As well as that from Charles Dickens, who wrote in "A Christmas Carol":

"Oh, Man, look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

"Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. BEWARE THEM BOTH, and all of their degree, BUT MOST OF ALL BEWARE THE BOY, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. AND ABIDE THE END."
(emphasis mine)

Ignorance is a bill that always come due and it comes due like a motherfucker when you will least expect it and can least afford it.

To quote Orwell:

"The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

Reality is a motherfucker, too: if ignorance is the fall, then reality is the sudden stop at the end.

I found an update on the youtube page.

Update: A lot of people have asked about her now. I never thought it would get so much interest. This video is a chronicle of our time together, which I finished making a while ago. Subsequent to making the video, I had to travel a lot, and struggled with keeping her where I was living. A saviour stepped in and helped look after Pegs while I tried to make a plan and she moved back and forth, which was disruptive for her. After months of no solution, it was obvious that her new set up with incredible love, a bigger garden and a new best friend in Luna, another great dane was more than I could offer. I am lucky that I get to visit and take her for short periods, and maybe that's why in my heart she's still with me. It’s always difficult. If the dog is happier, do you forsake your happiness? I think yes. If a dog is negligently bred, should it be killed to prevent more negligent breeding? I think no. Who's to say. In the end we try our best and our pets teach us lessons about love, humility and non-judgment.

I remember studying algorithm time complexities, where ideally the time complexity of an algorithm is a polynomial function -- like O(n)=n^2, or even O(n)=n^100. Most things that seem really hard at first are exponential, O(n)=2^n or whatever. *IF* somebody gets a brilliant stroke of inspiration, those exponential time complexity algorithms sometimes get tweaked to become logarithmic, like O(n)=log(n).

But almost never does a problem that seems really hard at first (exponential) get some brilliant solution that makes it jump into easy (polynomial).

I think we get so caught up in the abstract concepts and semantics that we tend to overlook what seems like common sense: some problems are simply harder than others, with no "magic bullet" solution. So, I think that P is almost certainly NOT equal to NP. But that quote around the 10 minute mark puts that in a pretty eloquent way that is easy to understand even to the layman -- a trait which is entirely too uncommon in academia.

BUT, I must admit that the few occasions when I studied an algorithm that seemed like it obviously couldn't get any better than exponential time complexity, only to be shown a brilliant outside-the-box solution that brought it down to logarithmic time complexity definitely taught me some humility. So, you never know.

Better than he has been in awhile...he needs some humility.

The only thing I don't believe is when he repeats that he doesn't know anything about politics.
I'm sorry, Steven, I know you're trying to be humble and to deflect to your comedian nature, but of course you know politics. You're now doing the same thing Jon Stewart did all these years - pretend to know nothing while absolutely knowing a ton and teaching us all how to think in the system.

You have taken over for Stewart now. It's just the humility is a bit thinly veiled.

@newtboy: Just to be clear, I really appreciate your comments. It's nice to talk to an omnivore who doesn't just respond with "I'LL EAT TWICE AS MUCH MEAT AS YOU DO TO MAKE UP FOR YOUR VEGANISM!" I'm trying to be objective, and I appreciate your attempt as well.

That being said...

I respect the genuine care you give to your animals. I didn't know you or your family (or both) owned such a farm. It does sound like you do, truly, meet their needs as animals. However, (and I hate to bring out the really controversial stuff), I'm sure plenty of slave-owners treated their slaves with genuine humanity. But that doesn't excuse the categorical enslavement of other beings. Despite all care given to those animals, they are still not able to live their natural lives as animals on earth. I don't see why our subjugation, no matter how "humane", can be considered anything less than "inhumane".

Now, the comparison to "most children in the world" is a moot one. Yes, of course everywhere there are going to be worse things happening. But the point is that we are rational, (hopefully) decent, higher-order-understanding-of-the-universe beings. Humans seem to like to cherry-pick when their huge brain is an excuse for greatness, or ignored and "we're just animals after all". So, just because there is suffering outside the scope of our influence, we do all have the ability to stop eating meat. Pretty easily, in fact, since there are tons and tons and tons of other means to get all the nutrition we need (not to mention way, way healthier means).

The point is that we are completely and totally (especially as upper-middle class 1st-world citizens) capable of not eating meat this very moment. You can't, however, change the living conditions in the slums of India by yourself right now.

