You didn't understand my post, and I can't be bothered to explain something that's not simple to someone who doesn't have any desire to learn. Sorry.

Your post was very simplistic..you propose an argument that we will eventually know everything (or rule god out) because science has explained things people use to think God directly inspired..which is false..science has not ruled out a supernatural causation for natural phenomena..we may know some of the ways but not the means

You then further try to say an infinite universe and a supernatural Creator are somehow logically equivilent ideas because they can both solve a particular problem, which is patently false, but of course this is what intellectually dishonest people do when they conduct their argument through ad homs. I advanced the questions I did as being fundemental to understanding life, which they are, and they are ones science knows nothing about. You go on to say I should "read a book". Well, I think that's a great idea and I recommend you do the same..specfically one on antisocial personality disorder.

Read Dawkins, instead of reading people quote-mining (or "summarizing") him. If you have read Dawkins, you haven't understood anything (at all). No way around that, sorry.

I did read dawkins, specifically his abominable God delusion where the idea is postulated that any appearance of design can be explained away by multiple universes. Of course, no word on where all those multiple universes come from, but that's the fun of science. You can postulate any lunatic theorum and cover it under an avalanche of imaginary "data" based entirely on speculation and conjecture. Then of course any ignoramous will buy it because science said it was true.

It will almost certainly happen in our lifetimes (assuming you're under 50) that people create life starting with inorganic chemicals. Will that change your mind at all? Of course not. How could it, when your belief system wasn't founded on reason to begin with? And, as before, there are already interesting ideas for how the first life could have formed. You may not find them credible (and certainly none has compelling evidence yet), but they're not metaphysical. But even if there was credible ideas it wouldn't matter to you, really, would it? Of course not, just move them goalposts.

They are entirely metaphysical, ie taken on faith. Evolution and abiogenesis are not testable theories. The mechanism of natural selection is not proven, and cannot even begin to account for the complexity of life. These theories have been elevated as some sort of unquestionable absolute that dogmatic materialists (and undoubtably secular humanists) take on faith, while pointing to pseudo-scientific research as science fact. As if somehow the methodology of scientific inquiry was respresentitive of the limits of reality itself. As far as abiogenesis is concerned, what was once a marxist wet dream hasn't moved one inch away from the sad experiments conducted in the 60s when they electrocuted pea soup. The theories it was based on have been entirely falsified. Abiogenesis is dead in the water, literally, and just wishing it was true isn't going to make it happen.

I guess add probability and infinity to the list of things you have no idea about. In short, yes those monkeys would - and we could make detailed predictions about how long it would likely take to get a sonnet, a play, or the entire collection. It would take a very, very long time for that last one obviously, but it would happen. Want to dispute that? Don't tell me about it. Again, I can't be bothered to teach you things you aren't interested in learning. Idiot.

lol, your entire post is just riddled with ad homs and childish conclusions with no supporting evidence. You have failed to prove that you know anything what so ever..extended diatribes and assertions of knowledge a counter-argument does not make. The probability of any of that ever happening in the timeline of the Universe is null and void. The odds of anything as complicated as a cell or dna arising from random mutation is expodentially less. The mechanism is completely unproven. Much like your presumption of superior knowledge.

you want a more detailed treatment of all this related stuff, Dawkins has written books that are easy to understand (very "pop science" level) that go over all this very clearly. At least by reading a couple you'd understand the other side (which you clearly, clearly do not at this point).

But if you don't want to know, just keep getting your stupid information and talking points from wherever the hell you're getting them now and go back under your rock.

read dawkins? He may be a passable biologist, but beyond that, its completely amatuer hour. Now that I know where you are getting your information from, I can understand why you think that using personal attacks is a demonstration of intellect. Have you ever had an original thought in your life? Lets see you flex this intellectual muscle you are bragging about...

@messenger

1. Yes, if speaking English is the path toward success, reading a prepared statement in English after living here for 20 years is a prosocial obligation both toward the larger society and toward his own subculture. (That's assuming the good of anyone beyond ourselves matters at all.)

2a. Yes, any American can do whatever he wants, even if it's antisocial and anti-success, but if that's the case, the good of society probably no longer matters.

2b. Asking a 20 year resident to read his prepared statements in the language of success (he can do this) doesn't seem comparable to the things you described.

1) Does limiting or increasing supply/availability affect demand?

2) Which is more expensive:
- Legal: Tax revenue - (Cost of Antisocial behaviour (due to lowered inhibitions) + health system costs)
- Illegal: No Reveune - (Enforcement cost + Increased crime from criminal group revenue)


As with Alcohol and Tobacco... The best strategy to stop people doing it is to allow it, tax it, and use the revenue to persuade / convince people to do it less.

Otherwise your literally converting the social and medical cost to law enforcement and corrections and probably magnifying the cost along the way.

