Phi for All

I was going to use the same case! Use of PCBs were outlawed back in the mid 70's, and GE fought the Hudson cleanup for over 25 years before they were forced to do it. They paid fines which were cheaper than tackling the task of doing the right thing. I'm sure they're spinning it into an affinity for environmental issues; I would expect no less, it's what I would do as well if I had to pay that much. But you can't honestly believe they would have done anything to clean it up unless the government forced them to. By market rules alone, it would have been cheaper to hire PR firms to make everyone forget that you can't fish in the Hudson because of GE poisons.

Based on number of posts? You could also say that Speculations ranks #3 on the list of sub-forums that requires the most clarifications and corrections. I just wish more people would stop thinking it's a bad thing to be here. Ideas need a place to start, and even the best need to prove themselves. The reason most people get moved here is because they leaped over a few steps in the scientific method. That's when the skeptic alarms go off and everyone goes into hypercritical mode. But that's why the method works. It's baby steps in a minefield to make sure those who come after have firm ground to walk on, ground that has been gone over and is trusted to be "kaboom-free". And just because you arrived at a conclusion "safely" doesn't mean there aren't problems in recreating your path.

I think all we're seeing here is the spike that occurs whenever a new standard is adopted. The market forces will adjust pricing downwards once the investment in the new standard is made. I think we're at a point in our history where we need to start focusing on efficient use of resources, and the market isn't the best way to achieve that at the early stages. Frankly, after privatization of most of the country's utilities under Clinton and Bush caused prices to skyrocket, I'm surprised that anyone would want electric devices that aren't running at peak efficiency. Ethanol was, and still is, a poor choice for subsidization as a biofuel. Other alternatives make more sense. I didn't think self-service gas-pumping had anything to do with the government. Wasn't that just an option offered from the oil companies to reduce price at the pumps? I remember seeing some stations in California 7 years ago offering full-service at a higher price, but I don't know if they still do it. Pollution by industry happens. If spending part of their profits on certain tested methods reduces that pollution, then it follows that not spending it is the same as polluting to "make bigger profits". How are you spinning it any differently?

Anti-gravity isn't really anti-gravity, is it? I mean, if you could manipulate the force of gravity and its effect on objects, it wouldn't be the opposite of gravity, would it?

We tend to do poorly when our number of social relationships exceeds around 150. Perhaps the new social media technology is stretching the limit of our ability to deal with so many people.

Part of the problem is setting up government agencies and then either underfunding them or pulling their teeth when it comes to enforcement. This has been a pull and push between Dems and Reps for a long time. Another part of the problem is poor methodology. The War on Drugs isn't winnable with punitive measures. The fines, even imprisonment, is seen as an acceptable risk for what is gained. The war wages on simply because prisons make money and solve many political problems. The War on Terror isn't winnable through aggression, but it sells a lot of munitions, so on and on it goes. Industry is not really always efficient. They would rather not re-tool to make more efficient products as long as they can keep us buying the old ones. More profit can be had doing things the old way. You see some of these things as restrictions on personal freedom; I see them as clinging to wasteful but familiar ways. Sometimes we need the collective risk pool to keep us moving forward.

I think the planet will be just fine, but my environment concerns me very much. I don't think businesses have my environment uppermost in their minds when they make products, so that's why some regulation is necessary. Holding manufacturers to a higher standard is the perfect job for my federal government. And don't forget that many of the laws the feds pass are lobbied for BY the business groups. This is inefficient. Personal attacks are old technology.

Good one, I'd almost forgotten. My favorite "Don't take away our right to choose!" objection was the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. Health insurance was based on your age at the time you bought it before that. You stayed loyal to an insurer because your premiums stayed low and the actuarial tables made the risk pool profitable. But our "right to choose" led to the current health insurance situation, which is working oh so well for us.

It's the duty of the established technology to make the emerging technology seem dangerous or expensive or inadvisable somehow. And, in the US at least, it's the duty of the incumbent politicians whose hands are deep in the pockets of the established technology's businesses to help that process. GE wouldn't make their bulbs here in any case. They can make $14.2B in profits, $3.2B of which is US federal tax credit, and because of their offshore work force, they don't have to pay a dime in taxes.

Politicians often try to enact legislation which is meaningless or redundant because it makes them look proactive. It's a win-win situation for them because the most they can be accused of is being an alarmist, and they can easily spin that into being prepared. Your "gullibility" is shared by many. It fits into preconceived notions about religion in general having an agenda of conversion and intolerance towards non-believers. And in the case of literalists from any religion, such notions may not be unfounded. The Old and New Testaments and the Koran are full of "laws" which can be horrific if interpreted literally.

I go to the library and take my chances. If the subject is interesting or the jacket blurb intrigues me, I grab it. I grabbed four books the Saturday before last. One was OK, the second is starting to get good and the other two turned out to be crap. I only purchase books from authors I've read and liked before, and then only if I think I'll re-read the book later. I do the same thing with movies. Some movies are great but I don't need to see them more than once. Others I can watch over and over again.

What an awesome adventure! Imagine the secrets to be unlocked. If you had put away $1000 every time you posted here, you'd have enough for this sub now.

