn't just give the military a blank check to spend on whatever they want." The pundits and partisans would have us believe we're completely at odds, arguing over a fence, but the vast majority of people I've talked to agree with both those sentiments. Same thing with welfare. One side says, "I don't mind my taxes helping a widow with three kids so they're not starving and homeless", and the other says, "I don't want my taxes paying for a healthy person to sit on their butt drinking beer and watching TV all day." This is all common ground but it gets trampled over and I think it's being spun this way on purpose. I know the power of marketing and advertising. Add in politics and spin, throw in heaps of money and the average person stands no chance in ever figuring out what's really going on. I believe in a market economy but I think our government should provide more checks and balances for citizens and less unbalanced advantage for big business. For me, it's not about wealth and it's distribution. For me, it's about modern society and what our pooled resources can do for us, without fear of being manipulated for profit. There are certain things that I feel we owe ourselves because of our intelligence, our prosperity and our compassion. Our civilization deserves to be more civil.

Your early loves are practice for your later ones, but the first ones can be the roughest. When you graduate and she's no longer in a position of trust, you can tell her how you feel and see what she says. Until then, you must love unrequited.

More information, please. What's your relationship now, is she a neighbor, your teacher, a friend of your sister, what? Do you think you can't be with her because of your age difference or is there another reason? My first reaction is to tell her how you feel, but that might be inappropriate, depending on your current relationship.

If nothing dies and every species population grows unchecked, eventually there will be no room for the extra farming you'll need for fruits and vegetables. Speaking of which, since your veg doesn't grow in every climate, doesn't that mean that the added populations will have to be moved where it's cold and harsh so we can make the most of the temperate growing climates? Where's your happy people now? They're pushing the polar bears off the ice, that's where. And they can now because you've mind-zapped the polar bears into a non-aggressive state. Again, I think you're trying to push fantasy onto reality, and you want us to believe it'll all be happy happy. Do the math, think ahead. What you're suggesting may sound good but you're dreaming with no basis in reality. It won't work without outrageous amounts of change, something that usually doesn't work out well for those living presently. Talk to us about how you would accomplish something like this. That would be more interesting.

Don't confuse behavior with physiology. Carnivores don't have the right teeth for eating fruits and vegetables, for one. I don't think you're thinking this through completely. Truly right?! You somehow know what is truly right about life, the universe and everything?!? I think you are applying a simple concept, that all life must be protected from what you would call unnatural death, and you're applying it to a very, very, very complex system that has evolved over billions of years. I don't know why you think your ideas would make the world better. It's scary to me that you think eating animals bred for that purpose is evil, while stating that mind-control to force entire species to change their evolutionary paths is perfectly OK. I think the Crazy snuck up and got you.

In my opinion, this is silly. You are now talking about removing the will of predatory animals and forcing them to eat fruits and vegetables?! I don't think farming livestock is murder, but getting "every animal to become vegans" is nothing short of evil. If you love animals, how could you force them to adopt such unnatural ways? Of course, if you used electricity for shock therapy, you might be able to convince a lion he should eat some lettuce.... This is a Hasty Generalization fallacy. Just because it works for you doesn't mean everyone in the world would flourish on such a diet. Do insects have feelings? What makes something alive? Does it have to have a heart? There are many reasons why we raise animals for food. As long as we don't cause them to suffer unnecessarily, I think it's fine to allow them a shot at a life you would deny them with your system. You do realize that there wouldn't be nearly as many animals born if we adopted your way of thinking, don't you?

Civilized societies have great numbers to feed. "Civilized" doesn't mean "compassionate towards animals", it just means we've organized ourselves in a way that lets us live in larger groups, and one of those ways is to raise large amounts of livestock. And "genocide" implies we're trying to destroy them all completely. I guarantee you no one is aiming to destroy all the cows and chickens and fish. What makes us different now is intelligence. Maybe it's intelligent to create a system that feeds over 6.5B people. We have no endangered livestock species that I'm aware of. Where we control the farming, we do pretty well. Whoa, you're going after my electricity too? What if eating animals and using electricity is the only way to figure out how to make alternatives for both? Another guarantee: we won't be able to feed and power our current civilization if we suddenly stop eating meat and using electricity. I'm all for being smart. I know lots of vegetarians who eat fish, but I have never met a vegan that didn't look downright sickly. As with most things, I stay away from the extreme ends and try to find some smart ground in the middle.

And another literal interpretation runs into the inevitable paradox....

