A German mark had value….until it didn’t. Your opinion of “fiat money” isn’t universal by any stretch. You say it’s universally better. I wholeheartedly disagree, and point to Germany and Venezuela as proof. They aren’t outliers either, (looking at Africa).

Gold is useful and valuable. Digital footprints aren’t. Paper notes aren’t. Printed circuits, connectors, anti oxidation, actual physical money, jewelry, etc. gold has intrinsic value, a dollar bill has about 13210 joules, so its intrinsic worth is about 1 small 1 gram stick as kindling and little more….no matter if it’s a $1 or $500 bill or a check for billions. Again, see Germany, where bills were more valuable as firewood than money.

This deflation idea again. Give me 3 examples of deflation harming/ending a nation on the gold standard please, I’ve never heard of it happening. (Edit: as far as I can find, I’m no economics professor, for the most part the gold standard was abandoned worldwide in the early 1930’s and the last remnants removed in the early 70’s by Nixon)

Explain how unsecured notes guard against speculation….don’t just claim it. I don’t see it, people made a mint short selling Venezuelan (and other failed) dollars….speculating they would crash….they did. What?

GDP is the metric that imparts value to unsecured notes offered by countries.

I think you had a mini stroke, the paragraph starting USofA is a word salad with no meaning.

Name 3. I named Germany post ww1….they didn’t get to borrow or ignore their debts. What are you talking about?

So, the only ones that don’t/can’t borrow are all the ones that need to.

Pretending basing your dollar on Bitcoin is the same as basing it on gold is outrageous idiotic bullshit. Just nonsense. Utterly moronic and pure fantasy. Don’t try moving the goalposts, that’s what you said.

Yes, the fed will take gold. They don’t take Bitcoin, do they? How about shells? Pebbles?

Jesus, you just want to argue. You’re rambling, switching positions and going off on tangents.
It’s not about whether someone might accept it, it’s about whether it’s universally accepted at one value and about holding its accepted long term value. People once gladly accepted beanie babies as payment….stupid people.
Arcata Ca printed up Arcata dollars….you could get them cheap, businesses took them. Wanna put your nest egg into them? You say that’s good money, as good as dollars. I’ll sell them to you for gold, and let’s see who’s doing better in 10 years. Or I’ll sell you pebbles for gold. Any currency you want, I’ll sell you for gold. How’s that working with pebbles or shells? Can you buy currency with them?

It has everything to do with how much it’s worth. Stop jumping subjects because your point is failing to convince. An economy based on pebbles fails because their neighbors don’t value pebbles, but if their pebbles are gold, they succeed because gold is valued universally.

What are you talking about, the gold standard’s ability to keep up? Huh?! No keep up necessary, no slow down required, gold trades exactly as fast as everything else. What is this nonsense?!?

You mean you can’t overspend and go deep into debt?! And that’s bad?! In your opinion, not many economists….and what makes you think you can’t borrow against gold? Secured loans are easier and cheaper to come by. WHAT?!?

Yes, unsecured paper money can just be printed forever, you CAN “sell the universe”. (Or sell dollars who’s overall value is based on your country’s value) over and over, then print more and sell 9/10 again, print more, sell again. Eventually that money is worth less than it costs to print, and your creditors get paid off in dollars worth a tiny fraction of what they lent you. Not if it’s backed with gold.

Miracle cure?!? Quote it. I think you misread. Secured notes being better than unsecured notes is not “miracle cure” or perfection, it’s just measurably better, safer, and more stable. No system is perfect.

yet another L for loser republicants-so glorious

$10 says boob moves the goalposts lol

This. So much this. And just in case anyone was wondering here is an actual quote from a recent discussion about vaccines in NZ:

"your belief in vaccines is an article of faith.

Vaccines are a purification ritual. A cult. And you couldn't care less about evidence and logic.

You will just shift the goalposts.

Since the widespread use of vaccines, childhood disability rates in the US have risen ten fold, healthcare expenditure has increased to be four times what it was as a per cent of GDP and currently one in two children have a chronic illness.

now rationalise away

This should be great to see all your religious, faith based reasoning as to why you should maintain your delusional faith in your cult."

The irony would be hilarious if the outcome wasn't so tragic.

What is helping with that though is that because the right keeps moving the goalposts, so many people who were once Republicans are now RINOs according to the extremists. Just like this video suggests, Will may be a fictional character, but he's describing exactly what a lot of moderate Republicans are going through right now. The right wing extremists have decided to pursue a personal vendetta against Obama and all the moderates in the party are going "wtf?"

Sorry, but that's the most basic sign of a downfall. when you keep purging your ranks for not having enough ideological purity, you're not exactly planning for long term success.

