Phi for All

Hillbilly for mountain is... hill.

How is this newfound inspiration affecting the rest of your life? I'm betting most things in your life are slightly better since you've found this passion for learning. There is a profound difference in the way we navigate life when our feet find a path that excites us.

I feel this is the way it should be with any artform, that it's all about the feelings that are invoked by the work. But then I find out that the performer enjoys things I find abhorrent or inhuman, and that also invokes feelings about their work. When I was a teenager, I loved doing impressions of the actors of the day. I was a Western fan as well, so I would listen to Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Walter Brennan, and Henry Fonda. Wayne was an admitted white supremacist, Jimmy Stewart openly disliked blacks and Asians, and Walter Brennan practically threw a party when Martin Luther King was killed. Fonda though apparently saw a lynching when he was 12, and it left an impression on him. He was one of the few in Hollywood at that time who was actively anti-racist.

I thought I was doing that by ignoring fan information and personal lives and stories that might or might not be crafted and spun. But I can't separate the artist from their art the way I thought. It makes a difference if the guy I used to find witty and entertaining is a blistering racist in real life, actor or not. There are actors out there who are really good people as well, and I can support them, still be entertained, and feel like I've made a better choice.

Not at all the way I thought those boats worked. How fascinating!

I think it's a strawhorse. Attacking one of the dead founders of evolutionary theory is MUCH easier than attacking the current theory. Attack Darwin, then keep calling the theory "Darwinism" to give it a sour taste. Sort of like what was done to attack Obamacare. Attacks on science in general NEED ignorance and misunderstanding in order to be successful. It's part of what hides the religious agenda, so people think they aren't promoting religion. It's misconstrued, because ID proponents are professional misconstruction workers.

Or, OR, you started out misrepresenting the case as about abuse instead of defamation, and instead of switching to those points while continuing to explain your position, you started lashing out about pre-established views. I tried to tell you that you had several good points to make, but you were attacking those you thought were arguing against you, when they really seemed to want clarification and support. I'm fairly convinced that Depp was a victim of physical and mental abuse by Heard, but I'm also a big fan of his, and not at all hers. Long before all this tabloid crap, I'd made up my mind about her supposed talent as an actress, so I felt like I had a heavy bias against her when the case came out. I know how I FEEL about her as a person, but that's based on her acting, and I know that's wrong. I didn't follow the case super closely, and I wanted actual evidence to support the way I feel about her. You seemed to feel the same way about Depp as I do, so for my part I was hoping you would bring something more concrete about Depp being victimized. I've been waiving my hands about this just fine on my own, so I'm sorry if I was trying to hold you to higher standards than I set for myself.

You don't have to believe me, but moderators don't delete anything, and it's a long-time policy. We do hide posts sometimes while discussing behind the scenes what to do with them, but we generally either move them to an appropriate section/thread or we put them in the Trash, but they should be visible somewhere. I don't know about Admins, but Mods can't read a private message unless they're included in it by the author. I do get a readout that shows how many posts, registrations, polls, and private messages a member has, but it doesn't even show who the message is to, much less what it says. I definitely think there is a bias in science towards liberal examination of evidence. Everything about the methodology tells us that objectivity functions best without preconceived notions, and that we should simply follow where the evidence leads. Conservatism urges us not to question tradition, to fight change and innovation, and that often seems antithetical to scientific study. Science is always supposed to be the best CURRENT explanation, which can change if the evidence changes. The members often nitpick that fine line between known science and hidebound resistance to change.

Patterns are everywhere, and I think it's a mistake to conflate something mechanical (and fairly straightforward) with human behavior or biology. A water bottle may only have 3 states wrt being open but humans have a spectrum of feelings about being thirsty. What does your concept do or help explain?

My brushes have never been that wide. I acknowledge my conservative leanings when it comes to several areas, as well as my liberal leanings in others. Wrt guns in the US, I'm a gun owner who would happily participate in a national buyback program with the aim of removing all the guns. I'd also support Japanese style background checks done by the police for anyone who claims to need a gun. I think that's extremely liberal (for the US). I'd pay for all the extra police work by moving their funding around and instituting passive radar checks and automatic ticketing for running red lights, which actually enforce the law on vehicles and don't care what color/gender/other privilege flavor you are. I think that's extremely conservative, but I'm not interested in being exempted from punishment just because I'm normally a lawful driver.

