There was an Outer Limits episode which explored this theme. Certainly more than a bit of a mindfuck.

Trump Signs Bill Authorizing NASA Budget, Mars Exploration. Increasing their budget instead of his budget cuts he had proposed. It does however cut NASA programs dealing with climate science http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nasa-mars_us_58d14dc9e4b0be71dcf849e3

The feeling of shame is usually your subconscious reminding you that you are acting against your better judgement.
If you feel shame when you read a scientific fact, then take the time to explore that feeling.
If you aren't doing anything wrong then no amount of scientific facts would make you feel shame.

I don't really agree that the inevitability of losing it gives my life focus and meaning. I would like to live forever. There is an entire universe to explore. How could I ever think there would be no point getting out of bed?
I would waste a few more days than I do now, sure. But the difference is I wouldn't have such anxiety about it, because I have infinity more days.

Actually, matter does appear and disappear from and to nothing. There are energy fields that permeate space, and when their potential gets too high, they collapse and eject a particle. Similarly, particles can be destroyed or decay and upon that event they cause a spike in the background energy fields.

One of the essential functions of a collier is to compress a bunch of crap into a tiny spot, so that when enough decays in that specific spot it will cause such a local spike in energy that new particles must subsequently be ejected (particles that are produced at some calculated energy level - different energy levels producing different ejections).

*This is at the subatomic level. Large collections of matter don't just convert to energy.

I know plenty of people roll eyes at that, but the math upon which those machines are built are using the same math that makes things like modern lithography machines work (they manipulate tiny patterns of molecules). You basically prove the math every time you use a cell phone (thing with modern micro chips).

...

But that's beside the point. If there ever was 'nothing', the question isn't "whether or not god exists to have made things" - it's "why do things exist". God could be an answer. As could infinite other possibilities.

...

Personally, eternity is the answer I assume is most likely to be correct. Because you don't have to prove anything. The universe need not be static - but if something was always there (even just energy fields), then there is an eternity in one form or anther.

Background energy and quantum tunneling are a neat concept (referring to metastability). Because you can have a big-bang like event if the background energy level tunnels to a lower state, expanding a new space starting at that point, re-writing the laws of physics in its area of existence. Meaning that our universe as we know it can simply be one of many bubbles of expanding tunneling events - created at the time of the event, and due to be overwritten by another at some point. Essentially a non-permanent local what-we-percieve-as-a-universe, among many. (I'm avoiding the concept that time and space are relative to each bubble, and there is no concept of an overarching time and place outside of any one event).

(All this comes from taking formulas that model measurements of reality, globing them into larger models, and then exploring the limits of those models at extreme values/limits. ... with a much lagging experimental base slowly proving and disproving elements of the model (and forcing model refinement upon a disproval, so that the model encompasses the new test data))

-scheherazade

*ban
Explore The Universe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zWoXG3V30U

Place de la Concorde Suisse...John McPhee's book exploring Swiss...paranoia...
---All military age men have an automatic weapon at home; the penalties for using it or even open the ammunition other than military duty are severe
---The bridges and tunnels in to the country are rigged with places for Swiss Army Engineers to stick explosives and drop them all
---Airbases tucked into mountain sides; not nuke proof; but damn hard to get at any other way
etc
etc
etc

"in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. "

Harry Lime; Orson Well's "The Third Man"...

Mutually assured destruction I think is often woefully overlooked as a stabilising force in the world.

I don't think it's at all a co-incidence that since nuclear proliferation we have only seen wars vs non nuclear nations. You can never really win meaningfully vs a nation that has the thermo-nuclear trump card in their back pocket.

When superpowers come to blows now, proxy wars are the only realistic option. That may still suck for the poor bastards that get caught up with it, but it does mean a world war is somewhat off the table (even if they like to rattle the sabres from time to time).

Also Starship troopers is an oft misunderstood book I think. Some people get so hung up on the underlying idea of a Military dictatorship that they miss much of the nuance and wisdom woven into it.
I'm not even sure Heinlein was even necessarily advocating such a world, but rather using it as a narrative device to explore how our societies really work once you drop the wishful pretences (especially the stable ones).

It seems like there is perhaps some intrinsic relationship between peace and the capacity for effective and controlled violence. There are few people as calm and non aggressive as the ones who truly know they have nothing to fear from you in a fight.

