The issue is they made it impossible for charities to comply by requiring permits AND they must supply port-a-potty's AND can't be within 500 feet or 1 block of another charity OR 500 feet from a residential property, among other new requirements. They did this clearly in order to 'starve the homeless into not being homeless', or in it's supporters words..."Hunger is a big motivator. Are people more likely to seek help when they're hungry or when they're fed and happy?" (fed and HAPPY?!? ) or...Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, told city lawmakers "Feeding people on the streets is sanctioning homelessness,"... "Whatever discourages feeding people on the streets is a positive thing." It is NOT a food safety violation or issue. It's a 'get the homeless the fuck out of our town' issue.

Actually she doesn't need to call herself a feminist, because she a widely recognized one. I was simply quoting what she said regarding the 'new wave' of feminists that have arisen in the past few years. This group is simply the next wave of PC thought police that have decided what is good and right for us to consume.

We both have pretty strong opinions on the issue and I doubt that either of us are going to persuade the other. I will say that in this day and age of simple graphic games being big hits and app store games also taking off, the market is there for people to try making games that cover more diverse scenarios. If there is a large another audience that hungers for the games, then they will be made and they will be successful. If they are successful long enough, AAA tier developers will take notice and start making them as well.

But, in the end, we are talking about games. They are fun, but there has not been one yet that made me want to start picking up hookers and beating them or pretending to be a stealth killer. Games do not program our thoughts and morals; our families, friends, and other life experiences do.

My gf had terrible headaches, constant nausea, and terrible drowsiness whenever she was hungry for her entire life... until I met her. I suggested she might be hypoglycaemic and should carry around a sugary treat or drink wherever she goes. She started doing that and quickly her hunger sickness symptoms could be basically controlled. But they were still there. One thing I always found strange about her eating habits was her insistence on having lots of bread. She never felt satisfied or full without bread.

After a year of doing that my mom suggested she might be gluten intolerant. My gf had never heard of the concept, had zero friends on any kind of gluten free fad diets. She decided to give it a shot, no gluten for 4 weeks. Boom all symptoms gone. More tests led her to trying out gluten after a week, and what do you know it was back. She waited two weeks, back again. Eventually she figured out a system in which she could have a gluten meal/snack/treat every four weeks without symptoms appear.
Also, she started to feel satisfied and full without an urge to eat bread, almost like the bread caused a weird drug like addicting withdrawal cycle which seemed to be why she always craved it. The gluten seems to build up in her system, or at least the allergic reaction and her body goes through a withdrawal after she has had too much, or too much too frequently, and doesn't get more in her system soon enough.

I eat gluten just fine. Together we eat vegetables, meat, fruit, and occasional pieces of the best gluten free bread (most of its sucks). I tend not to eat tasty gluten stuff around her unless it is a treat day for her Gluten products also make people fat, so it really isn't a problem to not eat them. No one on the planet requires gluten to live a healthy lifestyle. Bread, white bread in particular just gets converted into sugars and fat inside the body. It is empty calories.

@Trancecoach holding a doctorate doesn't make you capable of understanding the scientific literature. If you held a bachelor's degree in one of the three sciences you'd stand a lot better chance of being able to understand the literature than someone who had a doctorate in say Art History. I would actually refer back to the Dunning Kruger effect and suggest that holding an unrelated qualification might lead you to overestimate your abilities.

And for someone who says that they *are* capable of understanding the scientific literature (and therefore the scientific method and approach), you dismiss "scientific consensus" as not being "scientific evidence". I don't understand what you mean here, but i think that's because you don't understand what scientific proof is.

I think it's a fundamental mistake that you're making. Scientists propose theories. Those theories that most accurately describe the situation and are most rigourously investigated are the ones that are accepted as being the case, and when things are found that are not correct, adjustments are made to the theory or other theories are proposed. There is never ever, ever.... EVER.. absolute evidence of anything in the way in which you request it, and that's your fundamental error, and stems from you not understanding the scientific method.

We have a lot of scientific consensus about gravity, but we do not have "scientific evidence" in the way you describe it. The evidence is ALL of the science that is done, ALL of the experiments ALL of the conclusions, positive and negative, and the consensus of the scientific community is reached and refined based on that research and ongoing research. There is no one document anywhere that constitutes "proof" that gravity is how we think it is. Not even all of the documents do that. They merely indicate to us what is most likely to be happening according to all of the knowledge and ingenuity that we've built up over the years.

I don't appreciate the scatter gun method you've used by posting all those links. You said in your latest post here that people try to confuse the issue by redirecting your request for "evidence" - the type that doesn't exist - towards other issues that you deem contentious. Yet you have almost drowned me in what appears to be about 15 different links to pages that seem to show singular examples of individuals that deny climate change. (Again, there are so many, and so many quotes, and no actual specification of what you are disagreeing with me about, that i can't rightly assess any of them.)

