Mr Skeptic

The press twisting stuff to make it sound more newsworthy? Stop the presses!

If gravity had become repulsive, the acceleration of the apple would be upwards, so the curve would be upwards and into orbit. Also the atmosphere would all fly off into space, and you wouldn't end up where you started.

Well, twin studies show a high correlation of homosexuality, suggesting a strong genetic component. http://www.springerlink.com/content/w27453600k586276/ Ideally such a study would use identical twins raised separately, but those are very few in number. I couldn't find one, and it's rather late at night, and I don't even know if such a study has been done.

Like a type of phobia, you mean?

Well, gravity as a force at least won't become repulsive. Suppose you see Newton under a tree and decide to play a joke on him. You throw an apple at his head, and it curves in the parabolic path common to projectiles under gravity. Now reverse time. The apple will fly away from his head backwards along the original path -- still curving downwards. Hence, gravity is still attractive under reverse gravity. However, you do make an interesting point about the black hole and its event horizon. To reverse the trajectory means the object will have to exit the event horizon, which is supposed to be impossible. Maybe black holes aren't symmetrical under time reversal?

I don't think any fundamental force becomes repulsive when inverting time actually. All that changes is the directions and speeds stuff is going. If you have something like an explosion, then that might be a different story, but then that's an entropy thing. I think it was me that asked the silly question, I was thinking of a black hole becoming repulsive when I already knew otherwise but just hadn't thought about it. I'm not even sure I know what inverting time on a black hole would mean, what with it being a 4D thing with time as one of its dimensions.

Well, if you take the mirror image and then cannot rotate/move the piece back to the original position, then it does not have a plane of symmetry. (in chemistry we would call this "chiral"). So then the mirror image will be from the opposite side as the original. You would also be able to map it to your hand. You'll need at least 3 distinct "parts", and you just need to remember which orientation is the right and left. You can map it to your hand (thumb, fingers, and palm point 3 directions) if it will help you remember. Being able to do this means you have to know the bones quite well, which is most likely the whole point of the exercise.

And if we didn't have countless laws the majority of which are summarized as "don't be stupid", then this whole situation wouldn't have happened either.

I don't believe it would be legal. However, it is really doubtful that the US would extradite said person. Perhaps they might even retroactively make them intelligence agents (and pretend they were all along) and say that they were on a secret mission to kill him, if allowing a private citizen to do it would be politically impractical.

Some do, some don't. Some think that once you are saved (by grace not by works, a gift from God so no man can boast) then you cannot be un-saved. In any case, hell does not apply until you die, and not very many people go about thinking that they might die that day, so the fear of hell loses its immediacy. In any case, most of them appreciate believing that God is enforcing these laws, especially on others. Kind of like we like the government enforcing laws, even though we know the government will punish us if we break their laws. Maybe the government is like Stockholm Syndrome?

If there's audio, as there was in this film, it could be illegal under the laws of various states that require consent of both parties being taped. Then again, so would the camera crews from the news companies. I think there may be an exception if it is considered obvious that the recording is happening and its in public. Anyhow, this is the sort of mess you get when extending laws that dealt with private phone calls and then extending them to other audio.

Source?

I've fasted for a week once, just to see what it was like. I think its something everyone should do once or twice. I know people who think they'd starve to death in a day

Well for most people, the right sided bones will be extra thick. Also if the bone doesn't have a plane of symmetry, then there should be a distinction between the right and left one, such that a mirror image of it would look like a bone from the other side.

Doubtful -- religion is more of a worldview. You're not going to get Stockholm Syndrome without having an immediate fear of death, not some mostly vague notion of what might happen years from now. Might be an explanation for certain cults though.

Interesting question. I used to consider cramming for a test to be borderline cheating and also a waste of time. That was in school, and my grades were generally above 95% for each exam. College is a bit harder, and now I take notes and review my notes for about half an hour to one hour immediately before the exam. I still consider it slightly cheating, but it is also a useful skill, to know how to be the best prepared you can for something. In any case, the little extra review will help me remember things ever so slightly. Cramming for more than one hour or two is probably a waste of time though -- too much info to remember, and it also means you didn't study during the school year or don't know how to take note of what is important.

A poor choice... people who believe in determinism have very little motivation. Likewise, people who believe everything is random and unpredictable can't do anything because they feel too helpless. Belief in free will is the best choice.

No. To give an example, suppose there was simple work that could be done as easily by one man or by several, taking the same number of man-hours to do. If the job takes 1000 man-hours, you could have 1000 men working 1 hour, or 1 man working 1000 hours, or 100 men working 100 hours, etc. Now if you went up to infinity, 1 man working infinite hours, could do the same work as infinite men working 1 hour.

I believe morals change. Old folks will decry this as moral decline, modern folks might likewise consider the old ways immoral and/or barbaric (slavery, discrimination based on race, discrimination based on sexual orientation, etc).

I'm reading 1984 by Orwell. It's a very orwellian book, I must admit. Essential reading for us more paranoid types or for those who are not paranoid enough. (incidentially, 1984 is also my birth year).

Ah, I see. And what tribe are you from? Or are you from an illegitimate country that has taken land from others?

I'd go with: Free will is the property of an agent, where their actions are mostly controlled by themselves, and no by any specific circumstances, another agent, or a specific group of agents. Free will is a combination of deterministic and random (or pseudo-random) processes.

I disagree -- being polite is an important part of a cop's job. The cop's job will ruin people's day, and everyone (the public, the "customer", and the cop's boss) will appreciate that the cop at least be polite when doing so. I've seen cops take amazing amounts of verbal abuse without so much as raising their voice, and they also manage to respond politely. I'm pretty sure that this is the norm for cops, and far exceeds the tolerances to rudeness of normal people. Of course, should the case arise it is also their job to take no shit from anyone. Firm but polite, but if need be also violent. As to the second bit, they are also supposed to show a limited amount of tolerance and understanding. Doing otherwise would cause even more disrespect for the law and law enforcement, and in addition cost the government more money in court fees. Hence why they will on occasion give you a warning when by law they could give you a ticket.

Only laws that are enforced are laws. Otherwise they are just suggestions, empty words, moral outrage, etc.

Well it's a good thing that the Israelis aren't collectively punishing the people then. Embargoes and blockades are certainly allowed. If they can't or are not willing to stop attacks against Israel, is it really so surprising that Israel will try to do it for them?