And explain to me how mentally handicapped humans are not animals. What is the distinction? They are both objectively less intelligent. If anything, animals are more capable of surviving on their own. What makes mentally handicapped people any more special than animals? Just because they're human? That seems arbitrary. True, they should be treated differently because they are different animals, but I mean why should one be treated to our moral consideration and one should not? What makes humans so damn special?

And that "sustenance" argument is really, really misguided. As said above, you can eat an entire vegan diet and be probably even more healthy than an omnivore. And animals are not minimally suffering. Yes, a very cherished, rare group, as your animals are, are "minimally suffering", but many, many, many, many more are being horribly abused for that sustenance that can be gained elsewhere (with suffering of its own, truly. I always hear the "well, there are people given slave wages to pick vegetables in California". But, you'll be eating those vegetables and fruits anyway. That's an entirely other battle that needs to be waged in other ways, not through lack of consumption).

My assumption was not that 100% of farmers treat their animals inhumanely. My assumption was that billions of animals are being treated inhumanely. And the way parents treat their children is a red herring. That's not my argument at all. And again, it's outside the realm of my influence.

And to counter your last argument... my same argument above follows for the "food chain/web" argument. Once and for all:

We are rational, amazing, smart, complex and powerful beings on this planet. We have it within our power (each of us) to not eat meat. This is "against nature". But so is basically OUR ENTIRE CIVILIZATION. What makes us truly different from animals is that exact ability. To step back and choose our actions. Are you saying humans not capable of choosing their actions -- those with so much in the 1st world countries? That we're all forced to, by nature, to eat meat? That is the cognitive dissonance I speak of. That we're so special because we are rational beings, but at the same time we must eat meat because we are not rational human beings.

This entire argument was not endorsed by PETA, because they're a bunch of assholes -- but despite being assholes one can't argue that they have brought about change. Change comes from all angles. Grassroots, insane radicals, scientists, humanitarians. They all try to bring change in different ways and succeed influencing different groups. PETA's brazenness is its power. Large corporations, like McDonald's, must respond to such a power. Despite being assholes. Both of them.

--

I want to end on a note of humility -- that I admit to having that same cognitive dissonance when it comes to animals. As a cat owner, I often visualize the mound of turkey carcasses that both of my lovable kittens live on top of. And they truly are carnivores in that they cannot find sustenance outside of meat. How do I rationalize all the turkey deaths (my cats only exclusively eat turkey for some goddamn reason) just so I can have my lovable pets? I can't. And it kills me. Not sure if I'll get cats after they die.

--

Thanks for reading. That was a lot.

I can think of one prominent neurosurgeon running for office that doesn't understand evolution...

Anyway. Seems mean to judge her. Perhaps she comes from a religious background and never had the benefit of a good science education earlier in her life. What better way to challenge our own understanding by attending a lecture and asking questions? If America has enough people brave enough to ask the questions and with enough humility to listen to the answers they are given then perhaps you can hold off on moving to NZ for the moment.

@RedSky

Selling assets and, to a certain degree, the reduction of public employment is an unreasonable demand. There's too much controversy about the effects it has, with me being clearly biased to one side.

Privatisation of essential services (healthcare, public transport, electricity, water) is being opposed or even undone in significant parts of Europe, since it generally came with worse service at much higher costs and no accountability whatsoever. Therefore I see it as very reasonable for Syriza to stop the privatisation of their electricity grid and their railroad. There are, of course, unessentials that might be handed over to the private sector, but like Varoufakis said, not in the shape of a fire sale within a crisis. That'll only profit the usual scavengers, not the people.

Similarly, public employment. There's good public employment (essential services, administration) and "bad" public employment. Troika demands included the firing of cleaning personnel, who were replaced by a significantly more expensive private service. And a Greek court decision ruled the firing as flat out illegal. For Syriza to not hire them back would not only have been unreasonable financially as well as socially, it would have been a violation of a court order. Same for thousands of others who were fired illegally, according to a ruling by the Greek Supreme Court.

Troika demands are all too often against Greek or even European law, and while the previous governments were fine with being criminals, Syriza might actually be inclined to uphold the law.


