Carlos Castaneda

[moralist]

Greg,

I've actually read Nudge.

You wouldn't believe the pretentiousness. Sunstein helped coin the phrase libertarian paternalism and discussed it in the book.

He's one of those dictatorship by technocrat folks with a smile on his face saying, "Let's call it something else, shall we?"

Michael

Got it, Michael.

It's clear that he's one of those "control the narrative" people... and revealed himself even just with the "Cash for Clunkers" drivel. That's more than enough for me.

Greg

[dldelancey]

Greg,

I sold my last house without an agent and bought the house I currently own without an agent. I suffered some discomfort with the sale primarily because the attorney was not of my choosing. The purchase, on the other hand, was a fantastic experience. Like you, I learned that it really isn't that difficult to do.

Also, if it makes you feel any better, many of the threads here at OL send me off to research people, too. In fact, I often need to research events and concepts, as well. I enjoy that, though.

[moralist]

Greg,

I sold my last house without an agent and bought the house I currently own without an agent. I suffered some discomfort with the sale primarily because the attorney was not of my choosing. The purchase, on the other hand, was a fantastic experience. Like you, I learned that it really isn't that difficult to do.

That's a beneficial experience because it begs the question...

"What ~else~ can I do for myself?"

Many years ago, an old neighbor told me that whenever you do something for yourself you double your money because you not only have the value of the job you did, you also have the money still in your pocket that you would have spent paying someone else to do it for you.

The goodwill of his advice never left me. And since then I've spent my life hiring myself to do things for me. And that included my wife and I hiring ourselves to build a home for us. But we didn't just double our money, we more than quadrupled it.

Also, if it makes you feel any better, many of the threads here at OL send me off to research people, too. In fact, I often need to research events and concepts, as well. I enjoy that, though.

I don't mind the scrutiny at all, D, as I'm not a private person. Everything on the internet is totally public and fair game.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Greg,

I sold my last house without an agent and bought the house I currently own without an agent. I suffered some discomfort with the sale primarily because the attorney was not of my choosing. The purchase, on the other hand, was a fantastic experience. Like you, I learned that it really isn't that difficult to do.

Also, if it makes you feel any better, many of the threads here at OL send me off to research people, too. In fact, I often need to research events and concepts, as well. I enjoy that, though.

Why an attorney? When I sold my home in NJ two unnecessary attorneys were present by virtue of a law that put money in their pockets. Absent a cash sale any competent loan officer knows what to do and probably knows it better than an attorney.

--Brant

no attorney needed in Arizona if you insist the buyer get a substantial mortgage for that brings in the loan officer

[dldelancey]

Greg,

I sold my last house without an agent and bought the house I currently own without an agent. I suffered some discomfort with the sale primarily because the attorney was not of my choosing. The purchase, on the other hand, was a fantastic experience. Like you, I learned that it really isn't that difficult to do.

Also, if it makes you feel any better, many of the threads here at OL send me off to research people, too. In fact, I often need to research events and concepts, as well. I enjoy that, though.

Why an attorney? When I sold my home in NJ two unnecessary attorneys were present by virtue of a law that put money in their pockets. Absent a cash sale any competent loan officer knows what to do and probably knows it better than an attorney.

--Brant

no attorney needed in Arizona if you insist the buyer get a substantial mortgage for that brings in the loan officer

The sale was in MS. I don't know if the attorney was required by law, but the person I was selling the house to insisted and was willing to pay the attorney's fee. I didn't know the attorney, and my first impressions were bad ones. I learned a lot from that experience.

The purchase was in LA, and the people I bought the home from had a family attorney who was also an associate of my loan officer and came highly recommended by several other people I knew. Again, the other party was willing to pay the attorney's fee, and given my comfort with the attorney, it felt like a win-win.

In both cases, the attorney fees were much less than the customary 6% a real estate agent goes for.

