>> ^lucky760:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
I'm very glad that the community that I choose to associate with doesn't approve of watching people die.

That's a very nice sentiment and one that I share with you. I have always appreciated that every time I open a horrific video here, there's comfort in being able to presume that as disturbing as it may be, the people involved all survived. This is something many people take for granted or just don't care about, but it's something I value highly about VideoSift.


Well I'd just like to point out that a number of the videos I linked in a previous post, near all if not all of them depict(ed) scenes where people were dieing. Many if you follow them to their source have stories about how many died in the accident/event being shown in the video. I do not think the shuttle or WTC footage should be removed, but it does show scenes were people did not survive. And the building burning shows the fire that ended up killing 100+ people when it was all over.

Beyond the clear newsworthy events (WTC, Space Shuttle) what makes the other videos suitable? The soldiers peeing on corpses is much more graphic and in your face with the death aspect than this video is, since you can see the act happening with the corpses (hopefully dead at this point...hopefully) in view of the camera.

I just want some kind of acknowledgement that putting a news reporter before this video would not change the content of the video. Or a ticker bar at the bottom.....or a watermark in the video......the contents and happenings of the video would remain the same.

I see the plane crash video I linked to as exactly like this video. The person flying either had a hardware failure or mistake that caused him to nose dive into the ground. You know he died either on impact or shortly after. The only difference is one is a plane and one is a car. I know we can all put ourselves in the driver's seat of a car, but we can set ourselves apart from piloting due to lack of experience. This may account for the notation on this video, I want to identify whatever it is that this video has that set it apart from the others.

The police shootings are in the same scenario, but most us aren't cops. But most of them show poor choices that led up to it, and maybe we feel we wouldn't make those choices as a rational person...so the video is OK because it demonstrates a level of behavior that will result in your death that none of us feel we will reach. A car crash accident is not left up to willful choice in most cases.

>> ^oritteropo:

No dupe here. This vid includes part of the other one, but it's mainly about the news anchors. This would not be a suitable backup for the other.
>> ^youdiejoe:
sorry y'all it's a dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Giant-Spider-Attacks-Space-Shuttle



Ditto. Love the ending!!

No dupe here. This vid includes part of the other one, but it's mainly about the news anchors. This would not be a suitable backup for the other.

>> ^youdiejoe:

sorry y'all it's a dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Giant-Spider-Attacks-Space-Shuttle

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Giant-Spider-Attacks-Space-Shuttle

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by Sylvester_Ink. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

sorry y'all it's a *dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Giant-Spider-Attacks-Space-Shuttle

The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science.

I'll have to disagree with you here. To say the evidence for a creator is just filling in the gaps isn't true when it is a better explanation for the evidence. Take DNA, for instance. DNA is a complex coded language which contains grammar, syntax, phoenetics, etc There is no naturalistic explanation that can account for it; DNA is information, and information only comes from minds. The medium doesn't matter. Just as a message transcends the paper and ink it is written in, and just as you can write that message in the sand and has no loss of data, DNA is transcendent of its medium. A designer is a better explanation for the existence of DNA. Check out this article:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3040594/The-Linguistics-of-DNA-Words-Sentences-Grammar-Phonetics-and-Semantics

What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.

That is just a fallacy, though. Just because people used "God did it" as an explanation for things we know understand in more detail is not evidence against the existence of God. It is just evidence for the ignorance of people. Christians aren't against science. I am against things which aren't science, like things which have never been observed and are untestable, like macro evolution.

Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.

Science does a lot of guessing. This is why theories have changed so many times in the last few centuries. Not too long ago, science was certain the Universe was static and eternal. It was one of the evidences that atheists would use against Creationists. Now, we know the Universe had a definitive beginning. The scientist who discovered said that there is no other theory which lends itself so well to the creation account in Genesis.

My main point is that science has nothing to say about the existence of God. It is not anything it can prove or disprove. God is a spirit, and a spirit is an immaterial being. There is no empirical evidence for something immaterial.

However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.

