I didn't think the two things were mutually exclusive, in fact I see them as reinforcing each other...because her name is never used in their culture, it's less likely they even know it than for Americans who also might not know their mother's actual name....although it's true at least the people at the end certainly did know their mother's names.

MASSIVE LONG POST WARNING: feel free to skip this

I usually like Vsauce a lot, but I disagree with just about every assumption and every conclusion he makes in this video.

Anthropogenic vs external extinction event -
I think the likelihood of an anthropogenic extinction event is low. Even in the cold war, at the apex of "mutually assured destruction" risk, IF that destruction was triggered I think it would have been extremely unlikely to make humans go extinct. The US and USSR might have nuked each other to near-extinction, but even with fairly mobile nuclear fallout / nuclear winter, etc. I think that enough humans would have remained in other areas to remain a viable population.

Even if ONE single person had access to every single nuclear weapon in existence, and they went nuts and tried to use them ALL with the goal of killing every single human being on the planet, I still bet there would be enough pockets of survivors in remote areas to prevent humans from going utterly extinct.

Sure, an anthropogenic event could be devastating -- catastrophic even -- to human life. But I think humanity could recover even from an event with an associated human death rate of 95% or more -- and I think the likelihood of anything like that is real slim.

So that leaves natural or external extinction events. The KT extinction (end of the dinosaurs) is the most recent major event, and it happened 65 million years ago. Homo sapiens have been around 150-200,000 years, and as a species we've been through some fairly extreme climatic changes. For example, humans survived the last ice age around 10-20,000 years ago -- so even without technology, tools, buildings, etc. we managed to survive a climate shift that extreme. Mammals survived the KT extinction, quite possible that we could have too -- especially if we were to face it with access to modern technology/tools/knowledge/etc.

So I think it would probably take something even more extreme than the asteroid responsible for KT to utterly wipe us out. Events like that are temporally rare enough that I don't think we need to lose any sleep over them. And again, it would take something massive to wipe out more than 95% of the human population. We're spread out, we live in pretty high numbers on basically every landmass on earth (perhaps minus Antarctica), we're adapted to many many different environments ... pretty hard to kill us off entirely.


"Humans are too smart to go extinct" @1:17 -
I think we're too dumb to go extinct. Or at least too lazy. The biggest threats we face are anthropogenic, but even the most driven and intentionally malevolent human or group of humans would have a hard time hunting down *everybody, everywhere*.


Doomsday argument -
I must admit that I don't really understand this one. The guess of how many total humans there will be, EVER, seems extremely arbitrary. But anyway, I tend to think it might fall apart if you try to use it to make the same assertions about, say, bacterial life instead of human life. Some specific species of bacteria have been around for way way longer than humans, and in numbers that dwarf human populations. So, the 100 billionth bacteria didn't end up needing to be worried about its "birth number", nor did the 100 trillionth.


Human extinction "soon" vs. "later" -
Most plausibly likely threats "soon" are anthropogenic. The further we push into "later", the more the balance swings towards external threats, I think. But we're talking about very small probabilities (in my opinion anyway) on either side of the scale. But I don't think that "human ingenuity will always stay one step ahead of any extinction event thrown at it" (@4:54). Increased human ingenuity is directly correlated with increased likelihood of anthropogenic extinction, so that's pretty much the opposite. For external extinction events, I think it is actually fairly hard to imagine some external scenario or event that could have wiped out humans 100, 20, 5, 2, or 1 thousand years ago that wouldn't wipe us out today even with our advances and ingenuity. And anything really bad enough to wipe us out is not going to wait for us to be ready for it...


Fermi paradox -
This is the most reasonable bit of the whole video, but it doesn't present the most common / best response. Other stars, galaxies, etc. are really far away. The Milky Way galaxy is 100,000+ light years across. The nearest other galaxy (Andromeda) is 2.2 million light years away. A living being (or descendents of living beings) coming to us either of those distances would have to survive as long as the entire history of human life, all while moving at near the speed of light, and have set out headed straight for us from the get-go all those millions and millions of years ago. So lack of other visitors is not surprising at all.

Evidence of other life would be far more likely to find, but even that would have to be in a form we could understand. Human radio signals heading out into space are less than 100 years old. Anything sentient and actively looking for us, even within the cosmically *tiny* radius of 100 light years, would have to have to evolved in such a way that they also use radio; otherwise the clearest evidence of US living here on Earth would be undetectable to them. Just because that's what we're looking for, doesn't mean that other intelligent beings would take the same approach.