[Darrell Hougen]

Not "everyone." You have no way of knowing everyone or perhaps even very many. The way you state it you invalidate your own generalization not because you are wrong generally, but because of your traducification of generalize.

--Brant

Congratulations Brant! You've invented a new word. It's not often that a Google search turns up exactly one result, namely page 7 of this conversation.

Darrell

[Selene]

Note that the issue has been changed - with your help, Brant.

"Coding" is a loaded word, and necessary to ID arguments where it's interpreted literally instead of in the metaphorical way it's generally used by biologists.

That point noted, I didn't say boo about DNA not being complex. Greg was claiming that the total length of uncoiled DNA from the "average" human body is somehow a significant indicator of intelligent design. He's now sidestepping the original issue, and, as usual, ignoring questions.

Ellen

Appears that there is another code partially hidden under the code we do know about.

Parts of the genetic code have two meanings, one related to protein sequence, and one related to gene control, the researchers said, and both apparently evolved in concert with each other.

The gene control instructions appear to help stabilize certain beneficial features of proteins and how they are made, they said.

The discovery has major implications for how scientists and physicians interpret a patient's genome and could open new doors to the diagnosis and treatment of disease, Stamatoyannopoulos said.

"The fact that the genetic code can simultaneously write two kinds of information means that many DNA changes that appear to alter protein sequences may actually cause disease by disrupting gene control programs or even both mechanisms simultaneously," he said.

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20131212-174536-3107

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Not "everyone." You have no way of knowing everyone or perhaps even very many. The way you state it you invalidate your own generalization not because you are wrong generally, but because of your traducification of generalize.

--Brant

Congratulations Brant! You've invented a new word. It's not often that a Google search turns up exactly one result, namely page 7 of this conversation.

Darrell

Darrell,

I was going to comment on how fast Google indexed that page, but then I saw the date stamp on Brant's post.

Still... today traducification. Tomorrow the world!

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Also used the word last March 17th here.

--Brant

very modest

[Robert Baratheon]

Michael,

Not for nothing, but working under Sunstein doesn't mean I admired the man. Not everybody likes their employer, or all of their customers for that matter.

[moralist]

Note that the issue has been changed - with your help, Brant.

"Coding" is a loaded word, and necessary to ID arguments where it's interpreted literally instead of in the metaphorical way it's generally used by biologists.

That point noted, I didn't say boo about DNA not being complex. Greg was claiming that the total length of uncoiled DNA from the "average" human body is somehow a significant indicator of intelligent design. He's now sidestepping the original issue, and, as usual, ignoring questions.

Ellen

Appears that there is another code partially hidden under the code we do know about.

Parts of the genetic code have two meanings, one related to protein sequence, and one related to gene control, the researchers said, and both apparently evolved in concert with each other.

The gene control instructions appear to help stabilize certain beneficial features of proteins and how they are made, they said.

The discovery has major implications for how scientists and physicians interpret a patient's genome and could open new doors to the diagnosis and treatment of disease, Stamatoyannopoulos said.

"The fact that the genetic code can simultaneously write two kinds of information means that many DNA changes that appear to alter protein sequences may actually cause disease by disrupting gene control programs or even both mechanisms simultaneously," he said.

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20131212-174536-3107

As science continues to become more and more sophisticated, it will just keep discovering more and more sophisticated intricacies about the human body.

But no matter how amazing they are... they will still only evoke only two responses which represent the two views:

1. (wow... ) "that's a highly advanced and superbly organized design"

2. (shrug...) "that's just stupid blind dumb random chance"

Greg

[moralist]

Michael,

Not for nothing, but working under Sunstein doesn't mean I admired the man. Not everybody likes their employer, or all of their customers for that matter.

That's a fundamental difference between the moral values each of us lives by, Robert.

I don't work for people who don't share my values.

Greg

[Ellen Stuttle]

As science continues to become more and more sophisticated, it will just keep discovering more and more sophisticated intricacies about the human body.

