Seems similar to one I got a few years ago:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issed by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

>> ^Mcboinkens:
You realize that list had no content, right? It was a list of items with no details. Anything can add a new topic to it since you don't need any actual research. When's the last time you heard about a breakthrough because of the ISS? That was my point. I support the ISS, but to tear into a budget because it is "useless" can definitely be applied to NASA as well.
Reviewing the list, it pretty much just covered anything possible "under microgravity conditions". How practical is that? Are we really planning on going to other planets at the moment? We can't even go back to the moon, and that's what my whole point was. Shift funds to what is the most useful. I would much rather have an upgraded Hubble or even new version of the hubble. Studying how viruses work in space isn't particularly useful when we have no reason to be in space to begin with, and so on.
EDIT: so that it doesn't seem like I am talking out of my butt, take a look at one of their "accomplishment" powerpoints: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/168741main_AIAA_2007_ISSProgress.pdf
It's pretty easy to see that it's mostly fluff, and I realize that its an old document, but it was the top result and I was lazy. It talks a lot about what they WANT to do, or what they did, but nothing really came of it.

WTF are you talking about a list with no content? Did you even read ANY of the 720 reference linked in the wiki? And do you realize scientific discoveries take time? Oh you know, we're just running a lab IN SPACE. Let's give it a few years after it's finished assembling before we let our ridiculously shortsighted negativity take over, ok?

[redacted]

[redacted]

>> ^Mcboinkens:

To be fair, what has the ISS accomplished? It seems ignorant to ask, and the budget is much, much smaller in comparison, but if we are arguing what spending could be cut, pretty much anything could be a target.


Are you serious? Here's a list. You'll probably need someone with 40 phds to explain all the implications of this mind boggling wealth of research.

But no, we love pewpew guns and large asplosions.

>> ^Mcboinkens:
To be fair, what has the ISS accomplished? It seems ignorant to ask, and the budget is much, much smaller in comparison, but if we are arguing what spending could be cut, pretty much anything could be a target.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN-gR9040fw

Because it's what's next. Right now it seems a drowsy step as we tumble into the larger stellar neighborhood, but every step we take away from our cradle ensures that it will not necessarily be our grave. The distances involved seem insurmountable, but so too did the distance between Eurasia and the Americas might have seemed to an ancestor, astride a hollowed out log (and even then, the Polynesians navigated unimaginable distances with tech that was hardly better than that ancestor). We need this as a species. I believe but cannot prove that a greater malaise has infected us as a species due to light pollution. Take a city kid out to a field in the middle of nowhere, and show him the Milky Way in all its glory, and he will gasp in transcendental delight. We no longer see such wonders, except as static images in books and on TV. We do need to feed the masses of humanity, but I believe that an understanding of our place in things makes us more likely to see that we are 'trapped' here, and need to care for our fellow prisoners, and that we will never truly escape unless we all go as one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVbnRbTi5XA

[redacted]

Your video, ISS astronaut plays flute duet with Jethro Tull flautist, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This movie looks a heck of a lot more expensive than its $500,000 budget.

The ISS set was built in 1st-time director William Eubanks' parents' backyard out of all sorts of "packing quilts, MDF, pizza bags, velcro, insulation, Christmas lights, and other salvaged material".

He's posted a bunch of making-of stuff on Vimeo -- http://vimeo.com/18634751

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

It's amazing how it's conclusively debunked in a simple 6-person blind test in this very report, yet the news channel tries to "balance" the report with a "who knows?" conclusion. A fucking VISA card does the SAME FUCKING TRICK, how amazingly stupid are these people???!!!


this is a large part of the issue its this sort of idiotic reporting that Leeds to what happened with the vaccine stuff.

Its like me having a news report on the latest Hubble mission or ISS mission and then having half of footage be about how the earth is actually flat and space travel is all fake.

