"[I] didn't watch the Ted talk, sorry. Too long to make a point for me."

Then you missed the entire argument.

Everything you said is moot in the face of Lawrence Lessig's talk.

This kind of thinking: "Granted, neither choice is usually good, but one is definitely less bad....and far more sane and rational."Is completely missing the point.

If you are continuing to see this this as a partisan problem, you do not grok this issue.

You should not be choosing between "terrible and slightly less terrible." You should be choosing between "good and better."

I reiterate: The roots of this issue in the US go deeper than partisan "Dems vs. Reps" politics. This issue is money in politics.

"I want you to take hold, to grab the issue you care the most about. Climate change is mine, but it might be financial reform or a simpler tax system or inequality. Grab that issue, sit it down in front of you, look straight in its eyes, and tell it there is no Christmas this year. There will never be a Christmas. We will never get your issue solved until we fix this issue first."

Here's a video referencing a Princeton study that backs up Lessig's arguments pretty well.



As an aside, Lawrence Lessig tried to run for president last year...

OK, since again you are going to continue to comment to and about me after asking me to ignore you (so I can't read your lies to reply to them), I logged out, read them, and now I'll comment back.

BULLSHIT! You had a shit fit for days when I downvoted a video you posted and it went to the bottom of 'new and upcoming videos', and you cried censorship over and over and claimed it had been removed because you couldn't find your own video. You complained to dag and lucky repeatedly, and tried to have me banned for erasing your video (which never happened, you were just too lazy or incapable to look for it, and continued complaining for days after multiple people pointed out you were 100% wrong and showed you where your video was).

No single political opinion is solicited here, so even the suggestion that those matching yours might be sought out by the admins to make it 'fair and balanced' for you shows a clear lack of understanding of the site and the world in general. At least you understand it won't happen.

As to your specious claim (based on a fox new poll or nothing at all?) that there are more conservatives than liberals in America, it's ridiculous, and easily contradicted with actual facts....for instance, the 2015 Gallup poll said "PRINCETON, N.J. -- Thirty-one percent of Americans describe their views on social issues as generally liberal, matching the percentage who identify as social conservatives for the first time in Gallup records dating back to 1999."...so even SELF identified liberals match self identified conservatives, if you go by actual political leanings on issues, there's no contest, 'liberals' outweigh 'conservatives' 3-1 (+-).
"Liberals" as you and the rest of the far right define them are clearly the majority view in America. Actual statistics follow:
Those in favor of reproductive choice >50%, anti choice<44%. 78% of Americans want Citizens United overturned. 70% of Americans don't want Social Security cut, 65% want it expanded. The same goes for wanting more financial regulations on banks and wall street, taxing the extremely rich at higher rates, adopting true single payer health care, doing public projects and works, having a standing army (yes, that's a liberal idea...as the army is a socialist program), etc. Those consistently holding "conservative" viewpoints across the board are an extremely small minority, contrary to how many people self identify.
"Conservatives" may hold a majority there in the Fox bubble, but in the real world they are a minority, consistently ridiculed for their total lack of knowledge about the things they complain about and for basing their backwards stances on 'truthiness' rather than fact, especially by those in other countries.

Now, once again, for the umpteenth time, I'll ask you kindly to "ignore" me just like you asked me to ignore you. It's pretty infantile to ask someone to ignore you so you can continue to publicly talk crap about and contradict them without fear that they'll respond...and I find that methodology typical of 'conservatives' that refuse to live by the rules they angrily insist everyone else must live by.
You really don't want me focusing on you in anger, which will happen if I'm forced to un-ignore you and re-engage because you can't quit me. Just stop and quit it, or no complaints when I re-engage with vigor and vitriol.

Haven't seen this one in circulation yet:

Dear Chancellor Merkel,

The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working. Now Greece has loudly said no more.

As most of the world knew it would, austerity has crushed the Greek economy, led to mass unemployment, a collapse of the banking system, made the external debt crisis far worse, with the debt problem escalating to an unpayable 175% of GDP. The economy now lies broken with tax receipts nose-diving, output and employment depressed, and businesses starved of capital.