But no matter how amazing they are... they will still only evoke only two responses which represent the two views:

1. (wow... ) "that's a highly advanced and superbly organized design"

2. (shrug...) "that's just stupid blind dumb random chance"

Greg

Note, you keep changing how you word your supposed "only two" alternatives, especially the second.

But you don't succeed at becoming any more accurate in your breakdown.

Ellen

[Robert Baratheon]

That's a fundamental difference between the moral values each of us lives by, Robert.

I don't work for people who don't share my values.

Greg

Oh really, Greg? You don't pay anyone for their labor, or exchange your labor for payment with anyone who doesn't share 100% of your moral values? Then logically you must be a subsistence farmer, buy nothing from stores, perform all of your own services, and generate all of your own heat and electricity. Do you really expect us to believe that, or would you care to revise your absolutist statement a bit?

[moralist]

As science continues to become more and more sophisticated, it will just keep discovering more and more sophisticated intricacies about the human body.

But no matter how amazing they are... they will still only evoke only two responses which represent the two views:

1. (wow... ) "that's a highly advanced and superbly organized design"

2. (shrug...) "that's just stupid blind dumb random chance"

Greg

Note, you keep changing how you word your supposed "only two" alternatives, especially the second.

But you don't succeed at becoming any more accurate in your breakdown.

Ellen

It's fun to refine my word descriptions of the two views.

People either acknowledge the reality that the design of the physical laws which matter obeys are well ordered, or they deny that there is a well ordered design and instead claim that it just happened to have come about by stupid mindless permutations of random chaotic chance.

If you saw parts of a machine in a picture of the surface of Mars, you would say that at one time in the past there was intelligent life on the planet. And no sane person would argue that those machine parts were the result of random chaotic chance. However, the insane would.

Can you acknowledge the reality that the form and function of DNA is light years more advanced and sophisticated than machine parts?

This is just a simple yes or no question as to your own free choice of whether or not you affirm or deny that statement.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Does God have DNA?

Who invented him?

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Does God have DNA?

Who invented him?

--Brant

Brant,

Who or what created God?

Now you come to the child's question no adult can answer.

My problem is I'm still a child inside...

Michael

[moralist]

Does God have DNA?

Who invented him?

--Brant

You're not serious, Brant... but I'll respond as if you were.

The Creator is greater than creation, and the Creator is uncreated. And while DNA makes physical life possible, it does not apply to the Creator who designed the laws which govern the DNA which makes physical life possible.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Does God have DNA?

Who invented him?

--Brant

You're not serious, Brant... but I'll respond as if you were.

The Creator is greater than creation, and the Creator is uncreated. And while DNA makes physical life possible, it does not apply to the Creator who designed the laws which govern the DNA which makes physical life possible.

Greg

So, the creation of DNA was not by the Creator who only came up with the physical laws that resulted in DNA. He created the physical laws that resulted in a bolt of lightning hitting the primordial soup and, viola!, DNA!

--Brant

[Selene]

Does God have DNA?

Who invented him?

--Brant

You're not serious, Brant... but I'll respond as if you were.

The Creator is greater than creation, and the Creator is uncreated. And while DNA makes physical life possible, it does not apply to the Creator who designed the laws which govern the DNA which makes physical life possible.

Greg

So, the creation of DNA was not by the Creator who only came up with the physical laws that resulted in DNA. He created the physical laws that resulted in a bolt of lightning hitting the primordial soup and, viola!, DNA!

--Brant

That was on the eight day when he created special effects...

[moralist]

Does God have DNA?

Who invented him?

--Brant

You're not serious, Brant... but I'll respond as if you were.

The Creator is greater than creation, and the Creator is uncreated. And while DNA makes physical life possible, it does not apply to the Creator who designed the laws which govern the DNA which makes physical life possible.

Greg

So, the creation of DNA was not by the Creator who ~only~ came up with the physical laws that resulted in DNA.

~only~

It takes a special kind of entitled ingratitude to trivialize reality like that. However I recognize your total freedom to express your view, and understand that your attitude is a natural consequence of your own life experience.