I agree that capitalism has a big part to play, but I do think modern conservatism is also to blame. People who identify as all conservative tend to want a system that separates the deserving from the non-deserving. They want laws that supposedly apply to all, but are only enforced on the non-deserving. They want benefits that the non-deserving don't get. They want their guns and the ways they use them to be protected while the non-deserving have their guns taken away and are thrown in jail. I think right-wing beliefs are definitely part of the problem.

The one about AH abusing JD. I think evidence was asked for to determine what kind of abuse you were talking about, but instead you went with the Argument from Incredulity again, in essence arguing that you can't believe we've made up our minds to ignore the abuse she put him through. You're Begging the Question also, so you're raising all sorts of red flag pushback. Oddly, I think there are plenty of members who would love to acknowledge that you have a point, and that abuse of men is a problem that needs to be addressed, but they want to make sure the reasoning is sound, and that any conclusions were arrived at with little to no jumping.

No paint was needed. You were browbeating responders who were asking you to support your statements. They weren't outrageous statements, and I thought you should have done more to address those posts rather than complain about them. It's a science discussion site discussing a court trial, so words are extremely important, and the evidence doubly so. It shouldn't be a surprise that you get pushback from jumbled references to "abuse" and "hitting" and "physical" and "psychological".

This article seems to suggest that all blood adapts in some ways to higher altitudes, even after just a couple of weeks: https://www.science.org/content/article/two-weeks-mountains-can-change-your-blood-months#:~:text=The most recent finding%3A Even,after descending to lower elevations.

Do you know if this is strictly an adaptation of the blood itself, or does it also include changes in physiology, like bigger arteries and lungs?

Something similar happened in my city, in an area I frequent regularly. Someone with a beef shot a policeman, then a "hero" pulled out his own gun and shot that guy, then a responding police officer shows up and shoots the guy with the gun standing over two dead people.

What kind of charity are you talking about? Do you want us to say, hey, good for you for having an idea, don't worry about the parts that aren't supported by science, just keep having those great thoughts! Is that the charity you want? A publisher needs to profit somewhere, so you either have to write something that people will pay the publisher for, or you have to pay the publisher yourself. The best way to get support from a publisher of scientific publications is to write some good science. They love that. Iirc, you don't support your ideas very well. Any science publisher is going to want to see the evidence we've been asking you for. What would you tell them?

Which still leaves you with functioning putters, drivers, and wedges, which is all you really need. Even more ominous is the fact that far more in-home firearms are used to threaten people who live there than are used in defending the home. Those who think they'd never do that are supporting those who do it on a regular basis.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf From 2007-2011, people defended themselves with a gun in nearly .9% of crimes. This shows that you only have a slight chance to do something right with your gun, as opposed to the astronomically increased chances of doing something wrong. How do you justify the heavy risks of constant carry for the benefit of having a gun in the rare instance you might need it?

You're spreading false information about the price of gas in CA, and I think it's to cover up getting caught spreading false information about Kissinger being banned from Ukraine. Do you get paid extra for lying to educated people? Did you volunteer to scam a science discussion site, or are you being punished?

In that scenario, the Earth is gone, so of course we don't exist. If this is your argument, it's circular and meaningless. You waste time with this scenario that makes sense only to you, because you made it up using a limited understanding of science. You need to learn more before you use your imagination, otherwise you're just increasing your own ignorance. Try to squeeze good information into those gaps in your knowledge, and then you have the tools to use a good thought experiment.

Support this statement before making any others. You need to engage in discussion for this thread to stay open. What makes you think it's false to state that we exist because we observe it?

! Moderator Note This is clearly NOT the other similar thread, and it would really be appreciated if you'd respect that. Please don't start repeating those arguments here, they've been heard.

Maybe in a different thread you can show us why any scientist anywhere would ever be a better scientist after having read the Bible. Back to the topic, do you think this focus on overturning abortion rights has anything to do with the hundreds of thousands more Republicans that died from COVID-19? Is this a long-term attempt to replenish their numbers? Control the births, then educate the ones you want and jail the rest?

The Bible is a great place for picking cherries, whether you feel like turning the other cheek or plucking someone's eye out.