And yes there are still people that think the eath is flat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

A fair statement, and I understand and tend to agree with where you're coming from.. I chose to challenge you only because I am familiar with the work that IONS (the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which Mitchell founded based, partly, on this original seminal experience), and the research they do on the paraliminal levels of consciousness and the expanded ranges of human potential. I'm quite familiar with the scientific rigor with which they approach such research and the basis upon which they rely on multiple ways of "knowing," that does not simply base all knowledge on logic and reason, but also on phenomenal experience, qualitative understanding, and intuitive inquiry. There are multiple approaches to epistemology that include and extend beyond mere logic and reason -- and the scientific wisdom it yields just as valid, reliable, and valuable to attained human knowledge.

Personally, I understand Mitchell's quote as a form of "received" wisdom, not unlike Rene Descarte's vision of the "Angel of Truth" which ultimately gave rise to the cogito ergo sum, Archimedes' moment of Eureka which served as the basis fo displacement as a measurement of density, or Sir Isaac Newton's revelation of mathematics as encapsulating the laws of universal physics.


>> ^WKB:

>> ^Trancecoach:
And on which form of epistemology do you base that statement?
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
I think Mitchell's use of the term, "divinity" refers to the force or power inherent in humanity's reason and capacities to acquire knowledge, rather than in the "magic" of one's faith in a deity.
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
My sense is that a lot of our international issues can be resolved after a critical mass of people make it out of Earth's gravity and are able to look down on its fragile state from above...
Astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said about the experience of spaceflight, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly."

The first half of your statement I agree with in absolute completeness. Understanding our vulnerable situation is indeed reason to work together to ensure the survival of us all.
While I am no astronaut, I could not disagree more with the second half. I think that contemplating the fragile nature of life on this planet and the amazing accomplishments our species has accumulated is a reason to celebrate our knowledge, not our faith. Reason, evidence, and knowledge is what has allowed us to even contemplate this issue. Faith has done nothing to solve the problems of leaving the atmosphere, surviving the vacuum, achieving a stable orbit, or reentering the world safely. To suddenly take the amazement of life as we now understand it, thanks to science, and chalk it all up to some divine magic seems insulting to the knowledge, reason, and human intellect that has gotten us here.


I really doubt that based on the context of the statement. "Life wasn't an accident based on random processes," "the knowledge came to me directly,"... sounds like magic talk to me.


I had to look that word up to make sure I knew what the heck it means. I'm not sure where the nature of knowledge comes into it. I am simply pointing out that it seems to me that the ideas Mitchell brings up in the very sentence in which he uses the word divinity are evidence to support the idea that he is talking about a divine creator. (Which is what I meant by, 'magic,' no offense intended.) I see no evidence that he is using the word divinity to celebrate humanity's reason and capacity to acquire knowledge based on the provided quote. I have great admiration for Edgar Mitchel, and anyone who risks their life to help expand human understanding of the universe as he did, but that particular quote of his seemed to me to ring hollow.

>> ^Trancecoach:

And on which form of epistemology do you base that statement?
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
I think Mitchell's use of the term, "divinity" refers to the force or power inherent in humanity's reason and capacities to acquire knowledge, rather than in the "magic" of one's faith in a deity.
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
My sense is that a lot of our international issues can be resolved after a critical mass of people make it out of Earth's gravity and are able to look down on its fragile state from above...
Astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said about the experience of spaceflight, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly."

The first half of your statement I agree with in absolute completeness. Understanding our vulnerable situation is indeed reason to work together to ensure the survival of us all.
While I am no astronaut, I could not disagree more with the second half. I think that contemplating the fragile nature of life on this planet and the amazing accomplishments our species has accumulated is a reason to celebrate our knowledge, not our faith. Reason, evidence, and knowledge is what has allowed us to even contemplate this issue. Faith has done nothing to solve the problems of leaving the atmosphere, surviving the vacuum, achieving a stable orbit, or reentering the world safely. To suddenly take the amazement of life as we now understand it, thanks to science, and chalk it all up to some divine magic seems insulting to the knowledge, reason, and human intellect that has gotten us here.


I really doubt that based on the context of the statement. "Life wasn't an accident based on random processes," "the knowledge came to me directly,"... sounds like magic talk to me.