He created the physical laws that resulted in a bolt of lightning hitting the primordial soup and, viola!, DNA!

--Brant

Just to be clear... that is YOUR own attitude of what YOU believe happened.

It is NOT mine.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

~only~

It takes a special kind of entitled ingratitude to trivialize reality like that. However I recognize your total freedom to express your view, and understand that your attitude is a natural consequence of your own life experience.

He created the physical laws that resulted in a bolt of lightning hitting the primordial soup and, viola!, DNA!

--Brant

Just to be clear... that is YOUR own attitude of what YOU believe happened.

It is NOT mine.

Greg

It is not what I believed happened. I don't know. "A bolt of lightning" is a metaphor for the actions of physical laws which you state were set up by the "Creator" which resulted in the creation of DNA. If this is a misrepresentation of your view set me straight. Did God invent DNA or just the physical laws which created DNA? As for trivializing reality, your God is within or without reality or both . I'm not trivializing reality; I'm trivializing God, a floating abstraction for which there is no adduceable evidence.

--Brant

[PDS]

That's a fundamental difference between the moral values each of us lives by, Robert.

I don't work for people who don't share my values.

Greg

Oh really, Greg? You don't pay anyone for their labor, or exchange your labor for payment with anyone who doesn't share 100% of your moral values? Then logically you must be a subsistence farmer, buy nothing from stores, perform all of your own services, and generate all of your own heat and electricity. Do you really expect us to believe that, or would you care to revise your absolutist statement a bit?

I eagerly await Greg's response to this point.

Prediction: The goalposts will move yet again.

[moralist]

~only~

It takes a special kind of entitled ingratitude to trivialize reality like that. However I recognize your total freedom to express your view, and understand that your attitude is a natural consequence of your own life experience.

He created the physical laws that resulted in a bolt of lightning hitting the primordial soup and, viola!, DNA!

--Brant

Just to be clear... that is YOUR own attitude of what YOU believe happened.

It is NOT mine.

Greg

It is not what I believed happened. I don't know. "A bolt of lightning" is a metaphor for the actions of physical laws which you state were set up by the "Creator" which resulted in the creation of DNA. If this is a misrepresentation of your view set me straight.

Ok fair enough. Brant. That's your metaphor, and I don't use any.

I already stated my view. While just as you, I have no way of knowing exact details. I do understand the basic principle that orderly laws denote an orderly law maker. Just as an IPOD denotes an IPOD maker. It's common sense.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

~only~

It takes a special kind of entitled ingratitude to trivialize reality like that. However I recognize your total freedom to express your view, and understand that your attitude is a natural consequence of your own life experience.

He created the physical laws that resulted in a bolt of lightning hitting the primordial soup and, viola!, DNA!

--Brant

Just to be clear... that is YOUR own attitude of what YOU believe happened.

It is NOT mine.

Greg

It is not what I believed happened. I don't know. "A bolt of lightning" is a metaphor for the actions of physical laws which you state were set up by the "Creator" which resulted in the creation of DNA. If this is a misrepresentation of your view set me straight.

Ok fair enough. Brant. That's your metaphor, and I don't use any.

I already stated my view. While just as you, I have no way of knowing exact details. I do understand the basic principle that orderly laws denote an orderly law maker. Just as an IPOD denotes an IPOD maker. It's common sense.

Greg

But how do you get DNA--such complexity from such simplicity? If all it takes is "orderly," isn't that a trivialization? This discussion through more than one thread started on the complexity of it all--DNA--and now has become "orderly." For me, DNA's a wonder. What, BTW, is the DNA of a virus? Of a prion? Of something not yet discovered? What is the DNA of a piece of DNA? A piece of that 53 billion miles? Did DNA make itself--part by part? A telescope displays a seemingly infinity. One might also get that impression from a microscope. Newton didn't discard science because he believed in God. You don't have to either.

--Brant