BaalChatzaf

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

I can't resist.

So how did the cosmos itself come into being with self-destruct baked in?

Through entropy?

   

It's like the anti-religious argument. If God created everything, who created God?

If entropy destroys everything, how was entropy created?

Do you believe in destruction without creation?

 

Michael

Excellent question.  Even as the cosmos  expanded into what it is now  it was doomed from the start.  Entropy increases.  How things really began?  I do not know.

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

I wrote:

Bob replied:

Ah, I see, so then what you're saying is that mere regulations and wood chippers aren't enough, and that we have to go much further!

J

I am saying eventually our species will become extinct.  And so will  life on this planet.  When the sun gets hot which it will in one billion to two billion years, the oceans and seas will evaporate and life on the surface and what were the oceans will cease.  Any life that hangs on underground will be ended when the Sun expands into a red giant and vaporizes the earth.

12 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Well that puts a kink in my plan to live forever...

Even the cosmos is not going to "live" forever.  The second law of thermodynamics  appears to be true.  Entropy will increase until no more happens in the cosmos.  

22 hours ago, Jonathan said:

So, what you're really saying is that we need to come up with some regulations which will stop corporations from doing things which are making the sun use up hydrogen.

Do you recommend electric wood chippers over gas-powered ones? What's the data comparing their effectiveness versus their carbon footprint?

 That is not what I am saying.

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Black hole headed our way:

http://www.physics-astronomy.org/2018/04/a-supermassive-black-hole-is-heading.html

It's coming for us, and I bet that it's mankind's fault. In fact, let just say that it's settled science that it's our fault. We need to crack down immediately. Regulations. Stuff some motherfuckers into the wood chipper. We need Obama back, or Bernie. Maybe even Ocasio-Cortez. She would personally stuff 'em into the chipper with that special socialist gleam in her eye. We have to act now to save the world.

 

In two and half billion years.  Don't worry. complex life on earth will be dead and gone by that time.  The Sun will have used up its hydrogen fuel by then,  and will be fusing helium. This will make the Sun 40 percent hotter than it is know, causing the oceans and seas to dry up.  With the water gone, complex life on the surface will become extinct. That includes us, unless we can find another star with an earth like planet to live on.  There are two chances of that happening: slim and none.

20 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Okay, everybody, stand down your imagination for a moment of teamwork. The Editor is here, and he looks to be a tough guy. 

Bob, I don't believe you are without creative imagination.  We know that Climate Change is a fraught issue -- and so we think that we want to spin the high drama contest into a million-selling blockbuster of a thriller. A "Weather Thrillah" ... a fictional roller coaster. "What if ...?" all your nightmares came true.

With that fixed firmly in electrobiological analytic circuits of your sapient wetware, can you please adjust your pursed lips into a smile?

As long as we are agreed this is science FICTION, I am willing to be amused.

Weather manipulation, at this juncture, is completely beyond any reliable technology we have.  There are conditions where rainfall can be induced, but they are rare. In general weather is a chaotic dynamic process,  it can be reliably predict  past 3 days and it certainly cannot be controlled by any human technology.

13 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Just go outside and observe. You will observe days with only contrails and you will observe days when the sky is filled with chemtrails. Soon you will have no trouble distinguishing the two. Use your own eyes. Trust the evidence of your senses.

Our unaided senses can only detect the light  reflecting of the H2O  droplets that hang in the air after the H2O  vapor flowing from the jet exhaust condenses. Basically contrails  (or chemtrails as the Conspiracy Phreaks like to call them)  are man-made clouds.  What you don't see with the unaided senses  is the CO2 produced by the burning of jet fuel and very small amounts of SO2 and N2O.

On 7/5/2018 at 4:53 PM, william.scherk said:

A respite from Idea Farming on OL. Here is someone who has thought the whole thing through at least once. We'll put him in charge of collecting "Were they or weren't they" stories about manipulated disasters. "Snatched from the headlines of Faye Knuze" and misinformation can't cause a panic, right?

Maybe not in everybody, and whaddaya mean by panic, you alarmist. Prudence is my name, justified suspicion is my game.

 

Nobody "controls" the weather.  Weather is emergent from a chaotic dynamic process. 

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

"Muslims and Marxists delivered for Doug Jones."

Be that as it may, he is not finished fighting the fight. Today we discover he doesn't approve of Doug Jones's gay son celebrating his father's win. He also approves of a weird World News Daily (WND) opinion piece. Muslims and Marxists!

 

-- someone on the campaign had to put on rubber gloves and read the Marxist-Muslim-Sodomist report from gay magazine the Advocate ... (this second post has disappeared from the official Facebook account:)

 

The man is a lunatic.

