Actually it’s both. The final forms aren’t stable in the real world, they shed particles that are ingested, vapors inhaled, who knows, they are likely absorbed through the skin from many products.

Assume they aren’t actually toxic, functioning as designed they coat digestive systems and, if the report is to be believed, individual cells in extreme cases, leading to things like digestive issues and vaccinations not working. In developing children, it sounds disastrous…and it’s everywhere and in everyone….often in high levels.

This is akin to a crop that’s mildly toxic, not one adjacent to a pre existing separate toxic weed. You can’t plant this crop without permanently contaminating the field, and adjacent fields, and the local water sources, and to lesser extent anyone who uses the crop. There’s no separate toxic weed here, just a toxic crop we keep planting in new places, making the contamination much much more widespread at constantly increasing levels with no way to clean it up and little knowledge of the long term effects of such contamination. Pretty big gamble to take with the entire planet just so your thin rain coat doesn’t leak, don’t you think? Especially with a non biodegradable easily spread but impossible to remove toxic chemical with relatively unknown cumulative effects and no method whatsoever for removing it from people or the environment….like this one.

The point was that excessive wealth inequality is a bad thing, so bad it has led to revolt in extreme cases, not so bad it causes a revolution every time.
You seem to be agreeing with that.
I'm glad we agree.

Answer #1: I don't know what makes you a douchebag. I don't think "speaking out against" anything makes someone a douchebag. Telling me I'm an addict, a murderer, a RAPIST because I live and eat the way mankind has since before we made pictograms on cave walls? That's douchey. Trying to make your point by quoting people is no more effective than any other religious nut standing on a soap box.

Answer#2: Anyone can make a point by using hyperbole and extreme cases. Would I get pissed off if someone was using human toddlers, locked in black rooms, as a food source? Please. You do realize the issue between my view on food, and your view on food, is a mere distinction between what you and I consider sentience?

I'm against corporate food production. Corporations have a long and rich history of fucking humans over, I can only guess what they do to animals. I am vehemently opposed to unnecessary pain and suffering in any creature. Except pedophiles, rapists, Republicans, and those guys who flip you the bird when THEY have cut YOU off. We can do medical testing on them, no problem.

I guess you just will never understand, I don't particularly disagree with the message, just the messenger.

You can be described as "holier than thou", your arguments come from your feelings of elitism, superiority. Showing us how misguided and base we are. It's the reason why theists will never listen to Dawkins or Hitchens. (Conversely why atheists don't listen to theists either, truth be told.) They talk down to them as if they were idiots. They might BE idiots, but no one ever likes being called one.

You attack us and wonder why we get pissed off. THAT'S why you're a douchebag.

Elie Wiesel was talking about you, not us. We don't go around attacking vegans. We only react to their attacks on us. You are the oppressor here, the tormentor. I was fine before you started the name calling.

Title, description and video hardly tell the real story.

"But according to the U.S. Marshals Service, there was a bit more to Aker’s story that wasn’t told on air.

According to the feds Aker had a warrant for his arrest and that he had been dodging them for some time.

The U.S. Marshals Service noted Tuesday that they have been given the responsibility for service of civil processes as directed by the federal court system. These civil processes can include summons for individuals to appear in court to address delinquent federal student loans.

"Since November 2012, U.S. Marshals had made several attempts to serve a show cause order to Paul Aker to appear in federal court, including searching at numerous known addresses. Marshals spoke with Aker by phone and requested he appear in court, but Aker refused. A federal judge then issued a warrant for Aker's arrest for failing to appear at a Dec. 14, 2012, hearing," the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

"It is the responsibility of the U.S. Marshals to serve civil processes at direction of the federal courts. These civil processes include summonses for individuals to appear in court to address delinquent federal loans, including student, agricultural and other loans made by federal agencies."

When officials made contact with him on Feb. 11, the U.S. Marshals said that they only sent two agents to his door. They say that when they attempted to arrest him, Aker resisted and retreated back into his home.

"The situation escalated when Aker verbally said to the deputies that he had a gun. After Aker made the statement that he was armed, in order to protect everyone involved, the deputies requested additional law enforcement assistance. Additional deputy marshals and local law enforcement officers responded to the scene. After approximately two hours, the law enforcement officers convinced Aker to peacefully exit his home, and he was arrested without further incident," the agency said in a statement.

The statement from the U.S. Marshals noted that here in Houston some 1,500 people have been identified for not appearing in court to address outstanding federal student loans.

These are likely extreme cases that have been drawn out for some time though. It's still recommended that debtors pay back their loans as quick as they can.
A judge has now issued warrants for the arrest of these people. Marshals say that every attempt is made to inform individuals of their initial summons before it comes to what Aker faced. "
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/US-Marshals-say-man-wasn-t-arrested-because-he-6834620.php

because they never see only of their shit applying to them, and everything is always someone else's fault.

Accidents happen with birth control (if you're even using it) but if you're a right wing religious nutjob then you're forced to bring your accident to term and into a life of shite because family planning isn't a real option.