>> ^robbersdog49:

I went to a school where bullying was just a fact of life. The normal advice you got was to stand up to bullies. It doesn't work. This video is a real one off. If this had happened at my school the big kid who stepped up at 0:27 would have kicked the shit out of the fat kid.


Exactly so. Forget everything you know (or think you know) about why kids bully. We used to think that it was insecure kids seeking to tear down kids that are even MORE insecure, and that the bullying was a consequence of problems at home, etc.

The problem was that all the federal dollars that went towards studying the problem looked at juvenile delinquents, who, as you might imagine, have messed up home lives and self-esteem issues. Even though all the populations studied were far from random, the view that bullies have antisocial tendencies predominated.

Then Columbine happened. Despite what you might think of Kleibold and Harris, they were in fact bullied, and not by kids from broken homes. The people who tormented them were from upper middle class homes with two parents and no problems. Suddenly the federal dollars manifested to study ALL children, and they discovered something astonishing (tho not to someone who'd ever been bullied):

Bullies bully because it works. And we teach them this at a very early age. How? Imagine one of those "paygrounds," with the ball pit and the curvy slides. A team studies literally thousands of interactions between children and their peers via closed circuit cameras. They watched as children who did not know one another navigated the various social networks that would form and dissolve in front of their eyes. From time to time, a kid would get socially aggressive, and the other child would seek succor from an adult. Now the adult probably has the belief that "they have to work it out for themselves," and so must make a choice between intervening and not. Otherwise, children learn to 'tattle', to recruit a heavy (in the form of an adult) to get his or her way, right.

So, out of, say, ten of these instances, how many times has the aggrieved child made an earnest effort to negotiate on a peer level, and actually needs an adult for intervention? 1 time? Half the time? Try 9 times out of ten. And almost always, the adult rebuffs the child. So this teaches the socially aggressive child that he or she can do whatever he or she pleases, and no one will come to the aid of their victim. Welcome to the Serengeti, children. It's as if we never left.

So what's to be done? As a teacher, I've thought about it a lot. First, I ALWAYS intervene. This means that 10% of the time, I fall for sheer crap-weasel-ness, but that only works once. If another intervention is needed, I keep an eye on the petitioner, and if he or she's becoming an instigator, it's time for a little time out, usually with no explanation (until after class is over). The next is to muck with the social dynamic. I control the environment in the room, not the students. They can interact with each other as much as they want, but I control all the mundane things that add up to so much in the long run.

What this kid was demonstrating in this video was the Ender Wiggins's School of Social Dynamism, which is that if you show yourself capable of great rage that can be tightly controlled, people will give you a wide berth. Is it right? I don't know how long the bullying had occurred, nor what measures had been instituted to resolve the problem. If it's the average American school, 1) too long, and 2) not enough.

Oh, and don't forget the role of the other crap-weasels in this video--the instigators with the cameraphone. Like the now infamous Epic Old Man video, the 'videographer' talked a lot of smack, and failed to help in any way. They too need to be punished for aiding to an atmosphere where such an outcome was likely. Luckily, someone was stupid enough to make a recording of exactly what they were saying.

Agreed, 100%. They've done this before, as an "antisocial experiment". @dag or @lucky760, could one of you unhobble him, please?>> ^campionidelmondo:

See I told you guys to pay more attention to those two before they start play-acting again.

I'm far too antisocial to be one of those who would join in, or high-five the guy, but I love what he did with this video. I have my moments of insanity^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hthinking differently, where I've done some stuff like this. It's great to see a full 'product' of it. Thank you for sharing this video!

[redacted]

[redacted]

Have you been to or around any public schools lately?

Mainstream urban US public education is more the antithesis of what you describe. Antisocial behavior is rampant. Team building and problem solving...for some, for the most part,... walk and look around the cities,...workplaces for that matter. Incapability and disfunction are too well represented. Public schools are, too often, holding pens and clearing houses. I know and have talked to a number of educators. I have known a number of others, even a few that were functionally illiterate in highly rated schools.

Unbelievable horror stories. The seventh largest school district in the US and high school classrooms with 35 to 40 seats and 70-80 students sharing 30 odd books. That qualifies as teamwork and problem solving. I have known university graduates that could not spell much less write a sentence or a paragraph. Functionally illiterate from a major university with BBA's and such.

Is it proposed that exposure to every manner of behavioral expression, to put it euphemistically, is necessary to prepare one for the personal and interpersonal demands of life? Is it a given that those homeschooled live in a vacuum? Who should be the arbiter(s) of one's progeny's social, ideological, etc., etc., exposure and orientation? Personally, I would welcome that there were viable, wholesome, comprehensive, competent....