11 hours ago, william.scherk said:

At some point, my sense of pathos will become cold and inert. But this gave me a twinge. Roy really really wants to get to the Senate ...

(cell-phone screenshot of Roy Moore campaign entreaties from Lauren Walsh.)

Beware of people who -desire- power.   Moore is an asshole and religious bigot.  Fortunately the voters of Alabama denied him his ambition (barely so, but so just the same).  Go 'Bama!

On 11/30/2017 at 3:55 PM, william.scherk said:

I thought to re-up this thread with an excerpt from a front-porch posting. I am still on my trawl of Tribes-etc reading -- the archives here at OL are rich! I found an instance of tribe-bashing!

(this excerpt veered off from discussion of the notion that then-candidate Trump "excused" Russia for targeting and killing journalists and political opponents (eg, Litvinenko, Nemstov, etc), since the USA was no angel in terms of killing ... 

The end-game of the Syrian war is nearing, I think. There are no US interests in Syria large enough to mount much opposition to this month's Syria-Iran-Russia deal, such as it is -- especially given Putin and Trump's agreement basically leaving Russia in the lead.  A grateful leader showed his appreciation:

A further signal that the US will jettison its military role is the announcement that it will not directly arm the Kurdish forces currently in control of a PKK-tinged faux-federation in northern Syria ...

(much of the two-faced, slack, incoherent and ultimately failed US policy towards Syria since 2011 can be laid directly upon President Obama, in my opinion. Weak, unfocused and to some Syrian eyes, betraying American ideals ....)

So, Iran is happy, Turkey is happier, the Syrian president is happy, and Russia is happiest. Israel, not so much -- sensing that Iran is getting a cozy foothold in Syria (including secret military bases and probable missile assembly facilities), and that Hizbollah has expanded its range. 

As President Trump said multiple times in the campaign, there are reasons to 'get along' with Russia. Disposing of Syria entirely to the neighbourhood and Uncle Vladimir can be supported as a somewhat cynical realpolitik.  US forces, secret or not, will be leaving Syria and Syrian airspace within the span of a year -- once ISIS is ground to mush, there is not much justification for the expense or danger. It's a big fucking problem that powerful neighbours and allies can solve. End cynical mark-up.

This marbled war map shows what distance we are from a united, sovereign state in that sad place. It is significantly out of date -- the recapture of ISIS-black territory has advanced to both Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour since it was posted in July.  But it offers the residual puzzle: how will Syria be put back together?  What is the Russian design for Syria ... ? 

Meanwhile, in the Arctic, not just  Greenland is relatively balmy.  If the Arctic warming continues on course, Russia will be on top of the world!

Greenland was also balmy during the Medieval Warming period (900-1300).  That is when Danes settle on Greenland's  grassy green slopes  to farm and raise cattle.

20 hours ago, william.scherk said:

If you were an Alabamian,  would you contemplate voting for Roy Moore, despite the prevarications? Would you approve him ascending to national office?  If so, can you explain your support of his ascension?

If I were an Alabaman I would either consider suicide or leaving the State.

Moore is not only a Dirty Old Man, he is a prevaricator.   There was not a general sentiment toward establishing a State religion.  There was a general opposition to such a thing.  There was little argument of the the provisions in the First Amendment forbidding Congress to establish a religion.  Fortunately for us,  most of the Founders were Deists,  not Christians.

The Republicans were skunked yesterday in New Jersey.  Given the Gov. Christie is a swine,  that is hardly surprising.

There is less in Atheism to promote violence than there is in some of the Abrahamic Religions.  There is no "one size fits all"  atheism.  Atheists have very varied and individual reasons for not following the religious beliefs and practices of the people in the communities in which they grew up.  Almost all the atheists I have met were very tolerant of people with variant, even idiosyncratic beliefs, and there is no doctrine of violence embedded in atheism  as there is  in,  say Islam.   Islam in its most extreme forms promotes war, murder and violence.  Christianity  prior to the Enlightenment  was little better and Judaism in its earliest days could hardly be distinguished from ISIS or Boko Haram today.  The only reason why Jews are currently  less violent than Islam now, or Christianity during the days of the Crusades,  is because Jews had the shit kicked out of them 2500 years ago. 

The Asiatic religions particularly Budhaism are considerably less violence prone  at the level of doctrine than are the Abrahamic religions. 