Here is the problem, Mr. Schlosser is a journalist, not a Nuclear Scientist. He does not understand, or has chosen to ignore for propaganda reasons, that an unarmed warhead is EXTREMELY unlikely to perform the exact sequence of events that need to take place to have a nuclear reaction happen.

Yes, he is fully correct in that we have had numerous 'butt-clenching' moments in which we could have started WW3 due to a malfunction or human error. But in the other cases he mentions, such as the bombs that landed on Spain, the lightning bolt on the tower, and the wrench on the rocket, the chance of the warhead going up while being unarmed is infinitesimal. They simply don't go 'boom' because of a collision or explosion. Now you could have a 'dirty bomb' type incident where the radioactive materials could be spread and come into contact with humans, but that is about it.

The cases that have been officially listed as Broken Arrows were because they involved an active bomb, like the one in Florida. Everything else he mentions in this video is his 'belief' and is conjecture.

Now, before I get unloaded on, I wish we didn't have nuclear weapons. I don't agree with Trump that we should renew the arms race, I think he is nuts since we have more than enough weapons to blanket the cities of the world more than a couple of times. If you add all the nukes from the Big 3 (USA/Russia/France...yes, France) there are enough to cover every single inch of the world.

The problem is, who bells the cat? If we give up all of our weapons, we are at risk. I wish we weren't, but we would be. If we bring down our numbers gradually, there are still other countries that may not, like North Korea. How do we trust the other country is actually following through? In a perfect world, we would all lay down our weapons and sing kumbaya, but as Heinlein wrote: "...Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."

PS...Yes, I know Starship Troopers is a controversial novel with overtones of Militarism and Fascism. However, there are quotes that ring true no matter what 'ism' people attach to the overall story. If you doubt that, look at the utter disbelief and depression that overcame liberals when Trump won. "He simply was supposed to, it was impossible, not like this, we have no hope, etc" were the feelings of the people who gave him no hope of winning. I, having lived and read enough to get a fair picture of how fucked up we are as a species, had little doubt he could pull it off. We elected a former Wrestler as governor, a former actor as governor, and a former actor as President. We overlook mass genocide in other countries. We ignore climate change. We spend hundreds of billions on defense and less than 10 on space exploration, all the while living on a planet that is already critically overpopulated (and is growing almost exponentially).

Thing that really sticks in my throat here.

The most generous current estimate of trans % by population is 0.6%.

The mother of the child here is a vehement and very pro-active trans rights campaigner.

I don't know the proportion of life long trans campaigners, but I'm pretty sure the odds of them having a trans kid are vanishingly small. Much more so for such an extreme and unusual case as this one.

We are both relegated to pure speculation here but, I know at least one example (my brothers partner) of a girl being raised by a lesbian mother, who had deep emotional problems instilled into her from a very early age. i.e. men are bad, she should be attracted to women etc.

Took her well into adulthood to get over that and she is still a mixed up person (mother is to put it politely; a bit mental)

This is a different example of course, but the underlying problem and how it messed her up for most of her childhood seems like it could be similar. We are so used to the prejudices against "normal" gender roles and sexual orientation that it is perhaps easy to forget that this can work just as easily in reverse.
The problem can essentially be asshole parents instilling a mixed up and narrow concept of what is normal. Which either restricts their existing exploration of identity, or actively coerces towards a particular outcome.

IDK, you may just be right and the kid manifested this underlying genetic problem at a very early age. Her mother may be a perfectly even handed and caring person etc. etc.

It just concerns me that it could so easily be the other way around. But you are right about many people simply adopting alternative gender roles rather than physically transitioning. But if this kid starts the hormone blockers, she is sterile for life and will undergo irreversible changes in her development.

If she were to change her mind later in life as she matures... that 40% suicide rate is no joke

& yeh there are certainly strong arguments from inside the trans community against ideas of non binary genders. Most trans people are one gender wishing to transition to, or be treated as the other gender.

I can see an argument for perhaps having a third intermediary gender, beyond that it seems more like lifestyle choices than actual gender issues. e.g. like you say a T.V. man who likes to dress as a woman isn't someone who wants to be a woman, or even gay. It's just a man who likes to feel beautiful in a dress and makeup (to quote Eddie Izzard "male lesbian").

Anyway I don't think you have said anything offensive. This is a mire of a subject and anyone reasonable is going to appreciate your (our) confusion & concerns.