On the issue of reforms, I would argue that the previous governments did bugger all to establish working institutions. Famously, the posts of department heads of the tax collection agency were auctioned for money, even under the last government. Everything is in shambles, with no intent of changing anything that would have undermined the nepotic rules of the five families. Syriza's program has been very clear about the changes they plan to institute, so if it really was the intent of the troika to see meaningful reform the way it is being advocated to their folks at home, they would be in support of Syriza.

Interventions by the troika have crashed the health care system, the educational system and the pension system. Public pension funds were practically wiped out during the first haircut in 2012, creating a hole of about 20 billion Euros in the next five years.

I would like to address the issue of taxation specifically. Luxembourg adopted as a business model to be an enabler of tax evasion, even worse than Switzerland. In charge at that time was none other than Jean-Claude Juncker, who was just elected President of the European Commission. He's directly involved in tax evasion on a scale of hundreds of billions of Euros every year. How is the troika to have any credibility in this matter with him in charge?

Similarly, German politicians are particularly vocal about corruption and bribery in Greece. Well, who are the biggest sources of bribery in Greece? German corporations. Just last week there was another report of a major German arms manufacturer who paid outrageous bribes to officials in Greece. As much as I support the fight against corruption and bribery, some humility would suit them well.


As for the GDP growth in Greece: I think it's a fluke. The deflation skewers the numbers to a point where I can't take them seriously until the complete dataset is available. Might be growth, might not be. Definatly not enough to fight off a humanitarian crisis.

Surpluses. If everyone was a zealous as Germany, the deficit would in fact be considerably narrower, which is a good thing. Unfortunatly, it would have been a race to the bottom. Germany could only suppress wage growth, and subsequently domestic demand, so radically, because the other members of the Eurozone were eager to expand. They ran higher-than-average growth, which allowed Germany to undercut them without going into deflation. Nowadays, Germany still has below-target wage growth, so the only way for Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to gain competetiveness against Germany is to go into deflation. That's where we are in Europe: half a continent in deflation. With all its side effects of mass unemployment (11%+ in Europe, after lots of trickery), falling demand, falling investment, etc. Not good. Keynes' idea of an International Clearing Union might work better, especially since we already use similar concepts within nations to balance regions.

Bond yields of Germany could not have spiked at the same time as those of the rest of the Eurozone. The legal requirements for pension funds, insurance funds, etc demand a high percentage of safe bonds, and when the peripheral countries were declared unsafe, they had nowhere to go but Germany. Also, a bet against France is quite a risk, but a bet against Germany is downright foolish. Still, supply of safe bonds is tight right now, given the cuts all over the place. French yields are at historic lows, German yield is negative. Even Italian and Spanish yields were in the green as soon as Draghi said the ECB would do whatever it takes.

The current spike in Greek yields strikes me as a bet that there will be a face-off between the troika and Greece, with very few positive outcomes for the Greek economy in the short run.

QE: 100% agreement. Fistful of cash to citizens would not have solved any of the core issues of the Eurozone (highly unequal ULCs, systemic tax evasion, tax competition/undercutting, no European institutions, etc), but it would have been infinitely better than anything they did. If they were to put it on the table right now as a means to combat deflation, I'd say go for it. Take the helicopters airborne, as long as it's bottom-up and not trickle-down. Though to reliably increase inflation there would have to be widescale increases in wages. Not going to happen. Maybe if Podemos wins in Spain later his year.

Same for the last paragraph. The ECB could have stuffed the EIB to the brim, which in return could have funded highly beneficial and much needed projects, like a proper European electricity grid. Won't happen though. Debt is bad, even monetised debt during a deflation used purely for investments.

i have zero desire to see trance banned,that was never my intent for calling him out.
i simply wanted him to acknowledge his emotional response to a disagreement on a video he posted,
that the disagreement was with the video NOT him..personally.

i know this will only further derail this thread but i think it should be said.

a video is not a representation of the person.
being called out does not automatically translate to dislike of the person being called out.

a few weeks ago i did a little experiment with clickbait titles and @ChaosEngine totally called me on it.which gave me a nice chuckle and chaos was in the right but interestingly enough,the experiment worked.that video got 10 times the views it normally would in the same allotted time.

there was another video i posted where i didnt do my due diligence and it turned out to be a total fraud and @speechless (quite politely) called me out on that video and i was forced to apologize in shame.

does all this translate to chaos and speechless disliking me?
of course not.
i got busted using clickbait methodology and not doing my homework.while a tad embarrassing,being called out taught a lesson and a bit of humility.

point: i was the better for it.

trances targeted downvoting was an emotional response and he was behaving foolishly,but make no mistake..trance is no fool.he just took my analysis and criticism personally and responded emotionally.

no animals were harmed,all the puppies are still cute and kitty videos are more popular than ever.

human beings are sometimes irrational and emotional.trance should not be banned for behaving like a human being.

