I believe we evolved communication to help our tribes. "Sabertooth lion over there!" "those berries give you mad gas, bro!" "hey, let's try to be civil with the neanderthals"

And so, we're wired to believe what people say, especially the ones who appeal to our hopes and fears. It takes conscious effort to doubt a good storyteller.

And such is religion.

Perfectly evolved chilling machines.

Trump represents himself as the opposite of everything wrong with Washington DC and Hillary Clinton and the last 8 years.

His agenda to to MAGA. and to drain the swamp.

He is bring jobs back and lowering unemployment. The tag line "Its the economy stupid. " rings true. After 8 years of poor growth and leadership indicating 2% growth is the new norm, Damn right people want someone who promises better. And Trump is delivering on the economy. Hillary really didn't have a message.

World affairs-- Tentative , promising ? still evolving, but hopeful. Got 3 prinisors out of NK, alive. It's a start.

Draining the swamp, dozens not seeking reelection or just leaving.
DOJ, FBI, Fired,resigned , compromised
Anthony Weiner laptop search warrant was unsealed today. Now more bad news for HRC and many more.
But the wheels of justice moves slowly.

Also The Inspector General final Draft is nearly completed--

Also noted that the FBI had a snitch placed in the Trump camp and was feed bogus information -- A total FBI scam.


If Obama delivered solid growth Hillary would have been a shoe in, as repulsive as she is.

Like how you blame Republicans for destruction in 2008. BS but ok lets go with it and take ownership. Obama took ownership in 2008 and was responsible for fixing the mess and he failed.

Clinton stood for what ? LBGTQ and universal healthcare.

By all historical evidence, that appears to be what we have and all we'll ever get: an ever-evolving draft. But... eh... it would be nice if we just found the final draft one day! Not gonna deny that...

I, for one, am glad it doesn’t exist. What has been perceived as “objectively moral” for most of human history has resulted in the oppression of vast swathes of humanity (basically anyone who wasn’t a straight white rich dude).

I would prefer to think that morality evolves with our knowledge of the world.

None. That's what people are being fed the world over and people will take it because they like it.
This is progressing and evolving at a very fast pace.
Religion had thousands of years to perfect its formula. This is catching up much faster.

I don't know. Life can't be that hard if you evolved arms specifically to pick your nose.

They ARE <EVOLVING>.

There is plenty of employment law that says that there is an objective correct answer.

It is very frustrating to get into the conversation over and over again, meet the intellectual points with reason, and be dismissed.

Until men -- and they are mostly men -- step up to the plate and acknowledge that their biological responses are a problem that relegate women to pieces of meat for their pleasure, this will never be addressed in a way that lets us move forward.

It is akin to racism. I'm a racist. I have racist responses that are a combination of what I was brought up with (thanks, dad) and are part and parcel of how human's brains evolved.

We evolved to quickly see difference.

Helped us survive, that lightning quick assessment.

But racism is purely BELIEVING that lizard brain reaction is based in something real and should be given precedence over the frontal cortex.

Racism and sexism are related. They put lizard brain over the frontal cortex.

Just because you feel it doesn't mean it should be indulged.

And there is plenty of equal opportunity laws on the books to say that subjective racist responses, while endemic in humanity, shall not be allowed in a modern society.

We are struggling as humans to rise above the muck of biology. Wanna join me?

Worth mentioning at the end that bacteria may become resistant to licin from a phage eventually, but as far as I'm aware bacteria cannot become resistant to phages themselves because the phage evolves alongside the bacteria.

When someone asks you if you believe we evolved from apes, the correct answer is "I believe in evolution, but we did not evolve from apes, only an idiot would believe that about evolution."

The thing about unforseen consequences is they're unforseen. The probable yearly die off should limit any unwanted damages to a few seasons...assuming Texas continues to freeze every year, which is far from certain.
I really hope this solution works without issues, because they clearly need one. I just fear that these kinds of species introductions often end badly, and once done they are irreversible. It seems likely that in a few years a colony of frost tolerant weevils could evolve and quickly spread on birds.

On one hand it does perhaps lack imagination, but on the other it makes perfect sense that aliens we first find would be much like us since they'd be attracted by our radio waves, and to become a space traveling civilisation they'd likely have similar motivations and their brains/reasoning capabilities would have evolved in a similar way. Afterall the human brain seems to be hardwired to find other humans - we see faces in the clouds and random floor patterns etc.

That new movie Arrival (2016) (not the Charlie Sheen 90s one) did a great job of unique aliens.

I guess another reason why fiction makes aliens like us is so that it allows a story to be told without the story getting bogged down on the details (unless that is the focus of the story).

"You said almost 3 times that speed, continuously for over 10 minutes....and not with a lightweight speed shorting pistol."

You are not making any sense. I see what I wrote but it is unclear what you are referring to. You are welcome to quote the part you are referring to.

As I wrote above, you can choose the length of time you are aiming your firearm for. I even gave a comparative set of aiming scenarios.

I love how you take the top end of my approximation as your "laughable" scenario and don't mention the rest of the range (i.e. 50 rounds per minute with mag changes). Could you shoot at one round per second aimed? I think with a little training you could.

Doing 0.2 second splits (i.e. you shoot twice at each target) and taking about a second on every target, using 30 round mags, you can do 90 round per minute without much trouble. Going a little slower, say 0.3 second splits, and taking 1.5 seconds per target you can do about 60 round per minute. I could go on. The point is, these are aimed shots with a higher chance to hit the target, and with just as much chance to accidentally hit another target on a miss. This has the result of more hits on target.

"you get more hits on target in full auto".

No, you don't. On target means a hit near the point you intended on a target. He was getting random hits - as is evidenced by the low fatality rate versus high injury rate. The only way you would be correct was if you argued that he intended non-fatal injuries as much as he intended fatalities (and you're welcome to make that argument - it has some merits depending on what this lunatic was trying to achieve).

"If it's as common as you say, that should be easy to provide with a comparison video instead of a suggestion to buy and read a certain book. The videos I found are all short range small target, not at all the same as what we're debating. Show me a comparison of a field layered deep with 10000 balloons getting shot at from distance, that would be informative, short course accuracy target shooting isn't."

The book is good because it shows military statistics with full-auto versus other fire modes. Books are often better than videos. It also outlines military teaching methodology, include marksmanship and how it evolved over time. Full auto is still used in military engagements but you'll find it is used very sparsely (here is a good thread of military and ex-mil talking about it's uses: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-militaries-use-assault-rifles-when-the-full-auto-feature-is-rarely-ever-used )

Short range targets are easier to hit. Are you trying to prove my point? Long range targets are harder to hit. Your rate of randomly hitting targets does not get better at longer ranges. But aiming does increase your chance of hitting a target at any range.

If you really wanted to do a comparison at that range then the targets would be a lot larger than balloons.

You're arguing against established marksmanship knowledge that is readily available over the internet or in firearms courses.

I think you owe it to yourself to prove yourself right or wrong by doing some rifle marksmanship courses. Approach it as a sport and you'll have a lot fun doing it!!!

I can't chat much longer - thanks for the good discussion!