Probability is notoriously counterintuitive. The Monty Hall problem is a good example of that. The math doesn't lie, though!

I haven't read anything on individualism being a root cause of poverty. I did a quick google search and found a couple things. One is the idea of "survival of the fittest", that those in poverty do it to themselves, and it's the individualist ideology that tells everyone "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and as a result those who cannot receive no help. Is that the complaint against individualism?

If so, I completely understand that a self-centric position on society would most likely create an environment where poverty could easily manifest and consume the less-to-do of society. I do think some will allow it to happen to them, while others will resist but their current station in life (specifically class) won't allow them to escape poverty. A couple bad financial decisions and the banks won't make it easier on you. The poor are usually in the financial position where they receive higher interest rates they cannot afford, while the well off with good credit receive lower intrest rates. It seems unfair.

I do believe charitable actions would be higher in an individualist society. We already live in a nanny state which is counter to the individualist society. Sure, the majority of spending tends to go to defense spending, but that doesn't mean we don't currently have excessive social programs already in place to catch the fringe of society. And still we have poverty. Lots of it.

What happened? The government has its hands deeply embedded in the private economy, and restrictions and regulations are steep for startup entrepreneurs, while the larger corporations enjoy crony-capitalism. Translation: regulations and restrictions create a tilted playing field where larger corporations can easily succeed with less competition, thus less jobs are created by budding entrepreneurs. So the number of workers goes up while the number of job creators goes down. Eventually we could all be working for the big corporations, and with less competition they could lessen benefits such as health or vacation pay, they could easily lower wages, and they could then extend the expected work week from 40 hours to something like 100 hours. If that sounds farfetched, I can tell you from first hand experience I've seen this exact thing happen to an industry I know very well. And when I say big corporations, I mean major parent companies that buy large businesses. For instance, let's take the advertising industry. One parent company could own almost all of the major companies in that industry, so if you complain about the 100 hour work week and loss of vacation benefits, your chances of receiving another job in that industry are cut to almost zero. I've seen it. And they do illegal shit like tell women not to get pregnant.

This kind of corporatist entitlement is bad. And we got here through regulations, through a regimented government nanny system that is counterintuitive to free markets. And this makes it very hard on people to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", which is what all individualists claim to want of people around them. How can you pull yourself up when you're essentially a slave to corporations? I don't know. But it's not getting better. The nanny system, in my opinion, is making it worse. The more we ask for, the less we get. And I say this because I see a very real connection between system created to help us (welfare) and regulations that help big business. I see it as being connected. Poverty perpetuated by big business and bankers.

If we could peel back the regulations and restrictions on industry, we would see a growth of jobs. We'd see a decline in corporate dominance. Most restrictions or regulations are created to stifle competition, not help the consumer, mind you. From there, I'd like to think people would generally do better, have better lives, and contribute charitably to others. Poverty will never be stricken from the planet, but we certainly could do more to help those in our community. That's where it starts. And when people feel they pay into a nanny system, they feel less generous to help those in front of them. I know, I see it every damn day in LA.

*dupeof=

Sorry...but this is a *dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Immigration-by-the-Numbers-Counterintuitive

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

Oh look!
dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Immigration-by-the-Numbers-Counterintuitive
(no star cos I am powerless )

>> ^Jinx:

I mean no offence to the OP, but if you don't know anything about the way the Towers were built and the reason for their eventual collapse then why do you think your opinion holds any weight? The official line, which is backed up by god knows how many engineers and demo experts seems plausible to me. Even if it did seem counterintuitive to me, I'd still just assume its because I am basically ignorant of how massive structures fall. Those towers aren't built out of Jenga blocks...
As for the whole conspiracy theory thing...Occam's Razer bro. I don't doubt the US govt has hid much from the public regarding 9/11, but I don't believe anybody could orchestrate the destruction of the twin towers to conveniently pin it on the Saudis, especially since the US did their damndest to swing the blame on Iraq. I can't see a motive, and I sure as hell can't see a means and I don't see any evidence. All I see is such a deep destrust of government. Simplest explanation wins.


From reading the thread, it apeared that he was unfamiliar with the details of the NIST report. It is counter intuitive that a building struck on the side would fall in its own footprint ( as any Jinga players would know), if one wasn't familiar with the finders in the report. I, too, didn't take the story on face value until I learned of the unique conditions of the towers. Wisdom comes from asking questions.

I mean no offence to the OP, but if you don't know anything about the way the Towers were built and the reason for their eventual collapse then why do you think your opinion holds any weight? The official line, which is backed up by god knows how many engineers and demo experts seems plausible to me. Even if it did seem counterintuitive to me, I'd still just assume its because I am basically ignorant of how massive structures fall. Those towers aren't built out of Jenga blocks...