Add all that up, and I don't think that the Fermi paradox is much cause for alarm. Maybe there are/have been LOTS of intelligent life forms out there, but they have been sending out beacons in formats we don't recognize, or they are simply too far away for those beacons to have reached us yet.


OK, I think I'm done. Clearly I found the video interesting, to post that long of a rambling response... But I was disappointed in it compared to usual Vsauce stuff. Still, upvote for the thoughts provoked and potential discussion, even though I disagree with most of the content and conclusions.

Well, there surely is a built in clientele insuring this to be mutually profitable, right? ... take THAT McDonalds! I can see pizza delivery in the future [special toppings and/or crust on request. And the special house salad dressing is out of this world]

The person who wrote that article needs to go back to grammar school

" Their is actually a humorous comparison due to the south park episode “medicinal fried chicken” having to do with KFC selling marijuana with there famous fried chicken"

Hey Messenger. We’ve gone around the mulberry bush a few times on these issues. Instead of debating this with you, I will just pray for you instead, that God will reveal Himself to you. Then you can tell me whether God answers prayer or not.

"To me, these two statements are mutually exclusive.
Either 1 Corinthians 2:14 is right and atheists cannot see God, or Romans 1:20 is right and atheists can see God, but refuse to do so."

They’re both right; nonbelievers cannot see or understand God at all, except for the revelation that God gives them individually. Note what it says just before in Romans 1:19:

Romans 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, "because God has shown it to them."

God makes it plain to them, so that they can see and understand certain things about God which could lead them to make a positive decision to believe in Jesus Christ.

To me, these two statements are mutually exclusive.

Either 1 Corinthians 2:14 is right and atheists cannot see God, or Romans 1:20 is right and atheists can see God, but refuse to do so.

...This is a terrible explanation, You're comparing two guys with movable carts to buildings, which are.. slightly harder to move.

It explains why the two vendors would eventually be close together, yes, but if you're in a city where you have one spot where you can set up shop forever, then your choice becomes a little more complex.

One of the easier solutions to the question, and the one that I personally find more viable (especially as I work in a restaurant that's close to 3 others) is that people don't like to wait.

If you have your restaurant out in the middle of town, and you get a full dining room within the first hour of dinner service, you may go on an hour long wait. The thing is though, how many people will say "Well, it's going to be an hour, lets sit outside." vs "Well, it's going to be an hour, lets go try somewhere else." Because I'm relatively sure the latter happens more often, especially if there's another place 5-10 minutes up the road.

If, however, you have 3 restaurants all located near each other, the likelyhood of all 3 filling up at exactly the same time is small. Here's the thing though, once you fill up that first restaurant (we'll call it A) restaurant B and C will start to get overflow.

Now it seems like i've defeated my own point, but now, you have 2 more options that are less than a minute away. People will either A) try to go to either B or C, or B) Sit and wait, because they can see the parking lot for those two restaurants are also pretty full.

B) retains more business, and if they choose A) The wheel continues to spin for whichever restaurant fills up first. A fills, B and C get overflow. C fills, B and A get it.

It's a system that actually benefits everyone involved because you'll also likely increase the amount of people you'd have coming to your business just because people know that's where a cluster of restaurants is.

In the long run, it's just a mutually beneficial set up.

Feeling good about yourself and feeling entertained are not mutually exclusive.

I think hurting others or self-hurting is always a sign of self-hate. It's just not in my experience to see someone who really loves who they are as a person hurting other people on a regular basis. Mostly, healthy minded people dislike their own tendencies to hurt other people and actively avoid it.

So, IMO, anyone who habitually enjoys making other people feel worse, who chooses to adopt making other people feel bad as their style or identity or online character and sticks to it really dislikes themselves a lot.

Willingness to hurt others (or oneself) is the best yardstick I can think of for self-esteem.

if we've learned anything from star wars it's that moons and space stations are mutually exclusive things.

One of the best stories ever told in a late show. The mutual embarrassment is amazing.