My point here is twofold - 1) don't try to be confusing like you accuse your opponents of, i.e. throwing as many links as possible to extend the argument to other points and 2) if that isn't what you were doing, could you perhaps condense your 15 links and selected quotes into a smaller point; that point being what it is about my previous posts you disagreed with?

Here are my points for you, simplified:
1) Scientific consensus does not mean "THIS IS HOW THINGS ARE" - it means that, on balance, according to everything we know and the opinions of those that are in the know, this is how we think things are until we know better.
2) There is no such thing as "scientific evidence" in the way you use the term; the only absolute proof is the one Descartes spoke about; the only thing you can know for sure is that your consciousness exists.
3) It is very easy to be misled by articles such as the one you linked from "the libertarian republic" website. This is also true of the last link you recommended for my research; you used that book to support your opposition to my assertion that human-caused climate change is not a matter of debate in the scientific community. Yet the same author was involved in the Copenhagen Consensus which lists as 6th most worthy of investigation (for the benefit and future of mankind), i quote; "R&D to Increase Yield Enhancements, to decrease hunger, fight biodiversity destruction, and lessen the effects of climate change"

I think that out of courtesy you should select one link which backs up whatever it is that you wish to refute, because it's not a good use of my time to have to go through each individual link, find out what you disagree with me about, and then spend time looking into it.

So, we disagree on one of the following:
1) The scientific consensus is that human-caused climate change is real, and that consensus represents the best of our current understanding as a species.
2) "Proof" in the sense you use it doesn't exist, the correct term is scientific evidence. The more evidence and the more convincing it is, the more firm the belief in a theory.
3) The article you linked from the libertarian website was unfairly representing its argument in relation to the paper it was referring to.

Please let me know. Remember - nothing is "beyond scepticism" in your words. I am sceptical about everything, including gravity, which i have an incredible amount of evidence for. However i am still sceptical about our understanding of it - i am always looking for differences. That doesn't mean that our understanding isn't the best one we have, and we should use it for our own advantage and safety.

I also note that you seem loathe to have a proper discussion with me. Our discussion could have been either about the scientific method or about the article you linked, but to throw all these links at me makes me feel you're unwilling or incapable of challenging your own opinion based on evidence. You don't even refer to the assessments of the article that i offered; you immediately discarded the article from your argument and linked me to other people that may or may not be misrepresenting the argument.

What Neil deGrasse Tyson and some of the other scientists/doctors (myself include) have are saying is that the IDEA of GMO's is a great one. The fact that we can engineer our foods to get the traits we want or add additional beneficial traits is an incredibly useful tool. We've already engineered rice that is able to produce vitamin A, which has been a huge help for places with vitamin A deficiencies and we can engineer potatoes to absorb less fats and oils when we fry them, there is also a professor at SUNY-ESF who is using GMO's to try and save the American Chestnut tree from extinction.

GMing is simply another tool in humanity's struggle to survive. First it was finding which foods were safe to eat, then it was breeding organisms within species to make inbred organisms that had the traits we wanted (think cattle, dogs, cats, corn, banana's; some of these things are more inbred than the Hapsburgs), then we starting creating our own hybrids across different species, and now we have GMO's.

However, what I object to is the current corporate use of GMO's to exploit farmers over patents, and breed for traits that people do necessarily need. NdT I'm sure is not advocating for that, but is advocating for the use of transgenic organisms/GMO's to solve some of the world's most pressing issues.

GMO's are probably the most powerful tool we have to curb world hunger, and mal-nutrition, and it could also be the thing that allows humans to venture beyond the solar system. What the Sift seems to be objecting to, and the rest of the "developed" world is the use of GMO's by greedy corporations who care more about turning a profit than solving world problems (there isn't very much money in feeding the needy and hungry). They are the one's making what appear to me more or less useless and potentially dangerous GMO's. Turn your anger away from GMO's specifically and narrow it to the ill use of GMO's by greedy corporations.

Lastly, the argument that "we don't know what they'll do" is for the most part unfounded, there are a decent amount of studies (find them yourself sorry) which show that GMO's in general won't cause harm (though it really depends on what you're trying to make). The same argument was made about the LHC "We don't know what will happen when we turn it on!" but everyone was fine.

I liked the Hunger Games (first movie) enough that I decided to read the books. OK, but the third one went off the rails a bit and overall I felt like it would be better to try to get the YA audience to read Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, or 1984, all of which still hold up pretty well.

I haven't watched Divergent yet. Would you (or your wife) recommend watching the movie first and then reading (if I like the movie), or going straight to the books?

