Tell me t'shut up will yas???! Clarification, whiny.
I thought Deano was simply unclear due to his recent tenure and connected the stockpiling of points with some bad shit that could be done wit them that I never paid attention to ....My sins were giving to much information and prizes away too carelessly.


Here's an Idea:
The more power points that can be unilaterally collected through repairing dead videos (as I do) and making people happy, well, serves to say that these two activities regularly exercised EFFECT beneficially the experience here and CAUSE people want to smile....so fuck me, I'm a fucking asshole for ranting about fun stuff, kiss my natural white ass and have a nice day

(so is now when I hit the fucking sarchasm button??)

10/10 for trolling. You got me. Responded to my comment where I said, verbatim, "NO ONE IS SUGGESTING THIS," to ask for number-clarification. This put distance between my comment, and then you could accuse me of saying that I think we should do that. Mad props.

Or maybe you weren't trolling. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and very politely explain the discussion, assuming you just forgot.

QM said something silly and hyperbolic:

If the liberal dream of seizing all the wealth of the rich came true (minus, I'm sure, Hollywood weirdos) they'd loot about 250 billion, enough to fund our entire precious thugverment for 10-12 days.

At least get your math right, man. No one is suggesting this, but if you seized 100% of the top 1%'s income, you'd get around $1.2T more from them than now, and that would just about cover 2012's deficit.

And $250B would cover 24 days.

In short, LEARN TO MATH.

Edit: Oh, yeah, and if you took all of the top 1%'s wealth, (which is what *you* said), you'd get $16T, enough to pay off our national debt or fund the federal government for 4-5 years.

Where did you get your figures? I don't believe.

http://videosift.com/video/The-National-Debt-and-Deficit-Deconstructed-Tony-Robbins

Thanks for the clarifications, y'all. Makes sense.

Yeah I don't want gubment coming between me and my feces.>> ^rottenseed:

This is 'Merrikuh...you can do whatever you'd like with the feces you own...unless of course you live in some socialist-commie country like Europe...er...sumthin'>> ^KnivesOut:
When you say "my feces" do you mean feces I created, or just feces that I own?
I would just like a clarification before I vote.

This is 'Merrikuh...you can do whatever you'd like with the feces you own...unless of course you live in some socialist-commie country like Europe...er...sumthin'>> ^KnivesOut:

When you say "my feces" do you mean feces I created, or just feces that I own?
I would just like a clarification before I vote.

When you say "my feces" do you mean feces I created, or just feces that I own?

I would just like a clarification before I vote.

>> ^critical_d:

So...I'm confused and I blame the wine so please be patient.
Should the video submitted make us ache for bygone days with the Sift community or just be nostalgic in general??


You can blame me if you want critical_d ... I read the following as a VS community past kind of thing:

"Share a video that makes you ache for bygone days with the community"


Soooo ... I'm confused too @xxovercastxx

May we get a clarification on this please? I need to know if I should pay more dues =oD

PHPal

No. I'm not going to study theology to help you make your case. Where you show you don't understand science or logic, I try and explain it to you. You are the self-proclaimed god expert in the room, and the one who wants us all to believe what you're saying, so when I ask you a fair question about Yahweh, I expect you to either give me an answer, admit you can't explain it, or accept that your original assertion is false.

"Why did God do X" isn't the right question because it relies on the assumption that God exists and in fact did X. A better question is, "Is it reasonable to believe that a god who does X, Y, and Z exists?"