You gave a few examples, I did not ever disagree that it happens, I disagreed that it's happening today in Africa (or worldwide) at a level that's worse than the lack of water on a global scale. I will concede that, in certain areas, it is, but worldwide, even continent wide, it's less of an issue than useable water by far.
You give up pretty easily.
Historically, there have not been 'men with guns'. Guns are a fairly new construct. If it were historical fact that men with 'overwhelming force' (so forget the guns quip) drive farmers out of farming, why are we still here farming?

Yes, the two statements about technology are not mutually exclusive...your point? You 'give up' a lot.

Yes, and I clearly stated I believe they ignored some factors to get their numbers, as most 'predictions' I've seen in the last 20 years have done. I also clearly stated that even their lower range numbers were disastrous and unsurvivable and their high numbers even more so, I just went on to say my educated guess is that they are likely also on the low side because they don't account for everything AND they assume we'll stop rushing to make things worse at some point. I just think that's wishful thinking, based on my estimations of human behavior.

I do listen to fact, reason, data, hypothesis, innuendo, lies, insanity, and more (proven by the fact that I'm still here discussing this, and it's funny that you now wish to no longer 'listen' to facts or reason yourself because you 'give up'), then do my best with my degree in science and scientific mind to work out what hypothesis is closest to the data, and see if I can determine where it's imperfect and why. You can call it 'personal belief', I call it educated guess work, because I've paid attention and most models were on the low side of reality because they don't include all factors (they can't, we don't know all factors involved yet to program them into the models) and because they all expect humans to stop adding to the problem at some point in their equations, which I say from experience is wishful thinking and bad science/math, and I think it's nearly always added to actual science lately for political reasons on one side or the other.
EDIT: For instance, I've never seen a model that includes 'global dimming', but it's a factor that has kept up to 3 degrees C of warming from happening. it happens when particulates in the upper atmosphere deflect sunlight, stopping it from entering the system as light or heat. It has also added to a decline in global food production, but I've yet to see a climate study that includes it in their model. If we shut down all coal plants and combustion engines tomorrow, we would see a rapid spike in temperature as a result, another thing no one ever mentions.

I note you aren't defending your 'facts' about Texas producing more food than California, were you as certain of that as you are about these 'facts'? If so, perhaps more research could be warranted?

Oh, never mind, I forgot you decided to stop listening to facts and hypothesis and give up. I think your children would be disappointed you care so little about their future....I have none, so I have no dog in the fight. Nothing done today will effect things either way in my lifetime. As I see it, that means I'm one of the few with no agenda either way, I'm only interested in reality, and the data I have seen has consistently been worse than the worst predictions when everything is considered in totality (not cherry picked).

In the past tense, I'd agree but not today. For starters, First Nation people have 100% full Canadian citizenship and the only distinctions made based on a persons treaty status compared to a non-treaty neighbour in any Canadian city is additional rights and benefits that are potentially available to the treaty person. That is to say, First Nations people have all the full rights of everyone else in Canada, and in some situations bonuses as well.

That said, living conditions on Native Reserves in Canada are abysmal. The municipality I live in is just vastly better off than the nearby native reserves. Better access to education, policing, fire protection and health care. If that weren't bad enough, average family incomes in my municipality more than double those of neighbouring native reserve communities.

That abysmal divide in conditions though is NOT an example of we as Canadians treating First Nations terribly. If you take per capita taxes collected from community and take away per capita government dollars put back in, my community still gives more to the government than it gets back. The neighbouring reserves with far worse conditions receive far more money from the government than they pay it back. Systemically, the Canadian government is economically favouring the neighbouring reserves.

That begs the question why are conditions there so abysmal, and I can't claim to fully understand it myself. The components I DO know are at work though are many:
1.Reserves are NOT fit into government the same way as municipalities are. While my municipality is under Provincial jurisdiction, reserves are parallel with the provinces and fall directly under the federal government. The idea is reserves deserve greater autonomy to respect First Nations unique status and treaty obligations. In practice though, IMO they lose out. My community has education and health care handled by the province, which great benefits those kind of items. Reserves are responsible for those things on their own.
2. Reserves create segregation. The idea is again respecting treaty agreements and protecting First Nations culture from being overwhelmed and assimilated. In practice, that isolation is crippling the communities rather than helping them.
3. Historic abuses against previous generations of First Nations people at the hands of government get passed down to the next generation. This is amplified by the segregation on reserves.
4. Absence of accountability. The same transparency rules that apply to my municipality and all other municipalities nation wide do not apply on reserves. If my mayor spends millions of city dollars paying him or his family to do almost nothing it is more traceable than if a chief on a reserve did the same thing. Again, the idea is provide greater autonomy and not 'force' white beuracracy on First Nations, but the effect is to make it harder for them to hold their own leaders to account.