As for the whole conspiracy theory thing...Occam's Razer bro. I don't doubt the US govt has hid much from the public regarding 9/11, but I don't believe anybody could orchestrate the destruction of the twin towers to conveniently pin it on the Saudis, especially since the US did their damndest to swing the blame on Iraq. I can't see a motive, and I sure as hell can't see a means and I don't see any evidence. All I see is such a deep destrust of government. Simplest explanation wins.

Homeschooled children in the United States reached 1.5 million in 2007. This represents a 74% increase from the 1999, inception of record keeping, figures of the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics(NCES). This is a 36% increase from the 2003 figures. Homeschooled children represented 2.9% of children up from 2.2% in 2003.

The numbers are increasing.

Not to belabor with statistics, which are available, homeschooled children in the US score significantly higher on SAT and ACT tests as well as on state tests where given. My children just scored three years advanced of their grade levels in all areas on state tests. They have never been to public schools.

As far as socialization as well as the other areas discussed, I submit it may very well be counterintuitive. I/we have encountered hundreds of homeschooled children and I dare say they are better socialized and domesticated on the whole than public school children or most adults for that matter. YMMV. There have been significant studies, for instance, that compare preschool children that are submitted to daycare with those that have not. The behavioral patterns differ markedly in favor of those not exposed to daycare. Daycare, it seems, provides a college of misdemeanor.

While religious and/or moral concerns are cited in the reports and when asked for one reason only it was as was stated above. If given a list of seven reasons and allowed to pick more than one, then concern about the school environment was foremost. Concern about the quality of instruction was about as high as was the desire for a nontraditional approach as was the former.

In the US, the income level and educational level of homeschool families is significantly higher on the average as well.

>> ^spoco2:
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
>> ^spoco2:
Hang on Mr Pastor Ssempa... Hang on a second there.
Let me see:
'Anal licking'... not restricted to homosexuals
'Fisting'... not restricted to homosexuals
HA! THEN he asks that children step out... hilarious
I'd love to know the percentage of gay people who eat the poo poo... really, I would.
And in any case, I defend the right of any person, gay or otherwise, to eat the poo poo of another person if they so chose.
The uneducated, the simple minded... THIS is where religion breeds.

Religion breeds this or does stupidty breed this? You, like so many, blame the excuse, not the problem. Don't tell me you would think this ignorance would magically go poof if only religion would disappear? Almost like a magical god-creature comes down and poofs it away because he doesn't exist... How absurd.

Um... You completely backwards read my post. I said that in the uneducated and simple minded is WHERE religion breeds. Not that Religion creates it, but it's where it takes hold because when you don't know better they can make it seem sensible. As soon as you up the education level, religion drops markedly.



Yes, I backwards read your post---for a reason. You suppose that religion breeds in the mind of the simpleminded and uneducated (Which is saying that it does not breed in the smart.) That is a huge and bold, broad and judgmental opinion. It is identical to the way a religious zealot feels towards non-believers.

You discount the facts about humanity. Since the beginning of our species, we have believed. Belief in the mythological is natural to our species. Religion is only a controlled set of guidelines to how we should believe. It is actually a very brilliant method of control and power created and supported by those of great, greedy intellect.

One reason religion drops markedly, as you point out, in the higher educated areas, is the competition of other ideas. Do away with that, and religion pops back up. In other words, if all the dumb hicks were atheists, then most of the educated people would be religious.

However, by your opinion, if we got rid of stupidity, then religion could not breed. That would be counterintuitive to mankind’s natural wiring. Your point also implies that if everyone was religious, that the world would be filled with only stupid people.

But what I get really mad at is that this guy is not the product of religion and stupidity, he is simply the product of power and stupidity.

Remember, religion is corrupted by the stupid and mean. Religion does not corrupt...it is mankind's unthinking creation.

> ^sineral:

Sorry berticus, and dag, but based on the abstracts of those two studies, neither of them refute the points I was making. The second study does not discuss body hair. The first study discusses women's views of male body hair; but this thread was focused on men's views of female body hair, so that is what I addressed.



Well, to be fair, the majority of your post was gender non-specific. It was only the last part of the first paragraph where you suggested something about males explicitly. Still, your clarified claim then is that there are evolutionary reasons for hair preference, and a preference dissociation between the genders. The reason I coughed up those two quick studies was to illustrate that there CAN BE a) evidence to the contrary, and b) evidence that is counterintuitive. I am not claiming that an evolutionary argument is wrong, only that there are alternative explanations and data which you don't seem to even be considering.

In my earlier post, I specifically said that evolution would drive people to favor the characteristics generally displayed by the opposite sex. Men generally have more body hair than women, women should therefore generally find attractiveness in levels of body hair higher than what women have.



There's a problem here. The corollary would be: [women generally have less body hair than men, men should therefore generally find attractiveness in levels of body hair lower than what men have]. That's fine, but the study I cited found that women generally preferred some hair on men, not "more is always better". If you flip the genders, men would generally prefer some hair on women, but not "less is always better". So why would it be that men prefer women with less hair than they naturally have but women do not prefer men with more hair than they naturally have? Why a gender dissociation?