That was an extension to his vault; code name: Hallibunker.

It's easy to fool humans with illusions, because your sensory organs are crude and limited to the lowest 3 spatial dimensions. When I move using the 4th dimension, you can't see me, and when I reappear 50 feet away, you think I've done something unexplainable. It's perfectly explainable, it just requires tremendous energy. I'd show you now but the drain on me makes the nearby stars twinkle and flicker, and the planet gets a little warmer each time.

There was an awful lot of scrutiny when DIA started going over budget. It would have been really tough to hide a lot of extra deep digging. The tunnels that exist are for a baggage system that never worked the way it was promised. I think they ended up with 3 independent systems when they wanted one big one. There was a conspiracy though, but it involved the land the airport sits on. Stapleton, our old airport, had only one way to grow, and that was onto a Superfund site at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, which meant it couldn't go there. We needed a bigger airport someday and some shrewd (wink wink) businesspeople decided to buy a bunch of land and upsell it around to each other for a while before selling it to the city for Denver International Airport. The rest all has reasonable explanations. The strange words on the floor are Navajo; I'm not sure what they say, but they go with some other Navajo art that was commissioned. The Freemason symbol on the capstone? The Freemasons put it there, because they helped with the capstone. The New World Airport Commission was a marketing group that was organized to help celebrate the opening, no big secret why they're no longer in business. Sure, some of the artwork is weird, especially that ugly blue mustang horse, but he wasn't even around at the opening. He was foisted upon us later, and seemed to add to the conspiracy for some reason. But a secret bunker built when the airport was under construction? Man, that would take a lot of hush-up from the construction workers, and the reporters covering the progress, and well, a multitude of others. You just can't get that many people to stay quiet about something that big. Somebody would have taken pictures, or would have reported having their camera taken away. As I said before, the conspiracy lies in the boondoggle that made a lot of landowners and contractors and politicians a lot of money.

A tunnel system may have a better chance than a really deep hole in the land of 10,000 lakes. Rather than digging a tunnel and shoring up as you go, how about digging trenches and then dropping in some of those steel shipping containers and then back-filling the dirt on top of them? 8' x 8' x 20' each, and they can be welded together with cutouts for doors on any side (as long as you don't cut into the outer load-bearing supports). Some architects are even using these containers for modular homes, with finished walls and tiled floors. Wiring for your ventilation and lighting goes behind the walls, as well as any plumbing necessary.

Schools. All over the world, built with local labor and materials. I'd work with universities on a special program to educate teachers who could be placed back into their own rural areas. The goal would be an end to ignorance. Everyone with access to basic learning. I don't want a lavish lifestyle. I also don't want to trust fund my descendants. And unfortunately, $100B is enough to where it needs to be managed by a group of people who know what they're doing. Keeping tabs on that group would be a full-time job in itself.

! Moderator Note Thread core has been breached causing a fatal drop in interest level. Containment required or the core will be shut down.

No, I merely missed where your supporting information, even in the new thread, does a credible job of supporting your argument. And I think most people who frequent this forum know how shaky your arguments are from the condescending tone you take to make it seem more valid. It's a common crutch that many lean on in times of shaky footing. You have that snooty, "Appeal to Ridicule" tone in your posts that suggests Your Eminence may not, in fact, be wearing any clothes at all.

This is what the human mind does, it recognizes patterns, and forces them if necessary, so it can categorize their importance. It's a great survival technique, one that helps us classify things based on a quick glance. You can't trust the trees to be natural, btw. There are ways to force trees to grow the way you want them to. Clouds and rocks? Give me a break. Wait long enough and you can find anything in cloud formations, and rocks and mountains can fit many different patterns from any given angle. No miracle here.

! Moderator Note It is clear, from repeated requests by other posters, that you have not supported your arguments and overestimate your ability to do so in this instance. Do not misinterpret this: you are required to give supporting evidence when it is requested, or drop your line of argument in order to comply with the rules of this forum.

It's not enough to believe your argument is good, that's why science (and this science forum)[/color] requires evidence. That's why you're being asked to provide evidence to back up your argument, and because you can't you're being challenged repeatedly. The evidence for AGW has been presented, and detractors only present a shaky argument for natural cycles, none of which are backed up by a fraction of the evidence that AGW has. You have to do better if you hope to completely dismiss the efforts of so many experts, and speak with such certainty that their methods and results are in question. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that you aren't even coming close to doling it. Simple denial is worthless.