I had to look that word up to make sure I knew what the heck it means. I'm not sure where the nature of knowledge comes into it. I am simply pointing out that it seems to me that the ideas Mitchell brings up in the very sentence in which he uses the word divinity are evidence to support the idea that he is talking about a divine creator. (Which is what I meant by, 'magic,' no offense intended.) I see no evidence that he is using the word divinity to celebrate humanity's reason and capacity to acquire knowledge based on the provided quote. I have great admiration for Edgar Mitchel, and anyone who risks their life to help expand human understanding of the universe as he did, but that particular quote of his seemed to me to ring hollow.

And on which form of epistemology do you base that statement?

>> ^WKB:

>> ^Trancecoach:
I think Mitchell's use of the term, "divinity" refers to the force or power inherent in humanity's reason and capacities to acquire knowledge, rather than in the "magic" of one's faith in a deity.
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
My sense is that a lot of our international issues can be resolved after a critical mass of people make it out of Earth's gravity and are able to look down on its fragile state from above...
Astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said about the experience of spaceflight, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly."

The first half of your statement I agree with in absolute completeness. Understanding our vulnerable situation is indeed reason to work together to ensure the survival of us all.
While I am no astronaut, I could not disagree more with the second half. I think that contemplating the fragile nature of life on this planet and the amazing accomplishments our species has accumulated is a reason to celebrate our knowledge, not our faith. Reason, evidence, and knowledge is what has allowed us to even contemplate this issue. Faith has done nothing to solve the problems of leaving the atmosphere, surviving the vacuum, achieving a stable orbit, or reentering the world safely. To suddenly take the amazement of life as we now understand it, thanks to science, and chalk it all up to some divine magic seems insulting to the knowledge, reason, and human intellect that has gotten us here.


I really doubt that based on the context of the statement. "Life wasn't an accident based on random processes," "the knowledge came to me directly,"... sounds like magic talk to me.

>> ^Trancecoach:

I think Mitchell's use of the term, "divinity" refers to the force or power inherent in humanity's reason and capacities to acquire knowledge, rather than in the "magic" of one's faith in a deity.
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
My sense is that a lot of our international issues can be resolved after a critical mass of people make it out of Earth's gravity and are able to look down on its fragile state from above...
Astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said about the experience of spaceflight, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly."

The first half of your statement I agree with in absolute completeness. Understanding our vulnerable situation is indeed reason to work together to ensure the survival of us all.
While I am no astronaut, I could not disagree more with the second half. I think that contemplating the fragile nature of life on this planet and the amazing accomplishments our species has accumulated is a reason to celebrate our knowledge, not our faith. Reason, evidence, and knowledge is what has allowed us to even contemplate this issue. Faith has done nothing to solve the problems of leaving the atmosphere, surviving the vacuum, achieving a stable orbit, or reentering the world safely. To suddenly take the amazement of life as we now understand it, thanks to science, and chalk it all up to some divine magic seems insulting to the knowledge, reason, and human intellect that has gotten us here.



I really doubt that based on the context of the statement. "Life wasn't an accident based on random processes," "the knowledge came to me directly,"... sounds like magic talk to me.

I think Mitchell's use of the term, "divinity" refers to the force or power inherent in humanity's reason and capacities to acquire knowledge, rather than in the "magic" of one's faith in a deity.

>> ^WKB:

>> ^Trancecoach:
My sense is that a lot of our international issues can be resolved after a critical mass of people make it out of Earth's gravity and are able to look down on its fragile state from above...
Astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said about the experience of spaceflight, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly."

The first half of your statement I agree with in absolute completeness. Understanding our vulnerable situation is indeed reason to work together to ensure the survival of us all.
While I am no astronaut, I could not disagree more with the second half. I think that contemplating the fragile nature of life on this planet and the amazing accomplishments our species has accumulated is a reason to celebrate our knowledge, not our faith. Reason, evidence, and knowledge is what has allowed us to even contemplate this issue. Faith has done nothing to solve the problems of leaving the atmosphere, surviving the vacuum, achieving a stable orbit, or reentering the world safely. To suddenly take the amazement of life as we now understand it, thanks to science, and chalk it all up to some divine magic seems insulting to the knowledge, reason, and human intellect that has gotten us here.