The humanitarian impact has been colossal – 40% of children now live in poverty, infant mortality is sky-rocketing and youth unemployment is close to 50%. Corruption, tax evasion and bad accounting by previous Greek governments helped create the debt problem. But the series of so-called adjustment programs has served only to make a Great Depression the likes of which have been unseen in Europe since 1929-1933. The medicine prescribed by the German Finance Ministry and Brussels has bled the patient, not cured the disease.

Together we urge you to lead Europe to a course correction before it is too late for Greece and for the Eurozone. Right now, the Greek government is being asked to put a gun to its head and pull the trigger. Sadly, the bullet will not only kill off Greece’s future in Europe. The collateral damage will kill the Eurozone as a beacon of hope, prosperity, and democracy, and could lead to far-reaching economic consequences across the world.

In the 1950s Europe was founded on the forgiveness of past debts, notably Germany’s, which generated a massive contribution to post-war economic growth, peace, and democracy. Today we need to restructure and reduce Greek debt, give the economy breathing room to recover, and allow Greece to pay off a reduced burden of debt over a long period of time. Now is the time for a humane rethink of the punitive and failed programme of austerity of recent years and to agree to a major reduction of Greece’s debts in conjunction with much needed reforms in Greece.

We urge you to take this vital action of leadership for Greece and Germany, and also for the world. History will remember you for your actions this week. We expect and count on you to provide the bold and generous steps towards Greece that will serve Europe for generations to come.

Yours sincerely,

Heiner Flassbeck, former State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Finance;

Thomas Piketty, Professor of Economics at the Paris School of Economics;

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University;

Dani Rodrik, Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton;

Simon Wren-Lewis, Professor of economics, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University

Don't succumb to apathy!

http://billmoyers.com/2014/11/21/8-ways-get-money-politics/

http://www.fairvote.org/reforms

Though personally, I think we really need to implement the Condorcet Method (which I admit needs a sexier name).

http://www.princeton.edu/~cuff/voting/theory.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RtOCvFqIKk

Then slow down with theories of our impending demise, the IPCC doesn't support it. You want to talk about not denying the science, then you don't get to preach gloom and doom. Don't claim a large percentage of farmland is going to be lost to sea level rise by 2100. Don't claim coastlines are going to be pushed back 10 miles by a worst case 1 foot rise of sea level by 2100.

We are talking about advancements solving problems like a maximum sea level rise of a foot in the next 100 years, with best guesses being lower than that. I think it's modest to suggest our children's children will have figured out how to raise the dikes around places like New Orleans by a foot in the next 100 years.
The concord and moon trips are no longer happening because they are expensive. We can do them if we needed to, and more easily than the first time around. Finding out people aren't willing to pay the premium to shave an hour off their flight doesn't mean the technology no longer exists. Just because America no longer needs to prove they can lift massive quantities of nuclear warheads into orbit doesn't mean we couldn't still go to the moon again if it was needed. There's just no reason to do it, the tech exists still none the less.
Yes, there are social problems that confound the use of new technology. You fail to notice that is also the problem with feeding everybody. Food production isn't the problem, but rather the men with guns that control distribution. Stalin's mass starvation of millions was a social problem, not climate change or technology. Mao's was the same. North Koreas the same. All over Africa is the same. We have more than enough food, and plenty of charities work hard to send food over to places like Africa. Once the food gets there though the men with guns take most of it and people still starve. The reason Africa has so many crop failures is the violent displacement of the farmers. Exactly the same problem that saw millions starve in Russia, China and North Korea.
You are right that a changing climate could compound Africa's ag industry a bit, but it's a small hit compared to the violent displacement problem. Also, don't neglect to consider to impact of meaningful CO2 emission restrictions around the globe. A large scale global economic downturn probably means a lot more war, bloodshed, and starvation. If you do not reduce emissions enough to trigger that downturn and instead just 'marginally', you get stuck with both because Africa is still going to see virtually the same climate changes through the next hundred years.

And if you are worried about losing the glaciers in the Himalayas by 2100 there is very good reason to believe that's gonna be alright:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S41/39/84Q12/index.xml?section=topstories

Tags for this video have been changed from 'September 11, 911, Princeton, Roger Nelson, Philosophy, Religion' to 'September 11, 911, Princeton, Roger Nelson, random number generator' - edited by kulpims

To be sure, it does not take "studies" and "experts" to "prove" that smog turns healthy breathable air into unhealthy unbreathable air.