Again, intelligent design is a better explanation than natural selection by random mutation for a number of things. When darwinian theory was created, the cell was thought to be a simple ball of protoplasm. We now know the cell is more complex than the space shuttle, by an order of magnitude. There is no naturalistic process which can account for the existence of this complex and intricate nano-machinery. Just because you consider it "bullshit" doesn't make it so. The Universe has the appearance of design. There are 30 or so factors in physics which have to be precisely calibrated for the Universe to even form correct, let alone for life to develop. The odds of this happeneing by chance are beyond calculation. Instead of admitting that and changing the theory, scientists then postulate multiple Universes to make the design features in this one seem plausible as happenstance.

Here is a nice video on the complexity of the cell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSasTS-n_gM&feature=related

If you want to talk about radiocarbon dating, this again is something which is an interpretation of evidence based on a number of unprovable assumptions. It presumes that radioactive decay rates have remained constant in the past and that there was no contamination over periods of millions or billions of years. Check out this article:

http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/fatal-flaw-radioactive-dating/

I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?

I am relying on my own experience, and in my experience I have observed that the material reality is a veil, and behind that veil is a spiritual reality which encompasses it. I have seen the evidence of a higher power working in the world, who relates to us on a personal level. I believe the bible because my experience confirms it, not because I just assume it is true.

Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

When you have faith in metaphysical claims, and that faith informs your entire worldview, that is indeed like a religion. What you are seeing is through the lens of that worldview..

>> ^Quboid:
I haven't seen any good evidence for Christianity. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of God. The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science. What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.
Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.
However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.
I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?
Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

Ooooohhhhh...

http://shop.videosift.com/product/Jr-Astronaut-Orange-Kid

Very cool!

But why is it that the kids get the cool shit like this??? Dammit..I wanna be a space shuttle pilot for Halloween!!!

>> ^critical_d:

dead


Thanks and fixed!

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^Yogi:
I'm all for science and funding it in order to move our species forward. But we don't get to do it as long as there is a child still hungry or dying in our country from something easily preventable.

By this logic we should never have funded Polio research, as there were still children who were hungry or dying in our country from things that were easily preventable.


If you choose to follow it absurdly than yes. The Shuttle program hasn't saved our lives or improved our living conditions. Is that logic easier?

>> ^Yogi:

I'm all for science and funding it in order to move our species forward. But we don't get to do it as long as there is a child still hungry or dying in our country from something easily preventable.


By this logic we should never have funded Polio research, as there were still children who were hungry or dying in our country from things that were easily preventable.

>> ^Yogi:

I'm all for science and funding it in order to move our species forward. But we don't get to do it as long as there is a child still hungry or dying in our country from something easily preventable.


The U.S. spent ~$70 billion on science funding in 2010. In the same year, it spent nearly 10 times that much on the military. Tell me which is more likely to prevent a child dying from hunger or disease.

Granted, the space program probably* won't do much in that regard, but how about they cut NASA's paltry 18 billion out of the military budget and see what they can do with that?

* and here's the thing. We really don't know what will come out of research until we do it.

>> ^Yogi:

If it doesn't help us it is a waste of money. We need answers to serious questions not expensive ways to get pilots who call themselves astronauts laid.


I agree, but there are other reasons to spend money on it than the furtherment of science.

Even if you completely discount "keeping the dream alive", most of the Solar System's natural resources are located outside of Earth's orbit. Humanity would also be well served by having some permanent, self-sustaining environment to live in that's not on Earth, just in case.

None of those are scientific reasons to invest money, but they're not a waste just because it's not science, either.

Tyson was saying that too, as far as I could tell.

>> ^NetRunner:

I get that this was a segment taken from a longer conversation, but I come away from this having no idea what his position on the manned space program was.
Yes, the manned program isn't, and never was really about science. Wasn't that always obvious? Especially in the 60's and 70's, we were calling it the "Space Race", and only just barely shying away from openly calling it a front in the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
But I'd like to know, does he think we're better off without it than with it? I get the impression he thinks the manned program was a waste of time and money from this clip.
He's no Carl Sagan if he thinks that!


If it doesn't help us it is a waste of money. We need answers to serious questions not expensive ways to get pilots who call themselves astronauts laid.

>> ^spaceman:

Every time I watch one Neil's videos I learn something. He is really a great speaker and scientist. Makes me happy


Yeah, I agree 100%. Neil deGrasse Tyson is really turning into the Carl Sagan of a new generation. This guy should be everywhere.