With regards to the second study, just because one feature(body size) is influenced by culture does not mean others must be also. And even if a particular trait is influenced by culture, it does not mean that evolution's influence is smaller.



Sure, but the point was just to illustrate that there are alternative explanations. Evolution undoubtedly is involved in almost anything, to some degree, but data from studies like these point to a large contribution from culture.


You accused me of confirmation bias, berticus. I could easily say the same of you.



It would be confirmation bias if I completely ignored your evidence (actually, you haven't presented any, so let's just say your argument instead) and only looked at evidence that agreed with what I believe. I read your argument, and then pointed to some evidence that offers alternative explanations (admittedly, clarification of your argument has slightly changed things). The reason I said you had the bias is that you don't appear to have considered alternative explanations.

For everything else, I think I agree with you. Also, for what it's worth, I think human sexuality has so much variation it's almost ridiculous to talk about preferences.

Nailed it! It's got everything I love in this video: dependence vs. self-reliance, reason being defined as counterintuitive to emotional thinking, and critical thinking leading to independent intellect strengthening the individual.

^first of all, i don't think it's fair to measure the energy calculation in joules.

Solar income is by far the biggest energy contribution to the production of crops, not any human factor. we're merely facilitating a nice opportunity for the plants to convert photons to food, because we can't to that ourselves. so the whole thing rests on our metabolism being "wasteful", energy-wise.

Another reason strict caloric calulation is meaningless for farming, is that the US and EU are subsidizing their domestic agriculture industry with billions of dollars, making farming methods and yields completely divorced from the financial success of a farmer.
Here, I can mostly speak from experience in the EU, where subsidies are often given for weird, counterintuitive behavior, meant to satisfy other goals than production, such as specific, fashionable environmental concerns ("preserve hedges and enclosures!"), or simply to preserve employment in that sector. Talk about wasteful.

And why isn't the haber process sustainable? Because it's dependent on fossil fuels? it only gets the hydrogen part from natural gas, the nitrogen comes from the atmosphere. A lot of people are spending lot of money these days on developing efficient, large scale, renewable hydrogen production, such as electrolysis machines running off solar/wind/nuclear power.
When people talk about "sustainable", they often forget to take into account future developments, and proceed to make gloomy prognoses based on current technology (see: Thomas Malthus)

I knew we were hosed when I saw a credit card machine in a McDonald's. Sez I, "Ruh roh!" We have had an ongoing paradigm shift in terms of economics/finance/communication/transportation/regulation over the past twenty years. We won't know how to get through it until we get through it (if we do). Since everything is in a state of flux, one of the concepts I believe we have to rethink is the top-down management/ownership/governance ideology. The internet is showing us the value of bottom-up organization and generation. What we sorely need is education of a rigorous, persistent and emancipating fashion, to see human populations as incubators of entrepreneurship, innovation, progressive ideas. As biological evolution seems to show, smaller, smarter, more agile is the way to go for organisms; perhaps that is the way to go with human organization in industry, education, finance, governance. Seems counterintuitive, doesn't it?

Thanks for the note. I can see both how it's counterintuitive and why it's set up that way, so it was interesting to read what people thought about it.

In reply to this comment by mas8705:
sorry about the other video being sent to discussion chilaxe... I explained everything in the comment... For what its worth, after it was returned, I upvoted it...

This is where things are going to start to get a little strange, and where I'm sure a lot of people are going to disagree. Hey, I welcome it. Every path to knowledge begins with a question. Now, let me continue.

The whole universe is like that VHS tape, or that baseball card. Only a lot more complex (this should go without saying).

And I do mean the WHOLE universe, not just how it is right now, in this second. Same with the VHS tape, it holds more than one second of the movie, and the baseball card holds more than one angle. The universe is more than one "frame" of time. It is every frame, from the beginning to the end.

My idea is that time does not move.

We do.

The universe -- or multiverse, if you like -- is a hologram baseball card with 11 dimensions of rotational freedom. Every state that the universe and all things in it CAN exist in, it already does. This moment in time that we are privy to existed before we got here, and all the past states are still there even though our perception has moved beyond them.

For some strange reason, it was evolutionarily advantageous to have stereo-optic vision. We have some slight visual angle differentiation. Not much, but enough to get by. Likewise, it was also evolutionarily advantageous to have linear 4th dimensional awareness. We know what came before, but not what comes next. Our ability to make assumptions on what might come next (and I stress might) is a relatively new thing. A "mental opposable thumb" so to speak, that gave us an edge. It gave us the ability to navigate the 4th dimension, instead of blindly addressing each second only when we arrive there.

One counterintuitive phenomenon it has made us aware of is the nature of the double slit experiment. The apparent assumption that observing has an effect on the outcome. I believe that the truth of the matter is that the single electrons exist everywhere, at every possible location in the universe.