But, again, the consensus among proponents of man-made global warming pretty much all agree that the cause is greenhouse gases. And the consensus is also that cattle accounts for the main source of greenhouse gases. I honestly don't see how anyone concerned with man-made global warming can ignore this and, therefore, not be vegetarian (i.e., be congruent in their behaviors and beliefs).

I recommend reading "Hot Talk, Cold Science", endorsed by respected physicist the late Frederick Seitz, William Harper professor of Physics at Princeton, Richard Lindzen, meteorologist at MIT, written by physicist Fred Singer.

If you want to know where Prof. Singer is coming from, read this (and skeptics are not "deniers"- that's just a slur).

But before you freak out, let me restate, it matters not; clean air is good either way; do things that contribute to clean air (like end the state -- > good luck with that!).

(Better to read and have these discussions with actual working climate scientists than to bother with Internet pundits either way.)

There is also "consensus" as to the three types of "deniers." If anyone calls me a "denier," I'd be curious as to which of the three types of "deniers" you think I belong to (as indicated in the Singer article linked above). And you can then give me your scientific explanations as to why my stance is not valid.

This is something worth keeping in mind (from Singer):

"I have concluded that we can accomplish very little with convinced warmistas and probably even less with true deniers. So we just make our measurements, perfect our theories, publish our work, and hope that in time the truth will out."

The warmistas matter as much as the deniers. And the bottomline remains: what are you going to do about it anyway? As has been shown over and over, your "votes" don't count for much (or anything at all). So, what are you going to do about this (other than fume and get your panties in a twist on videosift)? The same is true with the "deniers." And the skeptics (i.e., true scientists).

Science also doesn't work by consensus. No real scientist will say otherwise. You either prove/falsify some hypothesis or you don't. You don't determine the truth in science by "consensus." Scientific consensus, as has been said, is itself unscientific.

There is no "consensus" on the acceleration speed of falling objects. There is no "consensus" on whether the Earth is orbiting the sun. There is no "consensus" on water being made up of H2O. These you can measure and find out for yourself. (In fact, Galileo had less than 5% "consensus" on whether the Earth orbits the sun at the time of his experiments. Facts matter. "Consensus?" Not so much.)

But,

“If the science were as certain as climate activists pretend, then there would be precisely one climate model, and it would be in agreement with measured data. As it happens, climate modelers have constructed literally dozens of climate models. What they all have in common is a failure to represent reality, and a failure to agree with the other models. As the models have increasingly diverged from the data, the climate clique have nevertheless grown increasingly confident—from cocky in 2001 (66% certainty in IPCC’s Third Assessment Report) to downright arrogant in 2013 (95% certainty in the Fifth Assessment Report).”

Still, this does not in any way equate "denial" of man-made global warming or whatever other "climate change." That is simply an unfounded conflation made up by the propagandists which so many here take on as gospel.

And it still does not let anyone "off the hook" about actually doing something that matters if you care about it so much.

Let me know if anyone finds any "errors" in the science of the NGIPCC articles and studies that I posted above.

"When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

Source: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, Princeton (via Common Dreams).

How depressing...

I guess I should clarify; I think that the pace of our advances is being bottlenecked by our current system because we (as nations) continue to exploit via a relentless focus on profit rather than try to actually spread knowledge and tech as best we can.

A free education system for the world would be incredibly easy to achieve with our current technology, but as nations we don't even try to aim for such a thing. As universities and other education institutions (publishing companies, etc), we have no incentive to truly aim for this in the current paradigm because it reverses profit growth (which, honestly, in the case of education, is pretty much all over-inflated anyway). There's no malicious intent, no conspiracy, and noble goals abound, but we're doing it at a snail's pace out of selfishness.

Individual people act much more nobly than large, well-established institutions. You see a rather strong trend of such large groups behaving closer to the "rational" approach from economic game theory, i.e. the one where self-preservation and gain are maximized first and foremost. If we just rely on our institutions to fix the problems at their root or think that the incidental improvements tied to increased tech and knowledge are being nurtured even half as well as they could be, I think we'd be gravely mistaken.

I think we both ultimately hope for the same outcome, but we clearly disagree on the extent to which our current society(/societies) effectively move towards those outcomes. I would personally like to see us double down on those things that help move us forward.

EDIT: Some examples of ways we're bullshitting ourselves and not doing half as much as we could, for your pleasure.