When all the big historical Republicans heroes like Lincoln, Nixon, and Reagan, and maybe even HW Bush couldn't win a Republican primary in today's climate, you know you're losing touch

I dunno though, speaking more generally however, there's got to be some way of inducing politicians to not play games like this. The whole 10% approval yet 90% incumbancy rate should hopefully shock people into doing something. We've got a bill that passed both houses of congress, signed into law by the president AND upheld by the SCOTUS, and yet a small faction is holding gov't hostage over this.

I don't see how it's even legal to defund something that is law. If it's law, how is it legal to interfere with it like that? If you don't like it, pass a new law repealing it....that should be the only way to stop an existing law (other than Supreme Court of course)

I've heard this numerous times before from conservatives that we need to enforce the laws already on the books....well...ok. Let's do that.

Rand is proof that Republicans just really are incapable of learning from their mistakes.

McCain/Palin didn't win. Let's go further Right!!

The Robot and the Ayn Rand disciple didn't win, Let's go even further Right.

Republicans have moved the goalposts countless times that they have lost all perspective and are completely out of touch with the american public.. In reality, Obama is a moderate conservative but to the right, he's a flaming socialist muslim dictator.

The right is its own worst enemy. The party of Lincoln?? That hasn't been true for a long fucking time.

Rand was grandstanding for publicity. period. his filibuster was a huge strawman

Sensationalised BS here. The news about making guns is overly exaggerated right now, but won't be if the vision comes true that working, effective 3D printers are in every household with designs as easy to download as Napster did to fill mp3 players.

You can either print a non-working gun for a few hundred dollars, or laser-sculpt a working inferior gun for a few thousand dollars, or still buy a black market industry-standard gun for an amount in between.

American politics is pigeonholed into a linear spectrum, with points extending to the left and right of the Democrat and Republican goalposts. But it's really a wheel, and Cody & Glenn here don't overlap in between those, but at the other side with their Libertarianism.

You need to fix your goalposts son. To start off, the burden of proof is on those that seek to prohibit something. You could never show, for instance, that anything "won't help" anything else. That's asking for proof of a negative. It belies your profound misunderstanding of statistics. We had a nationwide assault weapons ban. It's efficacy was unimpressive. It certainly did not provide any conclusive evidence that the ban was effective which is where the burden should lie for restrictions on liberty.

There are also these things called "priors." For example: "An extremely small proportion of homicides are conducted using assault weapons. Thus, the maximal impact of their ban would similarly be small." If you want to ban anything it should be handguns, but I don't view that as consistent with the second amendment at all. You would (or at least should) need a constitutional amendment to pull that off.

Finally, I view homicide in general as a relatively small problem in comparison to other matters of public health and safety. That is if I look at numbers, as opposed to guessing at probabilities while I'm crying a river over news broadcasts designed to make me feel unsafe.

Sometimes being educated means considering other points of view. I'm a liberal and I don't own (or wish to own, or even really enjoy) guns. You have a fucking gun in your avatar.

Bmacs You are moving the goalposts.
You say above that your key gripe is in using BMI to approximate health. Not the likelihood of ones imminent demise.
Lets clear this up.
1. You are making a conversation about morbidity about mortality.
2. You are dealing with data specific to BMI as it relates to Blood pressure and mortality as it specifically relates to hypertensive individuals. Is your suggestion that High blood pressure and cardiac events are the only risks involved with obesity? What about things that don't kill you but directly impact the quality of your life? Thinking diabeties here, among other things.
3. You seem to be trying to somehow debunk the concept that obesity has ANY negative health consequences by dismissing the other articles cited.
4. What biomarkers are you concerned with. What study are you focused on? There are plenty of studies surrounding biomarkers for obesity and comorbitidy. Here is a nature article directly citing that.

What are you actually suggesting here? Obesity is causal to NO life threatening or impacting diseases? That it has NO negative health consequences?
>> ^bmacs27:

@scannex Okay, none of your articles whatsoever considered any other biomarkers that may be correlated with obesity, let alone other factors like socioeconomic status, other behavioral choices, etc. For example: In this plot from this article of the oxford journal of epidemiology shows that the relationship between BMI and mortality breaks down for women with a systolic blood pressure below about 150mmHg excluding morbidly obese women(those with a BMI between 40 and 75). It also shows a "protective effect," in terms of mortality risk, of obesity in men with high blood pressure.
The article cites at least 9 articles and I quote, "The associations between body weight, raised blood pressure, and mortality remain controversial." Thus, you're wrong, this is very much a "jury is still out" sort of a question.

Nice job moving the goalpost there. First it was the KGB, now it's Islam itself.

The only meaningful difference between Islam and Christianity is that Christianity had a ~600 year headstart. Talk to me again in 6 centuries...or compare Islam to Christianity of the 1400s, when the difference is tremendously less obvious.

