Phi for All

It came off as a flaming attack that invited a retaliation (which it did). Glad to know it wasn't intended as derision. See, this is where it comes off as derisive and insulting. It's presumptuous and personal for you to claim that someone wasn't thinking when they posted. You can attack the stance but this comes off as attacking the person. Perhaps because Cheney's future is tied to a prolonged military presence in the Middle East? Cheney was pretty partisan a year ago when he warned that Obama's policies were raising "the risk to the American people of another attack."

The heat here is fine *without* the open flame.

Agreed. OK, I get you. And it makes sense but this is why FOX is so dangerous, imo. FOX cherry-picks with a corporate conservative agenda, one that let's them scream about unions while promoting deregulation, and rant about big government while approving multi-war mock security at the trillion dollar level. Agreed. I'm sure you're not the only one. I'm not happy with the bill either, but for a very different reason than you. I think the government is the best place for my healthcare dollars to stay until my doctor needs access to them. I don't mind insurance for my car or home because they have fixed values, but the health of a nation is an intangible that needs as much of our money as possible without insurance companies vulturing away strips of it for profit and then denying us the coverage we were banking on.

The Bear's Key, this kind of veiled personal attack on another member's intelligence is completely unnecessary here.

I don't mind the slant so much as the outright misrepresentation and the conflict of interest when a "news organization" helps stage such protests in order to further misrepresent the intent and outcomes. The intent should be less commercial, less corporate; it's simply Americans exercising their right to dissent, but with FOX behind it, it becomes something less... healthy. My reference was to your comment about real life experiences, not what they think Obama *might* do. Why weren't they protesting Bush II taxes if their taxes now are relatively the same? Why weren't they protesting when Bush II pushed for the bailouts? Why didn't they protest the use of the word "czar" when Reagan first appointed one, or when Bush I appointed more of them?

I certainly don't fault them for standing up to be counted. Heaven knows we need more people to do that so the lobbyists don't have a monopoly on the politician's time. But if their cause truly is formed by real life experiences, why do they think Obama is taxing them more than Bush did? They can't truly be comparing their pay stubs from 2008 with their pay stubs from 2010 (unless these are really wealthy rurals and suburbanites). Why are they attributing to Obama the things that were passed under Bush? This is clearly an example of being misinformed, and it seems that a big part of the misinformation comes from watching only FOX News, where stupid ideas and sound bytes seem smarter when they come at you really fast with no one to correct the mistakes. They get ObamaSlam 24/7 and just don't bother with those messy facts from any other source.

Moralman, we don't allow new members to take us offsite since it so closely resembles all the spam attempts we get on a daily basis. I'm sure the other members can recommend books on energy that will fill your needs without advertising for someone else.

I wanted to say welcome to all the new members we've gotten in the last few weeks. There have been quite a few but we haven't heard much from you. Most of you have introduced yourself, and I'd like to make sure all is clear about responding to existing threads and starting new ones of your own. How's it going? Are you finding interesting things to discuss? Do you prefer amphibians to reptiles? Talk to me.

I guess I was right to read *something* into it (classic iNow, btw, the pat on the head to demean me and my comment - well done, O King of the Brush-Off). What I didn't like was you commenting on Pangloss' "dismissals" while you get to call his stance "nonsense", after calling him a hypocrite after his first post. Lest we forget. But that's what the Bandwagon fallacy is, suggesting that because your opponent doesn't share a view that you and others hold he is wrong because of not being with you. You're stooping to more of your classic tactics by doing anything to win an argument. Politics here at SFN is not about browbeating, condescension and ridicule. As much as these arguments obviously mean to you, it's still important that you discuss the issues rationally and fairly, without resorting to derisive, demeaning and debasing tactics. It's really contradictory to condemn Pangloss as a hypocrite while doing your Karl Rove impersonation, iNow.

It seems like once they've made it all the way to the capital, even if they learn they're wrong they can't just go back home, so they'll still argue that, "it's just wrong". This is a classic example of how education should be the first line of defense in any war. Can Obama appoint an Ignorance Czar?

Would this require overturning Public Law 83-396 (the amendment to section 7 of Public Law 77-623), or would it require another public law since it's been ruled constitutional? Again, I think if you were trying to pass PL 83-396 today, it would put the whole thing in a better perspective.