I'm not a big fan of talking heads from any compass point. They mostly seem to take views so narrow that they end up preaching to a fixed choir. And with so much news all the time, people end up listening only to those who represent their compound. It's almost impossible to find pure news sources. Agendas are everywhere!

Off-topic, but if your wife, or even an employee of yours, runs off to South Dakota and tries to get an abortion, if HB 1171 passes there, you may be able to get away with defending the unborn child or its mother from imminent lethal danger by killing the doctor. It would be considered a justifiable homicide.

I'd have to say that, at least in the US, you move into shaky ground at #4, depending on how much your careful wording skirts your intention to incite a riot, and into full-blown illegality at #6. And being an infidel, I would hope that my answer matches that of my muslim counterpart. I agree that both sides need to do more to oppose the problem. It takes courage to stand up against a popular trend, especially when your patriotism or faith are challenged at every turn. I have to say that I admire the many African countries that are standing up to their oppressive leadership these days. It shows a lot of courage we should take example from. But when I think about how we in the US let Wall Street throw our economy (indeed the global economy) in the toilet, and rather than demand conviction of the perpetrators we actually helped bail their companies out, I fear we won't soon muster the courage necessary to do what is right with regard to Islamaphobia.

Can you ask your wife what caused her to "scramble"? What part of this episode "scared her"? Did she hear anything, feel anything? Was it something outside the bedroom or inside? When you say you've done research, was that done prior to this experience or was it done this morning?

This does clarify your meaning, thank you. I still question why Islam as a whole should be linked to specific extremist acts, though. Again, if Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church celebrates the death of gay people by attending their funerals and preaching that "God hates fags", I don't even link that sentiment to all Baptists, much less all Christians. Extremists have many different ideologies. When certain extremists happen to be a religious leader, doesn't that just make them a more dangerous, infectious extremist rather than a leader of a dangerous, infectious religion? Pro-Life extremists sometimes shoot doctors who perform abortions. Not all of these belong to a certain religion, or are necessarily religiously motivated. It seems more of a moral decision for them. And while other Pro-Life supporters may tacitly cheer that another abortion doctor has been removed, they themselves wouldn't actively support such violent, extreme actions. This is how I see many muslims being "linked" to terrorism. They may secretly applaud when targets they view as oppressive and detrimental get killed, but actively they wouldn't join in on the violence and openly don't lend any support to the extremists.

Again, saying that, "if the religion and spiritual leaders support violence then I would say Islam and violence are linked whether anyone decides they should commit violence or not" is a misrepresentation of Islam. Not all muslim religious leaders support violence, in fact the vast majority don't. Some Christian leaders preach intolerance of certain lifestyles, but it's a misrepresentation to say that Christianity hates gay people.

It may not seem valid because you have misrepresented the situation. The vast majority of muslims are NOT motivated to commit acts of violence, and only a small fraction of muslims are so motivated. It may be more relevant to say that extreme stances are what characterize terrorism, whether they be religious, political, cultural or economic in nature.

This is really a science discussion forum. If you'd like to discuss parts of your articles, you can put them in the appropriate sub-forums listed on the home page and perhaps start a discussion with some questions or observations. If you're not going to stay to discuss them, then I think you should find a forum more appropriate to publication.

Lately, I've been fascinated with metacognition, thinking about how we think. Humans seem to be a mass of conflicting concepts and what we think about ourselves and others is often at odds with reality. Risking lives is not a good justification for speeding to get someplace 2 minutes faster, but we do it almost every day. We're supposed to "keep our noses to the grindstone" yet "go with the flow". We vote people into office who promise to represent us, but then do nothing to get them out when they don't. In discussing it with others, it's easy to spot the glazed eyes of those who feel uncomfortable with thinking about thinking. There's some more cognitive dissonance: those who really should find many reasons why they shouldn't.

Mathematics is the language of physics. I suggest that part of the problems you have with relativity and special relativity stem from not speaking this language. It's also possible that you're having trouble due to a lack of education in the area. Is it so hard to think you might have had a better grasp of the subject if you'd "[made] it that far in [your] studies" (from your PsychForum thread)? I don't say this to be insulting. I consider myself to be logical also, but there are many things that don't make sense to me but might if I studied them more formally. This kind of rigorous study is usually the difference between theory (speculative idea) and theory (mathematically modeled, thoroughly tested predictive hypothesis that has undergone scrutiny from peers in its field).

Oh, I didn't know that was you. Sorry, you can come over sometime and check it out. I just needed it to prop the door open anyway.

NOT impossible. We think of early civilizations with crude tools and we find it hard to imagine that they could have accomplished some of the engineering feats we would find difficult today. But most people fail to take into account the huge amounts of manpower they were able to bring to bear on these tasks. When you have 30,000 people working on a pyramid, you can knock it out in a couple of decades. By comparison, the cathedral of Notre Dame took a couple of centuries. Why were the pyramids built? There are many ideas with varying degrees of plausibility, but I don't think they were big enough on the inside to protect a lot of people from a solar event. There are better designs for larger numbers than the way it was built.

I shall henceforth be known as L. Phi for Me Alone. Doubters will be shot.