Phi for All

Got it, I thought you were talking about the difference between signing out and closing the tab/browser. If this could be a choice, that would be best. Sometimes I'm logged on but just checking for activity and reports, so I'd get signed out several times a day if the system looked at me every two hours. Definitely an admin level request. Those folks are amazing. Cook an egg in the shell just by standing next to it, they're so brilliant.

I thought that was only a problem when using public computers, where someone could come along after you and backtrack through your history and obtain logins from unterminated sessions. Are there additional risks?

There are many societies today that don't consume alcohol. And it's easy to reject statements that claim something will "always be a necessity". But you really think drinking alcohol is as much a part of our societies as eating?! I guess I'm not fit to eat with you.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20083-6 This article is a couple of years old, but it seems like a good place to start. Their database is here: https://zenodo.org/record/4107058#.YnK1rtrMJPY

Gun violence in the US is directly tied to poor education in that area. We're not even allowed to spend taxpayer funds on studies of gun violence in the US. Our leadership refuses to turn the light on, so how can we see what's wrong? If we had a healthcare system that supported early mental and physical health standards, and educated kids about the dangers we consider inherent in our society, I think many of our problems would disappear.

I've done it all my life. Racist white people often make remarks around me, testing to see if I align with them, testing to see which minorities I blame for my problems. I've always felt comfortable telling them I don't think of any human that way, and they stop, almost as if they know what a shitty stance they've taken.

And sometimes being in the middle makes you take some contorted stances in order to stay balanced on the fence. For drugs, I gave Portugal as an example, and provided a link. The drugs aren't legalized, but if you're caught abusing them you don't go to jail (unless they made you commit a different crime). Instead they spend that money on rehabilitation and education instead of prisons and police. For alcohol, education is again the key. Alcohol destroys so many lives simply because it's use is defended by so many, which leads inevitably to abuse by some. I don't mind you not having a problem with alcohol, but perhaps you could help by voting for better education for future generations. Or are you like so many, and insist there's no harm in young folks kicking up their heels and taking after their parents, drinking as a given because it's the most socially acceptable ("status quo in my country")? How would you feel if I suggested a course in school your grandkids could take that would explain the history of alcohol in your country and its effects on the body when abused, in an effort to reduce alcohol-related problems in their future?

An amalgam of what works around the world. In the US, start with a national healthcare insurance, heavily regulate the role of private companies involved to keep the focus on care and not profits, and make sure people are educated about their mental and physical health from a young age, helping them understand the consequences being in an altered chemical state can have on them.

No whataboutisms, red herrings, or strawmen, please. I really don't like this stance, with a foot on either side of a line. Education is great for alcohol, but you want to simply ban other mood alterers instead of using what you agree would work with alcohol?! Well I didn't, but you just did. Please stop.

So it's OK because it's a necessity, pleasurable, and we've been doing it a long time? https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-021-00394-7 Just making them illegal hasn't worked, same as with alcohol. Focusing on treating the addictions seems to bring better results.

Certainly, but not in the context of assuming that god(s) are required to adhere to my ideals or agree with my point of view. You understood what swansont meant when he referred to hubris, right?

Your ideal kind of life has no concept of pain and suffering? How would that work? The way life is now, we understand that pain and suffering are part of living, and because we know the concept, we know we should strive to lessen their effects on ourselves and those around us. We're still not great at it, but we've been getting steadily better at many parts of our societies.

A common perspective wrt god(s) is that they're like the ultimate parent, while we're mere infants. What children think is "good for living" is often at odds with their parents, because the parents have more knowledge and experience, and the kids don't always understand. Mother/Father knows best, right? Does your god have a problem because it doesn't want you to eat candy for breakfast? Did your god make a mistake by not doing your homework for you? Is the world imperfect because god says you shouldn't run with sharp scissors? I don't believe in god(s) the way you do, so the objections I have to your idea are with your reasoning. You assign a time frame in which your god must accomplish something you recognize as godly progress, list the things you don't like and assume your god made a mistake, and then acknowledge that your god gave you reason for a purpose. Most theists I know assume their god is perfect, and we're supposed to use the reason it gave us to figure out its purpose, which is mysterious but ultimately the exact thing mankind needs. And if we experience pain and suffering along the way, it's to make us stronger or teach us lessons or encourage us to make things better. That last sentence doesn't need any god(s), btw.