So yes, you gave me a lot to work with in the sense that you wrote a lot, but the way you write makes it very hard to make connected arguments if I have to come back and ask you for clarifications and detail on your fantastic assertions, and you reply either defensively or with more vague and fantastic assertions. Surely you can put yourself in my shoes and anticipate my questions at least a little bit. Unlike most here, I'm actually trying to understand your point of view, so it's worth using words that I'm more likely to accept.>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^messenger:
@shinyblurry
Please keep in mind when you answer me that I’m not asking you for the details because it’s an interesting story and I want to know all of the lore like a Star Wars fanboy. I’m asking because -- unlike the majority of people you probably speak with -- I’m giving your faith every benefit of the doubt I reasonably can as a rational person. For me to accept the story, it must hold together. For it to hold, all apparent problems must be resolved without relying on tautology.
My main thrust in this particular comment thread is dealing with the issue that for everything that appears impossible or utterly fantastic to me, when I raise it, you explain it, but with something else equally fantastic (Asserting that God has to punish us for our sins is just as fantastical as asserting that God doesn’t want to punish us), so I’m not left understanding things any better. So, I challenge that new thing, and on it goes until you run out of scripture.
Then, although my questions are as valid as before, you have no real answers. At these times you give quasi-answers: you phrase your answers in the passive voice (“…what was required…”); you answer with a leading question that asserts a comparison without your having to say they're equal (“Wouldn’t you…?”), with a rhetorical question (“Could it be that…?”), or a poor analogy rather than a declarative (The King’s law about adultery, or comparing rapists going to prison with lapsed church-goers (one example of a mortal sin) being sent to Hell); or you criticize how I’m thinking (“…instead of trying to constantly falsify it, you might actually try studying what Christian theologians (and not skeptics) have said about it.”; and, “use some common sense”). So my question doesn't get answered.
So, as you're talking to a group of mostly logical, scientific-minded sceptics here, why not frame your answers so they make sense to your audience? Ask yourself the next logical sceptical question that springs from the answer you just gave until you arrive at something that really makes sense.

I gave you quite a bit to work with in my replies. The reason I suggested reading the works of theologians is because they discuss the very things you are inquiring about "Why did God do X?", and that very in depth. These are issues which are not entirely concrete because God does not always tell us why He does "X". Some things can be inferred, some things can be logically deduced, and some things are yet a mystery.

Don't worry, I know that your use of the It Get's Better in your argument had no malicious intent, not even subconscious. I will explain why I was disturbed by it in our monster thread, which I believe is the reason my video didn't make it to Golden #1 (boohoo poor me! ); peeps be scared of walls of text, which usually signify "much seriousyness going on here".
In reply to this comment by ReverendTed:
In my latest post to the Abortion Discussion Megathread, I asked for clarification on your objection to my "It Gets Better" reference, however uncomfortable that might be for both of us.
While going through random videos looking for ones to length, dead, and thumbnail, the sidebar for "Newest Controversy Talk Posts" produced what looks like an answer.

I'm assuming (since you asked me to work it out for myself), that the charge is perpetuating homophobic culture with the tone of my reference. Essentially, that my crass tone wasn't attacking the absurdity of homophobia (funny jokes), but was presented as tacitly accepting of a culture that is oppressive to LGBT, and implicitly suggestive that the problem isn't that culture, but the sensitivity of LGBT youth to criticism (destructive).

If so, then I hope what little you know of me is enough to recognize this was absolutely not my intent. As I mentioned above, I had already posted that reply before coming across your (rather insightful) Sift Talk post.

In my latest post to the Abortion Discussion Megathread, I asked for clarification on your objection to my "It Gets Better" reference, however uncomfortable that might be for both of us.
While going through random videos looking for ones to length, dead, and thumbnail, the sidebar for "Newest Controversy Talk Posts" produced what looks like an answer.

I'm assuming (since you asked me to work it out for myself), that the charge is perpetuating homophobic culture with the tone of my reference. Essentially, that my crass tone wasn't attacking the absurdity of homophobia (funny jokes), but was presented as tacitly accepting of a culture that is oppressive to LGBT, and implicitly suggestive that the problem isn't that culture, but the sensitivity of LGBT youth to criticism (destructive).

If so, then I hope what little you know of me is enough to recognize this was absolutely not my intent. As I mentioned above, I had already posted that reply before coming across your (rather insightful) Sift Talk post.