I finally started re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire, so this would probably have to wait a good while until I finish that, but I don't mind holding off if that would be the thing to do.

You're conflating two different points.

1 - Is overpopulation a problem that needs to be addressed?
2 - If it is a problem, is it possible for us to address?

We've been competing for less and less resources ever since populations started growing. Nobody in this thread has offered any evidence for why suddenly at and above 7 billion it will really become a problem this time. My hypothesis is that the past shows that the change in living standards from increased populations will be gradual and not cause some kind of cataclysmic hunger or global food war. Where is your evidence to the contrary? I've shown examples recent and past where the world has dealt with respectively, (1) high commodity prices and (2) dealt with proportionately much higher population growth than what we are experiencing today.

Society has continually shown the ability to drastically grow agricultural yields, tap deeper and harder to access water and energy reserves and substitute different inputs when a commodity becomes scarce or expensive. With global birth rates barely above replacement and global population plateauing, where is your evidence that with the ingenuity of the many people that have come out of poverty since the end of the Cold War, that we won't be able to handle a historically relatively mild proportionate growth in population?

Every time I see someone channelling Malthusian scare mongering such as this video, I always see the same tropes -

(1) The word exponential bounded about with some kind of mystical reverence;
(2) An over-abundant use of analogies while being absent of any historical basis for their argument; and
(3) A complete lack of plausible solutions to the problem because their argument is grounded in emotion and intuition rather than practicality.

From reading some of the comments, it would appear that many people still do not understand basic math.

Over population is a problem. It is real and it will self correct one way or another. Science can't save us (short of moving us all to a digital existence), and we will hit critical population density long before we achieve the kind of technological sophistication to allow us to colonise other planets (singularity notwithstanding).

Basically, there are three possible outcomes:
1. We voluntarily stop having so many kids and we certainly stop celebrating ridiculously huge families like those fucking morons on "18 and counting" or whatever the fuck it's called. This is the best case scenario, and IMHO, the most unlikely

2. Wide scale population control. One child policies, etc. unpleasant but still less unpleasant than...

3. We do nothing and the problem corrects itself. And when I say corrects itself, I mean global hunger on a scale not seen since the last ice age; massive pandemics or just plain ol' killing the fuck out of each other.

This is isn't some airy fairy, mother Gaia, hippy nonsense, it's simple math.

On the plus side, we'll almost certainly have made the planet nigh uninhabitable for ourselves by then anyway.

As of right now, if you use Cannabis to treat cancer, statistically speaking, you're just gonna die with the munchies.

It has an insanely low research rate in a cancer-fighting capacity, and is mostly used during cancer-treatment (specifically chemo) to induce hunger, and reduce pain.

Not to mention that if you're saying that fighting cancer with "happy thoughts and no stress" you're now just gonna die happy..about everything other than the fact that you decided not to actually cure your cancer.

Your logic is insane, and Chemo, although "Barbaric" is still, at the very least proven, and actually factually life-saving.

I dont understand the interviewer or people being wildly upset by this, do they really think the zookeepers, who feed and care for this giraffe are simply sadistic morons who kills a giraffe for fun or just because they can? Obviously there was a reason for this.

I am , however, in principal against zoos. they may be educational on some level, but I have a distaste for the concept of keeping wild animals imprisoned like this. But I do think that most zoos and zookeepers do their best under the circumstances to keep the animals happy as they can be. Most wild animals in the wild of course, live in perpetual fear and/or hunger, and so forth, but I am much more in favour of us spending money on preserving wilderness, and stop the perpetual destruction of their natural habitat, instead of keeping specimens in special "cages"/zoos.

My pleasure. I would have thought that anyone who is a fan of The Hunger Games movies and grew up watching Sesame Street would love it. It is surprising it doesn't have more views.

So was that an "official" sesame street video?

Seems like an odd topic for them to parody, given that most of their target demographic (hopefully) hasn't seen or read the Hunger Games. It's not exactly kid friendly stuff.

Still funny though

Hey! No, not really. I'm living with someone who has a TV and my video hunger has subsided tremendously. I do miss the gang though. Great group here. Maybe I'll start stopping by more. I enjoy the comments and the banter here even more than the vids.

Take care!

Beyond the 10 minute mark, Cornel West brings out the big guns: Wall Street, torture, decades of solitary confinement in California, hunger strikes in California/Gitmo, force-feeding.

@ Kofi-My comment came from a place of personal contention regarding the effectiveness of a hunger strike-suppose there have been a few that have affected some drastic change-How does one call attention to the plight of the unfortunate.....in a Cuban dungeon??? Gotta be a better way-throw doo-doo at the guards, swallow your own tongue, act crazier than your torturers...(got a hundred of these, just kill me already!)