Princeton University's motto is "In the service of the nation and of all nations" (probably slightly off on the phrasing, sorry), and they have BILLIONS of dollars of endowment. If they and their alumni network took this motto seriously, with their knowledge of business, tech, and science, they could easily bring entire nations out of poverty by simply helping local people adapt tech in sustainable ways to provide food for their population more easily, institute strong education access, and more. Harvard, Oxford, all the other big names are in similar situations. They can do SO MUCH, but just do little projects while answering to their boards about making sure to keep the cash flow positive, keep the endowment growing, keep using alumni donations to pay for things where possible. It's bullshit.

Most large organized religions are also lazy about service. There are many who do seriously just aim at food and medical aid, but most are more interested in conversions and extra tithes than eliminating poverty. How many Christian missionaries of various sects are there around the world? Of them, how many devote their missions to actual service of everyone they can to show their religion through their works as opposed to just focusing on bringing people into the fold via preaching? Additionally, the old "teach a man to fish" concept comes into play here; giving food is good, but we need to be helping people help themselves as well so that they can thrive.

I know shit is very complicated and the answers aren't easy, but we can EASILY do better than this.

According to http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Squirrel.html The word squirrel, first attested in 1327, comes via Anglo-Norman esquirel from the Old French escurel, the reflex of a Latin word sciurus. This Latin word was itself borrowed from Ancient Greek word σκίουρος, skiouros, which means shadow-tailed, referring to the bushy appendage possessed by many of its members.

Seems fine if correct.

And @chingalera you can one i from aluminium. As long as you stay away from silicon .

>> ^shveddy:
@HadouKen24 - All that you say is very dandy and very well may be true, but you'd be shocked at how widespread it is to cling to 19th century literalist beliefs. I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in the US it's remarkably common and even presidential candidates manage to think it despite pursuing the most powerful office in the world. I grew up in a particular Christian denomination, one of hundreds, and we had an official statement of faith that stated the absolute, literal, inerrant nature of the bible. This particular flavor of Christianity has about 3 million adherants, and again, this is only one of hundreds - many of which are even more conservative in their biblical interpretation.
When you say that it has been common for some time to regard sacred texts in a metaphorical sense I think that's definitely true, especially in the case of liberal theologians. However, when you take away the literal interpretations and leave interpretative metaphor all that remains is an interesting and influential piece of literature that has no specific authority. And I think this is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that it lowers it to the same level as Moby Dick, Oedipus, Infinite Jest and Harry Potter - all of which are books that have interesting, moralistic metaphors just like the bible.
Let's face it, religion needs the teeth of absolute truth and the threat of moral superiority to have any privileged relevance over other interesting, moral works. I see neither in any of its texts.
@shinyblurry - Give me a non-macroevolutionary reason that junk mutations in Cytochrome C just happen follow a clear developing and branching pattern that just happens to coincide perfectly with those independently developed by scores of other disciplines (such as embryology, paleontology and so on) as well as those based on hundreds of other non-coding markers (such as viral DNA insertions and transposons, to name a few).
If you can give me an answer that can account for these coincidences, does so without macroevolution, and indicates that you actually took the time to understand the concepts I listed above, then I'll take the time to write a much more exhaustive response as to why you're wrong.


Hmm, your statement is littered with all sorts of inaccurate information.

Okay, first of all, this idea of "junk dna" is dying a slow death:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S24/28/32C04/

Contrary to your assertion, so-called junk dna is functional. And the idea of viral DNA insertions is completely ruled out when this "random" DNA turns out not to be so random after all, and serving very specific purposes. The idea, created in ignorance, exists mainly as a fudge factor for the evolutionary paradigm. The problem for evolutionists is that natural selection cannot produce enough mutations to account for the millions it needs in the 300,000 generations it took for humans to evolve. It's a lot easier to come up those numbers when 95 percent of the genome is "junk".

Second, molecular and morphological phylogenies are often wildly divergent. This is from an Article in nature magazine subtitled:

"Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology. Can the two ever be reconciled, asks Trisha Gura"

"When biologists talk of the ‘evolution wars’, they usually mean the ongoing battle for supremacy in American schoolrooms between Darwinists and their creationist opponents. But the phrase could also be applied to a debate that is raging within systematics. On one side stand traditionalists who have built evolutionary trees from decades of work on species' morphological characteristics. On the other lie molecular systematists, who are convinced that comparisons of DNA and other biological molecules are the best way to unravel the secrets of evolutionary history. . . .

