MonDie

I hate you all! God! c48o7gfewo7jd9mwdeuiddjo9mfdugnl ♥

Not the best quality, but I like the spooky intro.

I'm listening to the song "sewn line" at the moment. First time hearing it. Love it.

If I recall correctly this was the first brain-to-brain interface in 2012. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep01319 A Brain-to-Brain Interface for Real-Time Sharing of Sensorimotor Information Discussed here: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/73287-telepathy-closer-to-becoming-reality-after-rats-brains-linked-across-continents/?hl=%2Btelepathy+%2Brats The OP's linked article cites this research. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep10767 Computing Arm Movements with a Monkey Brainet

This may be a bit of a diversion from the topic. I recall how some people blamed Charlie Hebdo for provoking the extremists with their drawings of Muhammad, blaming the cartoonists for the ten or so dead. However I'm unaware of how these jews offended Islam. Now the extremists have conducted an attack merely on the grounds that some people are jewish. This time hundreds are dead, AFAIK the jewish owners weren't even killed, and nobody is going to shun jews because their Judaism provokes muslim extremists. At least the Charlie Hebdo attack had a target. Maybe I have a limited perspective as an American, but if these terrorists want compliance, all I see is that their appetite is insatiable and their victims are anybody. These extremists have sacrificed specificity for quantity. Quantity inspires more fear, but specificity inspires fear in the intended recipients. A purely quantitative approach only works on irrational people motivated by fear, but to any rational person it now stands to reason whether there is any use in complying to such an insatiable and indiscriminate monster. I'm definitely not one of the smarter ones here, but it's my humble opinion that the French need to show the extremists they are the latter: rational.

I don't think there is any single reason for ethical behavior. Here are a few that I could come up with. Ethics is rational. The only ethically devoid conduct might be egoism, acting in one's own interest, but even egoism isn't straightforward because we and our interests are ever changing and the self may be an illusion (see split-brain studies; dissociative identity disorder). If egoistic conduct isn't rational, then perhaps some kind of ethical conduct is. Even if you appeal to inherently good or bad mental states for egoism, you can easily fall prey to utilitarian ethical thinking instead, and one can formulate all sorts of rules of conduct on utilitarian grounds. Ethics is about cooperation. We all agree to behave ethically toward one another, and this makes life easier for each of us. We each abide because we want others to abide as well. Ethicists could be seen as impartial arbitrators who interpret, elaborate, and apply these rules that we've agreed to abide by. Ethics is about persuasion. Although this isn't a reason for being ethical, it may be a reason for keeping ethicists and other philosophers around. Sometimes it's useful to persuade others out of some action, especially highly destructive actions.

Sociopathy might have been an adaption. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3428807/

I posted earlier about lead exposure and violent crime rates -- thank you Overtone -- and how some east Mediterranean societies seem to have been slow to phase it out. http://www.scienceforums.net/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=892702 As a biologist, what do you think about investigating ecological reasons for violence and intolerance? Of course humans are unique in their use of language. Culture, including sacred texts, group identities and rituals, obviously has a mediating role in a lot of violence. Yet all animal behavior is ultimately rooted in physiology and ecology. I was surprised to learn that omega-3 can treat BPD, a disorder associated with antisocial behavior, especially in men. As someone who doesn't think our sacred texts are much more than paper and ink, I think the religion debate is mostly a distraction from real, scientific explanations. I would appreciate your take on this.

I don't think we can criticize until we know how strict their border controls will be. Some degree of control must be reasonable if it could prevent another, even deadlier attack. All I know is that Francois Hollande is challenging the Schengen agreement, and that Schengen mandates open borders between European Union states.

Actually, I'm not seeing in that psychopathy study that they controlled for gender at all, a HUGE issue! The only difference between his slurs and my points is the provision of evidence.

The truth is that atheists score higher on "openness to experience", a big five personality trait that encompasses openness to new ideas, making this entire thread misguided. The real deficit in atheists and agnostics appears to be a primarily autistic-like dimished ability or inclination to empathize with others. Additionally considering that we're less "agreeable" and less "conscientious", we may not make great people persons. We might also be slightly more sociopathic, but the evidence is pretty weak, and sociopaths tend to be charming, "glib", and don't come off as such at all. Men are both more sociopathic and more often atheist.

One might rationally conclude that being irrational can be better. It's hard to see how a false belief could guide behavior better than a true one, but false beliefs can certainly be motivating. However the rational person who concludes on irrationality rationally may never achieve true belief. Take Joe, the true believer who witnessed me perform a miracle, versus Jane, who merely finds it comforting to think my words are divine. Joe and Jane will respond very differently when I tell them they must assassinate the president, because only Joe really believes. Even if she wanted to, how could Jane intentionally achieve true belief like Joe's? Then why do English teachers talk about logical fallacies?

Science!!!

America's Real Criminal Element: Lead | Motherjones http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline Childhood Lead Exposure in the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and Jordan: Results from the Middle Eastern Regional Cooperation Project, 1996-2000http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1480480/ Blood Lead Levels -- United States, 1988-1991 | CDC http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00032080.htm The 3-5 age group in Figure 1 would correspond to the 2-6 age group used for their samples. Their levels in 1998-2000 were higher than US levels in 1988-1991.

Crazy leaders? Which mental illnesses and why, and what ecological factors contribute?Crazy leaders, as vague as it is, is far more scientific than the age-old my book versus your book. Mania, or bipolar type I, is probably a good candidate along with some personality disorders like sociopathy and narcissism. A person experiencing mania is highly expressive, confident, energetic, restless, motivated, and in the extreme, irritable and psychotic. Sociopaths are callous, deceitful, impulsive, fearless, arrogant, and power hungry, and were often physically abused. They assume that people deserve what they get, except themselves, and they tend to favor social inequality.

This. I bet they're overjoyed at the news.

Join the club. John 3:16-21

A block of compressed snot just shot up my nose and out my mouth.

Considering that religion varies more by region than by individual, it's far from a controlled experiment.

He thinks we're mocking him!

More content means more to cherry pick, and more to manipulate with. http://www.mail-archive.com/comp-quran@comp.leeds.ac.uk/msg00223.html Quran ~77,500 words http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/44230/how-many-words-are-there-in-tanach Torah ~80,000 words In my New Oxford Annotated Bible, the Torah is 306 pages, the Hebrew Bible is ~1350 pages, gospels are 230 pages, the NT is 439 pages, and OT+NT is ~1800.

Mulling over these AIs that beat champions in chess or jeopardy, I had a stunning thought. What if somebody created a chatterbot that, borrowing from all the great philosophers, attempted to engage people in philosophical discussion of their ethical beliefs? Even in countries with restricted WWW access, people often subvert these restrictions with third party sites. Could this ethics AI eliminate dogmatism worldwide? Exactly! Most importantly, ethics bot would sympathise with social emotions, but would herself lack any form of group loyalty or bias. Research shows that even sociopaths have morals, albeit limited. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=are+all+forms+of+morality+compromised+in+psychopathy&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwjXlNvo6pDJAhVHl4gKHfdYACo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww-bcf.usc.edu%2F~jessegra%2Fpapers%2FGIGKH.2009.Psychopathy.JPD.pdf&usg=AFQjCNG_xVFLisgatDPwX8TfKtC9r98BXw Even obedience to authority is vulnerable, for one must reason about which authorities are credible.

I don't believe he's honest. He seems intent on irritating us and wasting our time.

The most non-allegiant among us may fail to mention their theistic orientation.