It's not being anti-cop, it's being anti-bad-cop...

You probably won't remember the recent video of a great cop that booked a guy tailgating a cyclist. You know, because it doesn't feed in to the narrative that exists between your ears.

Oh yeah, and why should we go tit for tat posting up criminals doing criminal things? They are criminals... We kinda fucking expect them to be the "bad" guys, it's hardly a surprise when they are... It's when the people put in a position of power and trust, public service, abuse that position that it's noteworthy. Sadly, that happens so often now that the most noteworthy points are when an officer performs with distinction, honour and humility, exactly the way he or she should...

http://videosift.com/video/How-a-Good-Cop-Behaves

Or how about this, where one good cop get's crushed because the dept. prefers to support two bad ones? The risk of being an honourable person in the police force isn't just from criminals, it's from coworkers as well.

http://videosift.com/video/Bogota-Police-Officer-Regina-Tasca-Suspended

So climb off your fucking self righteous steed (it must be uncomfortable riding it with your head up your ass). If you served as a police officer as you claim, your postings here give a pretty good indication of the type you were. And if you were a "good cop" in the truest sense of the words, doesn't your stomach turn to see how the entire profession is being dragged down by the criminals in your own ranks?

The one thing I took away from this is:

It's only humiliating if you're humilated.

I never knew Pete Holmes until his incredibly annoying X-men spoofs. Since then I have watched a number of his standup gigs (more awesome than not), and I've developed a real appreciation for the guy. You can't really fake this kind of earnestness and humility.

This is beautiful. I like the humility and honesty in "I'm not always comfortable when a man tells me he's gay; I don't understand his world. But I do understand that he's part of mine." Well, with an attitude like yours, I can say you probably understand his world more than you think. It's the same world, after all.

The thing I don't get is why free market supporters hold it up as an end unto itself.

I don't care about free markets, and I don't care about regulated markets, I care about the outcome. As a society/species our goals should be about things like justice, freedom and quality of life. If a free market leads to that, then great... bring on the free market. But a free market is not the end, merely the means.

The thing to realise as well, is that no matter how wealthy you are, it's not all down to you.

I earn a decent wage, roughly double the average household income. I'm not ashamed of that; I worked hard to get here, and I continue to work hard.

But neither am I so arrogant as to think that I got here on my own. I'm lucky. I was born into a first world country with parents who supported my education. I've always been fascinated by technology, and I find logical problem solving comes easy to me. It turns out that right now those are valuable skills. 50 years in either direction, maybe not so much. So once again, I'm lucky.

Anyone who is extremely wealthy and thinks they are anything other exceptionally fortunate is deluding themselves.

In other words, show a little humility. You might deserve to be rich through hard work and innovation, but no one person should be worth more than 41 million people. If you genuinely believe that, you're delusional.

I can't find where eating shellfish is punishable by death. I know Leviticus 11 forbids it.

Don't get me wrong. I think most self-labeled 'Christians' are so hypocritical that I don't even use the term anymore to describe myself. Most of the 'churches' are really just 501(c)(3) religious services organizations who's members are more interested in building their business than actually doing what is good and right according to the Bible they obstensibly believe. So I understand where alot of this anger and confusion comes from.

But if there is something that doesn't make sense then search it out with honesty and humility, not anger and spite towards someone who's wronged you who held the moniker 'Christian'. Just be consistent, be humble, and seek the God who is Good (as opposed to the modern American Christian God who glorys in wickedness). If something about that God seems bad, then reconsider! No one has a monopoly on your mind and your concept of God. Think on His character and His motives - not for a moment but for years.

The Bible does present a consistent history of God and His dealings with man if you just ignore what everyone else says about the book and read it yourself with humility and honesty.