Battles between molecules and morphology are being fought across the entire tree of life. Perhaps the most intense are in vertebrate systematics, where molecular biologists are challenging a tradition that relies on studies of fossil skeletons and the bones and soft tissue of living species. . . .

So can the disparities between molecular and morphological trees ever be resolved? Some proponents of the molecular approach claim there is no need. The solution, they say, is to throw out morphology, and accept their version of the truth. “Our method provides the final conclusion about phylogeny,” claims Okada. Shared ancestry means a genetic relationship, the molecular camp argues, so it must be better to analyse DNA and the proteins it encodes, rather than morphological characters that can end up looking similar as a result of convergent evolution in unrelated groups, rather than through common descent. But morphologists respond that convergence can also happen at the molecular level, and note there is a long history of systematists making large claims based on one new form of evidence, only to be proved wrong at a later date"

They are so divergent that two camps have emerged in systematics, each claiming their phylogenies are more accurate. So your claim that Cytochrome C matches "scores" of different phylogenies is patently false, since hardly any of them agree. If want to say that isn't true, please provide the evidence. Note that "scores" means at least 40.

Third, creation theory predicts a hierarchical pattern, so finding one isn't going to falsify creationism or prove common descent. Especially in the case of the phylogeny of Cytochrome C, which has no intermediates or transitionals to be found. You do also realize that a common design can be explained by a common designer? It could simply be the case that Cytochrome C was tailored for different groups according to individual specifications, which then diverged futher by mutations. If your response is that Cytochrome C functions the same way in all life, my response is that the differences could be for coding other proteins.

Before I go any further, I would ask you to support your claims. Show me the specific data you're talking about so I can rebut it.

Hey dft. Our school recently had a visit from a Princeton psychologist. I chatted to him -- really nice guy -- and it turns out he's publishing a book that I think you might find interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Despite-Itself-System-Shouldnt/dp/0262017237/

Who is the "Kenyawaiian" you mentioned? I'm not sure I follow you.

OH did you mean Obama?? Haha. Hm.. I'm not sure his pro-wall street actions can really qualify him to be a marxists--unless you mean the socialization of private debt...

Then again, I'm not sure that Wall Street really represents a market that is "free and open" to me anymore. It seems like a casino that is controlled or manipulate by a handful of uber-wealthy..

Anyway..

Do you think that the capitalism that is practised now is true capitalism?

I don't think either of us would be happy with pure socialism, but do you think that there are any services should be socialized or government run?

>> ^quantumushroom:

Like most kollijes, princeton has been occupied for decades by lefty goons.
It never gets through to these clowns that risky lending practices were encouraged and then "guaranteed" by the socialists in government (most peeps won't take nearly as many stupid risks when their own money is at stake).
The occupoopers should be protesting in front of the marxist Kenyawaiian's VERY temporary home. He not only siphons enormous amounts of money from Wall Street but then supports these mobs, or claims to. As Trinity said, "That's a nice trick."

Like most kollijes, princeton has been occupied for decades by lefty goons.

It never gets through to these clowns that risky lending practices were encouraged and then "guaranteed" by the socialists in government (most peeps won't take nearly as many stupid risks when their own money is at stake).

The occupoopers should be protesting in front of the marxist Kenyawaiian's VERY temporary home. He not only siphons enormous amounts of money from Wall Street but then supports these mobs, or claims to. As Trinity said, "That's a nice trick."

>> ^Grimm:

First link has no mention regarding "24 out of the 56 signers of the declaration of independence had seminary degrees, and some of them were ministers."
The second link points out that I was correct that the statement is misleading. You are counting anyone that graduated from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as having a "seminary degree".
>> ^shinyblurry:
http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html
http://ourfoundingtruth.blogspot.com/2007/10/founding-fath
ers-considered-clergy.html
>> ^Grimm:
I believe this is misleading...what proof is there of this claim?>> ^shinyblurry:
24 out of the 56 signers of the declaration of independence had seminary degrees, and some of them were ministers.




I'm sure the avatars will change, but right now I'm just loving the dueling Jesii.