The irony of a Christian complaining about another religion's violence is simply mind-boggling.

>> ^surfingyt:

Perhaps some scientists feel if they can find life on another planet the final nail in religion's coffin will be hammered?>> ^critical_d:
Odd how the scientific community seems to have more enthusiasm for exploring the oceans of Titan than our own. I read somewhere that the technological aspects of a dive like Cameron performed are as complex as a moon landing. I guess the thinking was that if something went wrong seven miles below then you are just as screwed as if you were in the Frau Mora Highlands. If the ultimate goal is to setup a colony on Mars or our own Moon, then we should practice in our own backyard first.

The God of the Gaps can exist in any reality. @TheSluiceGate was right. The goalposts just get moved.

>> ^surfingyt:

Perhaps some scientists feel if they can find life on another planet the final nail in religion's coffin will be hammered?>> ^critical_d:
Odd how the scientific community seems to have more enthusiasm for exploring the oceans of Titan than our own. I read somewhere that the technological aspects of a dive like Cameron performed are as complex as a moon landing. I guess the thinking was that if something went wrong seven miles below then you are just as screwed as if you were in the Frau Mora Highlands. If the ultimate goal is to setup a colony on Mars or our own Moon, then we should practice in our own backyard first.



What? Are you kidding? Even if scientists did confirm the existence of alien life the religious will just move the goalposts in the same way they did when the world was discovered to be round, and that the earth was not the centre of the solar system, or indeed the universe.

The Vatican's "Pontifical Academy of Sciences" has even held a conference on alien life:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6536400/The-Vatican-joins-the-search-for-alien-life.html

For the deeply religious no scientific proof that contradicts their religious beliefs will ever be proof enough.

>> ^Quboid:

>> ^Unsung_Hero:
I fully understand offsides and both of you along with the ref are wrong on this one. He is in an offside position when he plays the ball and in doing so he gained an advantage. It does not matter if the other team (defender) played the ball or not. Also, Quboid is correct as well for the player leaving the field and entering back again without permission. I know this happens all the time and is never really made an issue.

You are offside the moment your team-mate touches the ball on - this moment didn't occur. The only thing that had occurred in the phase of play that the attacker scores from is for the goalkeeper to put the ball down. It's like when a defender plays a pass-back, if there is an attacker near the goal keeper, in an offside position, they will probably score because at no point did a team mate touch the ball towards them.
Edit - from The Rule Book (emphasis mine):

Offence
A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:
interfering with play or
interfering with an opponent or
gaining an advantage by being in that position

You should really read what you post as a reference more in depth instead of stumbling across part of the rule and pasting it as your argument...
From FIFA:

"“gaining an advantage by being in that position” means playing a ball that
rebounds to him off a goalpost or the crossbar having been in an offside
position or playing a ball that rebounds to him off an opponent having
been in an offside position"

"It is not an offence in itself for a player who is in an offside position to step
off the fi eld of play to show the referee that he is not involved in active play.
However, if the referee considers that he has left the fi eld of play for tactical
reasons and has gained an unfair advantage by re-entering the fi eld of play, the
player must be cautioned for unsporting behaviour. The player needs to ask for
the referee’s permission to re-enter the field of play."

...Which is exactly what I was saying.

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...

>> ^jmzero:

If space and time were created in the big bang...

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.
lets just have 13+ dimensions! cant figure out where matter and energy came from? no problem, lets just imagine these gigantic superstructures called branes that crash into eachother!

You don't understand anything of what you're saying - to be fair, very few people do. That doesn't mean it's wrong. There is plenty of science that's very complicated and unintuitive - and yet true and usable. The argument from incredulity is even less compelling when you don't even understand the thing you're arguing against.
even someone like dawkins admits the Universe appears to be designed.

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.
.abiogenesis is not a credible theory, it is a metaphysical belief.

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.
A billion monkeys on a billion typewriters are never going to write shakesphere.

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.
If 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.


I wish I could vote for this comment more than once : )

If space and time were created in the big bang...


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.

lets just have 13+ dimensions! cant figure out where matter and energy came from? no problem, lets just imagine these gigantic superstructures called branes that crash into eachother!


You don't understand anything of what you're saying - to be fair, very few people do. That doesn't mean it's wrong. There is plenty of science that's very complicated and unintuitive - and yet true and usable. The argument from incredulity is even less compelling when you don't even understand the thing you're arguing against.

even someone like dawkins admits the Universe appears to be designed.


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.

.abiogenesis is not a credible theory, it is a metaphysical belief.


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.

A billion monkeys on a billion typewriters are never going to write shakesphere.


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.

If 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.