Atheists have no common or central doctrine around which brotherhoods or bunds of  excitable males are likely to form.  There  is no atheist jihad or struggle doctrine.  There is little in atheism to promote an "us against the world"  attitude.  Just about the only time that atheists get "worked up" is when they are bullied by the religionists, primarily Muslims and Christians. This does not seem to be the case with regard to the Texas shooter. 

So atheists when they go bad, go bad for very individual and idiosyncratic  reasons.  

The man is an idiot.

20 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

It's a blog entry with an initial focus on Russian strategic aims or goals. It appears you aren't much interested in discussion of the topic, naive or childish or whatever. So you may wish to to communicate your concerns with nuclear proliferation ... with North Korea joining the club of nations with nuclear arms.

Goodbye Israel? Seems like a point in search of an argument. A grown-up argument.

Israel has nukes.  As a matter of fact inventing  nuclear and thermonuclear weapons is a Jewish cottage industry. 

3 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

William,

Try a different color filter for the lenses in your glasses.

   

Here.

Let me be of service to aid you in your research difficulties.

You might try this book from last June by Sharyl Attkisson: The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote.

I own this book in both print and audio. I have gone through the audio and am part way through the print version. Attkisson's examination of the backstage process for exploiting the emotion of self-righteous outrage (right and left) is worth the price alone. 

If you want details and verifiable facts, you will find all the details and verifiable facts your little heart desires.

Helpfully,

Michael

Believe half of what you see directly and a tenth of what you hear or see on the media  and you will be safe.

I match best with anti-elite.  

25 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Some people don't need no stinking AI. They know what to do with actual words actually spoken.

Michael

Base  but funny.   

4 hours ago, anthony said:

If we assume cognition to be "identification", there's a whole raft of mis-identifications one can make about other people (specifically) when reliant on emotions: E.g. the way they look, dress or speak - appearances - leads one to a presupposition of "what" they are which can be prejudicial, when colored by an emotional response only. And what you "heard" about them can already color your emotional reactions in advance. It looks like Rand - amongst the rest of wrong identifications -  had in mind, "justice", to others and for oneself. One commits an injustice to another individual by making superficial judgments. (Judging the book by its cover, how often I've found myself wrong later). The appearance (/others' emotional 'take') of a person is an inessential characteristic (and second hand).

And one commits injustice to oneself too, when one allows wrongful or "mixed" emotions, which don't reflect one's values, to go unchecked. (Thanks, Korben). Joe leaves on a trip across country with an old friend, lasting several days. His wife willingly stayed behind (looking after things, or children or working or whatever). Joe feels the exhilaration of the journey and catching up with his buddy--he feels free and adventurous again. Then his guilt sets in. How can he be feeling so good to be away from her? Secretly, it means he wants to be free and permanently single, surely? Etc. The conflicting emotions are likely to spoil any pleasure in the trip if he doesn't take stock. If the value in his wife is uppermost, and not chosen arbitrarily and subjectively, he can and should take value in other things and people - at the same time. If then, with his values hierarchical and objective, for the long term of his life, his emotions will align with them all. To not squeeze every ounce of pleasure from the trip, Joe sacrifices some happiness, and commits injustice to his values and so himself. Guilt is usually the pay off for not being explicitly conscious of values - guilt, fully deserved when one casually or deliberately sacrifices (doesn't defend, uphold, etc.) the values one has chosen.

"...to enjoy yourselves and live..."

cognition also includes inference and modification of likelihood estimates based on perceived evidence.  The mathematics of Bayesian Inference is the logic of cognition used inductively. 

Please see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference

This is a "wag the dog" moment...

12 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Race to realism ...

 

Lee is different from Washington.   The cause for which Washington fought  won out.  The cause for which Robert. E. Lee fought  was defeated. Lee fought for the independence and sovereignty of his country,  Virginia.  In those days people gave stronger allegiance to their home state than to the United States.  At that time States were considered sovereign.  So Lee was a patriot. 

42 minutes ago, anthony said:

That's a good question - does a statue commemorate or glorify? Depends on the person's objectivity. I side with historical realism. This happened and shouldn't be eliminated or glossed over, and whoever looks at the statue is free to place their own values upon the happening. There are parallels with South Africa, when students of the oldest University campaigned/rioted, demanding a statue of Cecil John Rhodes be removed. Whatever one thinks of him, he had an influence on the course of Southern African history (as well, ironically, as the idea and building of the self-same university)and many black figures benefitted from a Rhodes Scholarship. Of course, the weaklings capitulated to the anger and the statue went. This is really simple censorship to protect those easily-offended, fragile sensibilities. Those who can't tell the difference between a symbol and reality.

History is tugged and pushed along  by both thugs and scholars.