@ReverendTed
Many issues to address here, but first, some clarifications. My analogies (wonky as they are) were to point out the immorality of the “you’ve got to live with the consequences” stance, they were not about who’s harmed. But speaking of harm, it would be more ethical to let the two analogical characters “suck it up” than to demand of a woman she bring an unwanted pregnancy to term. In the first cases, there is only one victim, but in the latter there are two. When I say abortion is “punishment enough”, what I mean is that it is already a disagreeable outcome of mistake-making/poor-choice-making, while obliging a woman to give birth to (and raise) an unwanted child not only negatively affects the mother’s life, but that of the child as well; it is a disproportionate price to pay for the former and completely unfair for the latter. Hence, imo, abortion is by far the lesser of two “evils”.

Adoption instead of abortion is “a non-solution and worse” for several reasons. First, there are already more than enough children already alive who need parents, and you know very well that most people prefer making their own than adopting, so many of these will never have a family (not to mention the often inferior care-giving in foster homes and social centres). Now imagine that every abortion is replaced with a child given up for adoption; can you not see the horror? It’s that many more neglected lives, not to mention the overall problem of overpopulation.

I’m going to go on a slight tangent, but a relevant one. I have a certain amount of experience with humanitarian aid in Africa, and one thing that causes me no end of despair is the idiotic, selfish way much of it is performed. Leaving aside corruption, proselytization, etc., the “West” pours food and medicine into Africa with that whole “life is sacred” “feed the poor” mentality – good intentions of course – but with disastrous results because education and contraception (not to mention abortion) are almost always left out, even discouraged, with the support of the usual religious suspects (remember the pope on condoms causing aids?). The result is simple, and simply appalling: despite aid and funds increasing globally every year, starvation and child mortality continue to rise. Why? Because the people being barely maintained keep making kids who grow up to starve and die in turn, instead of focusing on the education of one or two children to get them out of the vicious cycle (there is another argument to be made about the education of women, but I’m ranting enough as is).

The point of this digression is to show that the non-pragmatic “all life is sacred” stance is terribly counter-productive, and the same holds for abortion (viz: on adoption above). As for lack of pragmatism, the same goes for your comment on abstinence:
I appreciate that "don't have sex if you can't accept being pregnant" is not a magical incantation that makes people not have sex, but it has to be a part of it, because no method of contraception is 100% effective, even if used correctly.
What you’re saying basically is “people shouldn’t have sex unless they’re ready for childbearing/-raising”, which is absurd when one considers human nature and human relations.

All of the above arguments weigh into the question of the “ball of cells” vs “human being/identity”. The “sacred life” stance is one of quantity over quality, and in the long run devalues human life altogether. To quote Isaac Asimov on overpopulation: “The more people there are the less one individual matters”. In the abortion debate, what we have is one side so intent on protecting the abstract “life” that they disregard the lives of the two individuals in question, namely the “individual who is” (the mother) and the “individual who might be” (the child). The former is already a human individual, with memories, relationships, a personality, etc. The latter is not. The abortion question takes into account the future quality of life not only of the mother but of the would-be child as well, something the anti-abortion stance does not. Abortion doesn’t end an individual’s life, it prevents a ball of cells from becoming one. Here is where the religious aspect is crucial, because while embryologists see a complex mass of cells with no capacity for cognition/sensation, superstitious people assign an individual “consciousness” or “soul” to it, thus making abortion feel like murder instead of like the removal of a tumour. The question of potential is an emotionally manipulative one that does not hold up to criticism, because as @packo sarcastically (and the Monty Python brilliantly ) point out, you can go a long ways up the stream of potential.