Historically, it hasn't been effective to ban perception-altering substances. It makes people want them even more, it seems. And most people who use alcohol and drugs aren't addicted. Iirc, in the US alcohol addiction disorders affect about 1 in 12 for men, and 1 in 25 for women. Most people can use these substances without being a threat to their society, so perhaps addiction should be the focus rather than the substances themselves? Prohibition in the US would seem to suggest this, since the booze still flowed but made drinking even more dangerous by creating a black market for it. My latest solution for everything is early and regular childhood mental health checks paid for by universal healthcare programs.

What if you aren't getting the point of your god? You assume your god is mistaken or has a problem, but what if you simply don't understand the point this god is trying to make?

https://acrm.org/rehabilitation-medicine/how-the-brain-is-affected-by-art/#:~:text=There is increasing evidence in,also occur by experiencing art. I think we look at the world in ways limited by our own imaginations, and art is an attempt by the artist to show you a part of life in a way you haven't perceived it before.

OK, you sit here. But this looks more comfortable, and it evokes a lot of emotion as well. For me, art is in the imaginative details. It's not a universal thing, no single piece of artwork is going to be perceived the same way by all. Art grips the individual and attempts to point out a perspective, and we can appreciate that or not.

MrOrlock has been banned as a sockpuppet of Lucious, Aethelwulf, graviphoton, TrappedLight, Tom Vose, Tsadi, Dubbelosix and probably others. They should all take an algebra class.

! Moderator Note When you're banned from here, you don't get to keep re-joining with different versions of your garbage under different usernames. It might be different if you listened to feedback, but you don't, so you waste the time of everyone who takes the time to help. Please stay away.

I think you assume too much. Why is 4B years too much time? Why assume your creator didn't get it right the first time? Why assume it's all about making first and then correcting mistakes? If you really believe in an all-powerful god(s), why wouldn't you assume you just don't understand what they really want from the universe? Why are you assuming this god behaves the way you think it should?

Unusual has nothing to do with it. Evolution would be selecting traits that make a person successful enough to mate, so the assumption is that perception that extends beyond the accepted senses would do so. It could be argued that certain sensitivities might not make one more attractive, but in general I'd say being able to do things most people can't is a net benefit.

Grinding metal against stone is very hard on the metal. The stone scratches and gouges the steel, tearing parts of it away and leaving it thinner and weighing less. But if it's done just right, you're left with a knife blade that can be used to cut with skillful precision, a useful tool that you an accomplish things with. The grinder is a hard life for the metal, but it's just what the knife needs. I see no evidence of god(s), but even I can see why one wouldn't make everything perfect to begin with.

Evolution, mostly. Such an ability would have spread in the population over time, at least to an extent where it would have a testable effect. Same thing for sensitivity to specters and ghosts, or other paranormal/supernatural abilities. If they make you more successful at living until you procreate, eventually we'd be able to measure it.

Exactly. So I'm prone to assuming there's a natural explanation for spooky experiences. I've always thought it would be awesome to discover that some things folks consider supernatural (ESP, telekinesis, precognition, etc) turn out to have a scientific basis, but I find myself the most skeptical when someone claims to have evidence of such. I'm the same way with aliens from another planet; I know there could be other intelligent creatures in our galaxy, but I reject most of what makes some folks think we're being visited currently.

I've told this here before, but I had an experience when I was about 8-10 years old. I'd gone to bed, and woke up when I heard something tapping. My window was open, and my brain identified the sound as a woman in heels walking up to our front door. I waited for the footsteps to stop and the doorbell to ring, but they just kept clicking, as if she was pacing beneath my window. I got out of bed and pulled the curtain back to look down and it stopped, and there was nobody there. I went back to bed, and a few minutes later it started up again. Lather, rinse, repeat a few times, exactly the same way. I couldn't figure it out. Eventually I gave up on the idea of it being someone outside, and I think that made me listen more closely. I saw that the wind from my open window was moving the curtains, which made the plastic curtain pull knock against the wall. When I pulled the curtains aside to look down, it moved the plastic pull away from the wall and stopped the clicking. I do remember how convinced I was at the time that the sound was a woman walking in heels on a concrete sidewalk, but when I figured out what it really was, it didn't sound anywhere close. It sounded exactly like a curtain pull clicking against the wall.