You say this like he's trying to shout you down. He's not. He's talking about the rationality of bandwagon arguments and you want him to "join the chorus"?! You are almost at a professional level when it comes to personal attacks and soapboxing, so subtle they've become. Imo, these attacks cast shame on the bulk of your remarkable posting history.

I disagree. We don't have civilization for food alone. It would be an interesting condition for the #3 scenario if one plant was sufficient for 1 person and took up as much space as 1 person. What do you think, jryan? Since the plant has "all the dietary needs of humans.. some which we don't even know about yet", can we assume that there will be a general increase in health in the overall population who decides to switch over from traditional foods? Will this increase mean a proportional increase in longevity? Could the needs we don't know about yet slow down the aging process, which is the biggest problem with longer lifespans now?

Moderator Note: Moved from the Introduce Yourself thread. I think you need to be a bit more thick-skinned when it comes to having your ideas critiqued. When someone asks you for the math to support an idea, they aren't ridiculing you, they're just asking for math. It may not be your strong point but having even a basic mathematical model of your concept goes a long way to proving your point. Math is the language of physics, and while you can work around it for a while, eventually people are going to ask for it.

I'm going to use #1 to tell everybody that I'm not hungry for #3 anymore since time travel with #2 gives me a headache.

There are those who would argue that a discovery that would have such a negative impact on so many businesses (farming, restaurants, supermarkets, healthcare, etc) should be introduced gradually, but I think that would only dilute the positive impact and ultimately result in a more long term negative effect. Rip the bandage off quickly, I say.

But nobody says, "happy as two clams". Does this make happiness binary? Or is it bivalvinary?

I agree, #3 has immediate applications, and without #3 the others aren't as valuable currently. And I could tell scientists that #1 & 2 are within our capabilities, and I will feed them for free with #3 while they figure out #1 & 2. An interesting side question: What impact on our current socioeconomic structure would #3 have? Many people would opt to eat nothing but the new Artificial Nourisher but many would argue for variety and the pleasure of other foods. Even when the obvious effects of eating an optimum food become apparent, there will still be those who want variety.

I think you are mistaking this belief in God because it seemed to "switch on" for you. I think you'll find that most people grow in their faith, whether it's in God or in their religion. Many people have experiences which affirm their faith in God, and over time these experiences make their faith stronger. Can you really say your faith wouldn't grow stronger if you saw something miraculous, something you couldn't explain logically and therefore ascribed to God? I don't think faith in God is any different than the faith one can have for their religion. It's not a switch, not a binary system that flips on or off; if it were that easy, I don't think it would have as much meaning or power. We hear many quantitative words surrounding faith: deep, strong, abiding. When someone talks about having the faith to put their lives in God's hands, it's rarely done wholeheartedly all at once. People tend to trust more and more in their faith, and their faith grows as they do, it grows as they grow as a person. I think you're wrong on this one, jryan, and I think you've been nitpicking around it for the last couple of pages now. I don't have to be right on this, and I'm not trying to tie faith with extremist acts or fundamentalism, I was just making the observation that faith tends toward the extreme end of a scale, that more is always better for the faithful. Whether or not that's a good thing is dependent on the circumstances.

ROFL. Focus, people, this is why the virgins go for the hunky carpenter types instead of the scholars.

Well I didn't bring up the "percentage" angle, I just claimed that faith, even faith in God, is quantitative and is capable of increases and decreases. So, hey, Severian and anyone else listening, are there degrees of faith in God like there is in your faith in religion? And how did you arrive at that conclusion?

Is this for homework? Can you show us what you've got so far?

This is why it seems to me that faith is quantifiable, and that the extreme end of the scale is the most desirable, what a religion would hope for as the default for its practitioners.

Do you aspire to have more faith? Is more faith better with regards to your religion?

I still can't think of any situation where your distinction holds true. Children obviously assume God is real if their parents talk about Him that way, but anyone past the age of reason who questions God's existence and later comes back to a firm belief has not simply flipped a switch; they have questioned their faith, torn it down and analyzed it, and then built it back up again to the point where it is now usually stronger than before. I can point to several examples of that in my own experience, but I don't know anyone who ever switched it on and off like you describe. If you insist that faith in God is binary, then 100% is, by default, the extreme positive choice.