As to the characterizations that religious zealots comprises the preponderance of homeschool parents, it is over done. People that have the means, fiscally and personally, to devote their lives for the duration of a child's education period to provide the best, most solid and grounded framework for their progeny's foundation of knowledge in this difficult life are to be respected...revered. It is a remarkable and largely selfless sacrifice.
>> ^RedSky:

I mean more the sense of character it develops, ie resolving conflict, standing your own ground, working in teams, basically the kind of attitude that allows you to survive in a dog eat dog world. You could say that being home schooled still allows you to socialise and develop these same skills, but compared to the kids who spend 6 and a half hours, 5 days a week doing it at the least, they'll still be at a disadvantage.

i feel the need to defend thinkers honor on this one.
1. he wasn't drunk
2. the comments in question were made to me after i explicitly told him what to say. it was an antisocial social experiment perpetrated by 2 insomniacs. and it was hilarious. even if we were the only ones laughing. it was our dark comedic satire at a time of high drama on the sift, calling out the absurdity of 3rd parties getting involved in personal spats. oooh... much like this post right here!!!!

"this person did this to this person! my first and most logical course of action is to create a sift talk post so we can all publicly chide the offender and speculate on his motives!!! and suggest the appropriate punishment and reprimand!! this is why i am on the internet!!!"

>> ^qualm:

It's a bit ironic to see thinker47 talk of immaturity. I'm sure everyone remembers when thinker247 left all of those drunken posts on VS that were full of such abusive anti-woman language that even Mel Gibson would shake his head.

I've had a reasonable amount of experience with autism-spectrum disorders. I have a brother (adopted) about 16 years younger than me that has been diagnosed with PDD "Pervasive Developmental Disorder", an autism variant. I have a cousin diagnosed with Aspergers, on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of high vs. low functioning or however you want to politically-correctify that.

And then there is me, personally. I think that if I was born and growing up now instead of late Gen-X / early Gen-Y, I would probably be diagnosed with mild Aspergers. I was never very socially adept, I had obsessions more than an average kid, etc. The Aspergers kids that I know now remind me a lot of myself at their age.

I accept that Aspergers is a real thing, but to me it seems a LOT more nebulous than the opposite end of the autism spectrum. What I mean is, it is easy for me to analyze myself as being fairly asocial (different than antisocial, I think) and nerdy, but not necessarily clinically asocial and nerdy. The kids I know that have been diagnosed with Aspergers seem to be perhaps a little more pronounced in their display of "symptoms" than I was (/am?), but not to a great degree.

I guess it just seems like sometimes we're in a scramble to classify and diagnose "disorders" that lie not all that far away from the meaty area of the bell curve. Can't a nerdy kid just be nerdy? It worked OK for me.

There are beliefs which are shared pretty laterally across cultures. Human rights, fairness, compassion.

It always strikes me how odd and isolated it is that only the US clings to gun ownership with such passion.
The rest of the world that is modern and stable has accepted that owning guns generally leads to shooting them at people. Pretty antisocial & harmful.

But for some reasons in the US alone, people are both patriotically proud of their government... and desperately so afraid of it that they fear, without a gun the govt will round them up and enslave them. Or the godless neighbors will come rape their women.

So... do you trust your government or not? Is the bill of rights and constitution protecting your freedom? or is America a lawless hell where you need a gun to survive?

thanks-have a blast with the freshen-up with a view to personalizing, in yer new space...hope you haven't bit off more than you can chew without feeling like yer gonna be camping out innit for the next couple a' years
Is it over 60 yrs old and built like a brick shit house??...That's what i picture you an yers in...
In reply to this comment by arvana:
Fixed! Thanks for pointing it out. Things are good, I've been a bit antisocial on the site lately, just moved into a new house that needs a lot of work. Glad you're back though!

In reply to this comment by choggie:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Terrence-McKenna-on-The-Shamen-acid-track#comment-927274

I could not find a fix..How's tricks Tantraman??

>> ^RedSky:
I can't over just how hilariously disinterested the presenter appears to be.

Hey, he's a software guy. Being antisocial is part of the package. Don't hold it against us.

Join us http://www.videosift.com/talk/Do-you-play-WoW

In reply to this comment by mintbbb:
I used to play a LOT of EQ. First few years just soloing, then I got sucked into raiding with my Shadowknight.. Ugh. 4..5..6+ hours every night, about 7 nights a week. Talk about addiction.. It was fun getting flagged for Time. After that, it just sucked and I should have stopped when it stopped being fun and was more like a task. Eventually I got the picture.. get out while you are still sane!!

ANYWAY: I am better now I am playing a lot of WOW, but just doing antisocial soloing and lots of tradeskills. I have 2 level 80s and a half a dozen 60+ levels and all tradeskill to +400 levels, a bunch to 450. Yes, I play a lot, but I am not obsessed and I can take a day, or a week or two off whenever I feel like not playing.

Obviously I get addicted to things very easily.. like to EQ and VS.. I start, and I feel like I need to be the best! It took a while to see I don't really need to do that.. I can be good without being obsessed I love this place, but I really, really needed to slow down.

One day, I might be cured. If not, oh well..