No responsibility is taken. If the kids don't learn well at school then it's the teachers. Or the curriculum or whatever. It's bullshit. Teaching happens at home as much as at school, and I'm not just talking about homework.

My mother's just retired as a teacher in the UK. She'd have kids play up in class and end up having to phone the parents to tell them about it and discuss what they could do to help. Most of the time all she got from the parents was an incredulous 'what's it got to do with us? He's at school, he's your problem, if he's being naughty it's you who's fucked up'.

She taught kids who have never known anyone in their family have a job. Parents don't work, their parents don't work, and even their parents never had a proper job. These kids just don't understand their place in the world, or rather they understand the tiny little world they live in but have no idea how to get out of it or even that it's a possibility.

These kids then grow up and do what their family has always done. They have kids mid teens and just live at home soaking up the benefits.

It would take an astonishing amount of foresight for a kids from this world stop and think 'Hey, maybe if we waited a bit and saved some money it would be much better'. They'd be the first in the family for generations to think that way.

These are extreme cases, but the same mentality flows around the whole system. Everything is there to be moaned at and criticised and most importantly blamed for all your problems. This leaves you a victim of circumstance, there's nothing you could have done...

@ChaosEngine --

I understand and largely agree with what you are saying, but "enforced solitude and inactivity" vs "nicest cage" is a false dichotomy in the same way my comment was. I wasn't saying that the ideal rehabilitation solutions are either "rape 'n shiv" or "isolation", just that if those *were* the only two options available to me, I think I'd personally opt for isolation.

I 100% agree that a better environment and being treated with some dignity and respect is infinitely more likely to actually rehabilitate someone than focusing on the punishment aspect. On the other hand, some limitations on the "nicest cage" approach are likely necessary. Maybe violent people need to be kept in relative isolation until they can prove that they are able to move beyond that, etc.

And I think that at some point, there has to be a tipping point in the cost-benefit analysis of "attempt to rehabilitate this person into being a functional member of society" vs "make certain that this person is physically prevented from causing any further damage to society". Those are extreme cases, but I think that in those cases "physically prevented from causing damage" might reasonably be applied through either "locked in isolation with only basic needs (food, water) provided for for the rest of their life" or the death penalty. And in most cases, I think that if it has really come to the point of those, a quick and hopefully painless death is probably the less cruel and unusual option...

I'd like to see how it handles a more extreme case, like the Polish guy who had a bus cut in front of him in a 100 zone (and avoided it).

The extreme case I thought of here wasn't about the balloon, it was about the air. Imagine the air was a lot denser... like water, or jelly.

I wasn't familiar with the term 'extreme cases' but use this all the time when making logical arguments, and think of it as exaggeration to help illustrate a point.

Unfortunately, while I think it makes it easier for me to visualize the point, people are often blinded by the comical nature of the exaggeration

"What do you mean if there were 10 zillion Chinese people on the island of Malta and 3 Brits had the Americas to themselves? The world should still learn English!"

(Someone trying to argue that even if Chinese was predominant, English would still be used in a larger geographical area, and me attempting to use exaggeration to illustrate that it's besides the point).

Problem 1: Tip toward the wood, as the wood will lose more buoyancy from the air than the lead.

As for the extreme case here, let's use the helium balloon. You tie the helium balloon to the right hand side of the scale. Now, to get the bar on the scale horizontal (balanced) you need to hang the lead weight closer to the fulcrum but on the right hand side of the scale too.

Now remove the air.

The balloon was only pulling up because of the air. Without the air it will hang down. So, we now have two things hanging down on the same side of the scale, so it's very obvious which way the scale will swing...

Problem 2: pi*20m Circumference = pi*diameter. Poles increase diameter by 20m. Really not sure where the 'extreme case' comes into this though?

Beats the hell out of me.

Just to noodle around a bit, the only extreme I can think of about the scales would be to substitute an extremely low density object for the wood. Say, a helium filled balloon? But that assumes that she did in fact mean equal mass for the two objects, and wouldn't actually give valid readings on a scale in atmosphere anyway.

Extreme cases are a rather specialized approach, as I remember...its not really a common, or easy way to get answers. I got the feeling this was kind of a "wannabee" presentation. Like she wanted to do "Smarter every day" stuff but isn't quite able to find and explain interesting non-intuitive problems well.

@Stormsinger @Barbar

what is the "extreme case" for the scales problem?

Yes, it's called Psychopathy, or Anti-Social Personality Disorder.

It doesn't mean you go around killing people (though it certainly lowers the bar!)

Here's a good article about a scientist studying the characteristics of psychopathic brains who accidentally found out that he was a psychopath. He'd never realized it, because everything in life had gone his way, but once he saw what he was, he reflected and found things he'd done without any guilt that ordinary people might have dwelt on (or not done in the first place).

As I understand it, Psychopathy (or ASPD) means that there's no empathy for other people. They can't read emotions like the rest of us can, and so they see other people almost like unfeeling robots. In extreme cases, the psychopath believes they are the only real person in a world of automatons and they think no more of other people than you or I would think of plant life. There's a range, this isn't an absolute on or off switch. About 10% of the male population and 1% of the female population has it to some degree (much higher in politics and executive offices).