I like the first half of @gorillaman’s tomato analogy for that reason (the second half is hyperbolic absurdity), that it underlines what is important in the debate: the living “thing”’s capacity for sensation/cognition/interaction. If you grew up with a tumour on your body which giggled when you tickled it and cried when you hit it, you would probably think twice before getting rid of it. That does not mean I’m categorically against late-term abortions, but for me the scale seriously tips between the 20-25th weeks when the nervous system of the foetus centralises. Of course, it is preferable that should an abortion take place it would be before the foetal stage, for the sake of medical and psychological comfort, but unfortunately one cannot always know so soon that one is pregnant.

I guess that is because they look at it as a temporary diet (Yoyo dieting) and not a change in their diet for the rest of their lives... I'm a (self-described) "carbaholic" and as such when I "fall of the wagon" I eat carbs like nobodies business (as in 4 doughnuts, a pound of chocolate, about a gallon of soda and energy drinks, 3-6 candy bars and ~2 pounds of assorted pick-and-mix candy every single day). As it is now I will never return to a carb heavy diet because I cannot handle it, in the same way that an alcoholic can't handle drinking just one beer. And not to go all Ad-Hominem on you but as an MD you are specialised on disease and not health.

I recommend that you look at this page as it has 17 links to 17 RCT studies on the effects of LCHF diets.

Also from the mayo clinic which I assume is a pretty good source: "There have been a number of studies comparing weight loss with these two types of diets [LCHF/HCLF - My clarification]. In general, low-carb diets may result in a little more weight loss in the first 3 to 6 months. However, after 1 to 2 years there isn't much difference. What's interesting is that the amount of weight loss varies widely among people following either diet. So which type of diet you choose may matter less than whether you stick to it."
On an LCHF diet where you are full all and have a stable blood sugar level all the time it is a lot easier to stay on the diet and not splurge... (Kind of an anecdote... see my previous post in this thread)

Also some more science posts here
1 LCHF vs. HCLF diet (I recommend reading all of it)
2 (A full text from 2002 that might not be available for all [I logged on my Uni resources to search databases for the it] and it is a decade old but still a bit interesting. Name of the study is: Very-low-carbohydrate weight-loss diets revisited. Authors: Volek JS; Westman EC in case you need to search for it on Google scholar or the like)
3 Long term (1 year +) effects

I'm drunk right now so can't be arsed to find more sources.. it is Friday Damn it!!


>> ^DocDarm:

>> ^pyloricvalve:
In "Why we get fat", Gary Taubes argues very persuasively that the above is almost entirely wrong. Increasing exercise will have have the effect of increasing hunger or reducing your activity at other times through tiredness. Eating less will likewise reduce your activity level or lead to levels of hunger that are intolerable in the long term. The way to lose weight according to him is the Atkins, South Beach, Primal method of reducing sugar and carb intake to something very low. Personally I found it very convincing and I strongly recommend the book.

As a medical doctor, I call bullshit on this guy. Look at Atkins/South Beach's effect on peoples weight 1 year AFTER the diet. I see people go on diets all the time. They almost universally fail after 1 year. (Remember, we're talking about LONG-TERM weight loss, not SHORT-TERM weight loss...Atkins/South Beach perform very well in the short term!) My patients that go to the gym to lose weight do much, much better....but only if they KEEP going to the gym.

Only one clarification - life begins after your first joint.

I had to look up the "We oppose the teaching of...critical thinking skills." bit.

"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

But they do support beating snot-nosed punks at least...
"Classroom Discipline –We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. Corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas."

But damn it, they want to illegalize pornography, this cannot stand!
"Addictive Behaviors – We encourage state and federal governments to severely prosecute illegal dealers and manufacturers of addictive substances and pornography. We urge Congress to discourage import of such substances into our country. Faith based rehabilitation programs should be emphasized. We oppose legalization of illicit drugs. We support an effective abstinence-based educational program for children. We oppose any “needle exchange” program. We urge vigorous enforcement of our DUI laws."

Anyway, even if they didn't mean to include the words "critical thinking skills", they still don't want people to have the ability to reevaluate fixed-beliefs. Which require critical thinking skills. Damn, they accidentally said what they meant.