The cynic in me sees "persistent universe with players all over the place" as a drawback, because if even 1% of the "interaction" takes the form of "muahaha, let's gank the noob!" it can ruin things for everybody.

I thought we kind of already established this as fact with Ultima Online, like 20 years ago. You could be a miner, a merchant, an explorer, or a farmer ... and get ganked by some asshole the moment that you leave city limits.

That experiment in complete freedom with natural checks and balances didn't work until the servers were split into Felucca/Trammel PvP/no PvP zones. Maybe Star Citizen will have some check like that from the outset, but no matter how it is handled will make somebody mad.

People are paying them to develop the game. As far as i know, very very people have spent up to 100K.

Even if someone has the best stuff. If they're terrible pilots, a good pilot with a cheap ship can easily beat someone in a expensive ship.

Yes people are pumping money into it, development is taking time, but the game is huge and a lot ifs being developed as far as ultra HD graphics, going from huge area flight and ground based combat.

"Oh but battlefield has flight and ground based combat!" yes all within a confines of a couple 10 KM. The bengal carrier is supposed to be in complexity of a couple BF maps crammed into one area.

But going back, once the game goes live fully, no one will have the ability to purchase in game ships with real money, though who knows, that might change.

But going back to "pwning newsbs" any one with a decent ship with excellent piloting skills can pwn someone with ha ultra expensive ship. This certainly isn't a , paying top dollar and being on top. If you're gonna pay top dollar, you're gonna be in the arena commanders playing vs bots and now vs other players in dog fight melees. Those people are going to be good because they're gonna be excellent pilots.

But, the game isn't all about dog fighting. You can be a miner, a merchant, a racer, an explorer, heck farming is going to be implemented as well.

But I mostly have a sense you don't actually understand the game in general. The game is leagues ahead of no mans sky just for the fact it'll be a persistent universe with players all over the place that you can interact with.

There's two ways to look at this election. One is a dispassionate exploration of why did it happen. Another way is a moral argument on who people should have voted for. What you wrote is a great description of why Trump was elected.

Her reaction to the election is a great moral reaction to people who voted for Trump.

I'm sorry, but she's right.

A "fuck you" "no confidence" vote for Trump is a temper tantrum vote, and I say this as someone who isn't really a big Hillary Clinton fan. Voters shouldn't act like five year olds. How about be adults and do what you've had to do frequently in your adult lives, take the punch in the gut, and fucking do the right thing.

I REALLY REALLY want to go to Europe next year. I saved up the money, I had everything planned out, and I was ready to go. And then my dog got sick and had a thousand dollar surprise vet bill, and then my heat pump died.

I could act like a five year old and go anyway even though I don't have the money as a fuck you to god, the universe, or whatever I think gives a damn, or I could be a grown up and do the right thing - postpone the trip and go later.

I acted like a adult, and did the right thing. Europe can wait.

I wouldn't say this to an Obama, Romney, McCain, George W. Bush, Kerry, or Gore voter, and I could keep going back in history. This wasn't an election where you're picking between equally deadly gruesome poisons. One was a typical politicians, who you may rightfully hate, and the other was a sexist racist completely inexperienced baffoon who bragged about sexual assualt, bragged about how big his dick was in a presidential primary debate, a complete serial liar the likes we haven't seen in politics in the modern era, and I could go on and on and on.

Be a fucking grown up and vote for the only responsible adult in this election, who is admittedly completely unlikeable. It's really not hard, but never put anything past the American voter.

I

The YouTube page description is just the licensing info, then if you go to storyful.com the video description is "Web Comedian Explores Irish Attitudes to Depression".

The description is "In this YouTube skit, two people are discussing a friend’s illness. YouTube comedian Sir Stevo Timothy explains the illness in many creative ways, but his female companion is sure that it’s depression. The two cannot agree, but the conversation highlights some Irish people’s ideas about this subject in a humorous way."

So staged actors but a serious topic still.

Obviously you haven't played with Space Engine. It's not much of a game, but I find myself lost in it for hours just exploring. The shots you see are made in-game, traveling at many thousand times the speed of light. Every star you see, you can literally travel to. It might have planets and moons in orbit which you can visit, or that "star" might even be an entirely new galaxy with billions more stars.

It does have a game mode with space ships, but I have never tried it. I just load it up from time to time, click a random star and go to it.