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/?no-ist

You are empirically incorrect. You are proposing an impossible scenario, that somehow 1.5bn world wide are perfectly aligned, have some say over the actions of all the other people simultaneously and ergo bear some responsibility for any actions committed under the broad umbrella of "Islam"...

http://enews.fergananews.com/articles/2698

To speak of “Islam” as a homogenous phenomenon is analogous to speaking of “Christianity” as a single whole that includes Catholics and Orthodox, Protestants and Copts, and countless other sects, including such marginal ones as the Mormons, the Scientologists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Of course, we never do so, because we intuitively recognize that the label loses all meaning when forced on to such a diverse group. We seldom have such qualms, however, when it comes to Islam, even though the label “Islam” covers just as wide a spectrum of geographic, cultural, and sectarian diversity as the label “Christianity.” If anything, it is even more internally diverse than Christianity, which crystallized around an institutionalized Church from the very beginning. In Islam, such an institution never developed. There is no religious hierarchy and no single individual qualified to pass final judgment on questions of belief or practice. Within thirty years of the death of the Prophet, the Muslim community had split on matters of doctrine. Since then, there have been multiple and simultaneous sources of authority among Muslims. Authority is located not in church councils and such, but in individuals who derive their legitimacy from their learning, piety, lineage, and reputation among peers. This gives Islam a slightly anarchic quality: authoritative opinions (fatwa) of one expert or one group can be countered with equally authoritative opinions, derived from the same sources, of another group, or one set of practices devotional practices held dear by one group can be denounced as impermissible by another. In more extreme cases, such conflict of opinion can turn into a “war of fatwas,” fought out, in the modern age, in the press or in cyberspace. (If Islam were held in a more positive light in the West today, this diversity would be described as a “free market of ideas”!) To speak of Islam as a homogeneous entity ignores this fundamental dynamic of its tradition.

This pluralism extends to the most basic level of belief. The major sectarian divide in Islam, between Sunnis and Shi‘is, goes back to the very origins of Islam. The two doctrines evolved in parallel, and therefore it is incorrect to see in them an orthodox/heterodox divide. All Muslims share a number of key reference points (the oneness of God, loyalty to the Prophet and his progeny, the need to prepare for the Hereafter, to take a few examples), but they have been played upon in different ways by different sects and movements. Nor do the two sects exhaust the diversity, for they both have many branches and various theological and legal schools within them, while many modern ideological groups straddle the divide between the two sects.

Or
http://wasalaam.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/the-myth-of-homogeny-in-islam/

I could provide link after link, discuss Sunni vs Shia, or any one of the innumerable other sects (70+ iirc), discuss Islams war with itself throughout history etc, all demonstrating that you are wrong.

You are portraying (demonising actually) Islam in the same way the two morons in the video are, by making all Muslims responsible for any action committed by a Muslim. You talk about enlightenment, but your post reeks of bigotry, hardly the hallmark of an enlightened person, right?

Incidentally, the "popular" view of Islam is of a homogenous group of people, us vs them, a group to be afraid of, or to attack. The average person on the street (ie. plumb ignorant, much like yourself) would not be aware of just how complex it is, far more so than Christianity. It's exactly why the talking heads who got schooled kept trying to make out that Islam was homogenous, and were proved wrong...

But give it your best shot trying to shoot down the considered opinions of Phd's, scholars, philosophers etc if you want to continue to make a fool of yourself.

Man, the guys' using scripted retorts and making huge leaps in his reasoning Trancecoach, he's obviously in the beat-them-all-into-plowshares camp, and you're wasting your finger joints with this cat-Compilation of irrelevant statistical mumbo-jumbo, citation of the most extreme cases of mental divergence, scripted, tiresome use of adjectives and accusatory phrases....Insects only have one function man, doing what they do best.

Oh and we love the whole, 'Works in Australia' broken-fucking-record...Yeah? Well dikes and levees alla Holland would work everywhere, too chappy-Sell that shit to Nawlins on your next visit....

Until the world is free of birds, there's gonna be bird-shit on your car.....The majority of the world uses Phillips-head screws in construction, no longer any need for framing hammers...Voila!

Sounds perfectly linear to me!

Citizens without firearms, in this paradigm, means fascism has won...period.
Enjoy your poisonous mosquitoes and avoidable skin cancer, Aussies! A shotgun in the hand of some back-a-Bourker is the least of your worries...

So, the judge can't declare a mistrial if s/he suspects jury nullification? Like in the extreme case presented where jurors ignore DNA and video evidence and just decide to vote not guilty anyway? That's a little scary, especially considering the double-jeopardy rule.

I imagine if you were on a jury, convincing all the other members to nullify would be extremely difficult. It seems much more likely to result in a hung jury except in the most extreme cases (like the slavery and lynching examples provided in the video).

Also, in California at least, jury nullification has itself been "nullified"--judges can remove from the jury any member that indicates they will not give a verdict that corresponds to the facts of law involved in the case.

See: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/california-court-rules-against-jury-nullification