That's hardly a comprehensive list, but I think it highlights a lot of ways in which the current generation of Canadians running the country are very conscience of treating First Nations well and just failing at it through mutual mistakes. Any efforts to convert the failed reserve systems to municipality status will by fought the most by the very people living in the failed reserves. I wish knew how to move things forward to a better place, but the root is nothing as simple as 'treat First Nations better'.

Nailed it dude!

The only angle I feel hasn't really come up so far is the idea that private enterprise and public governance could easily be regarded as two manifestations of the same "real" social dynamic: Establishment/challenger (or master/slave if you want to get fully Hegelian about it)

Like, why do we even develop governmental systems in the 1st place?

I have yet to conceive a better answer than: "to curb the destructive excesses of private wealth/power."

Why would we champion personal freedom? I would say: "to curb the destructive excesses of public wealth/power".

Or something to that effect at the very least. The idea of a society with either absolute personal, or absolute collective sovereignty seems hellish to me. And probably unworkable to boot!

There seems to me a tendency in the history of societies for these two types of power to dance either side of equilibrium as the real power struggle unfolds i.e. between reigning establishment and challenger power groups/paradigms.

Right now the establishment is both economic and governmental. The corruption is mutually supporting. Corporations buy and control governments, governments facilitate corporations ruling the market and continuing to be able to buy them.

The circle jerk @blankfist IMHO is between government and private dynasty and moreover I strongly believe that in a vacuum, one will always create the other.

Pure collectivism will naturally breed an individualist challenger and visa versa.

People are at their best I think when balancing self interest and altruism. Too much of either tends to hurt others around you and diminish ones capacity to grow and adapt. (being nice is no good if you lack the will and capacity to get shit done)

It seems natural that the ideal way of organising society would always balance collective state power, with private personal power.

Libertarianism (even the superior non anarchist version) defangs the state too much IMHO. Some collectivist projects such as education, scientific research and exploration I think tend to be better served by public direction. But more importantly I expect the state to referee the market, just as I expect public transparency to referee the state.

Total crowbar separation between the three: public officials cannot legally own or control private wealth and cannot live above standard of their poorest citizens. Private citizens cannot inherit wealth legally, only earn and create it. The state cannot legally hold any secret or perform any function of government outside public view unless it is to prepare sensitive legal proceedings (which must then be disclosed in full when actioned).

In the age of global communications this kind of transparency may for the first time be a workable solution (it's already near impossible to keep a lid on most political scandals and this is very early days). There is also the possibility of a steadily de-monetised market as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing production models start to become more advanced and practical than traditional market dynamics. e.g. kickstarter style collective investment in place of classical entrepreneurial investment.

The benefits and dangers of both capitalism and socialism here would be trending towards diffusion amongst the populace.

And then there's the whole Meritocracy vs Democracy thing, but that's really getting into another topic and I've probably already gone on too long now.

Much love

Sorry, Glen, but the feeling's not mutual.

At some point, this amount of disagreement does nothing but push us all down collectively to a level that is enough evidence that none of us are worthy of choosing what is right and good for the collective of the human race, versus what is wrong and should be avoidable.

That says more for those of us who supposedly represent the authority than it does for citizens reacting to these crimes, but it still goes for all of us.

There is so much blindness in this thread on every side, and that does not exclude my own. Ultimately we're all swayed by our personal experiences. The sum of all arguments is nearly impossible to calculate, but it's there.
I don't care much for "law" as it's practiced today, and there is plenty of evidence online to support any orderly or bigoted perspective if you care to weigh it that subjectively, but pertaining to videos such as these, here is what you cannot deny regardless of your position:

Minorities will always have the lesser voice, and be exploited, intentionally or unintentionally, by the authority.

Around the world, at all times, though perhaps more now than the last few decades, the majority of government authority is responding to the fear that has been shown prevalently in media and culture for at least a generation.

The proper solution for all of our kind is a way for authoritative powers to understand that when there is a diplomatic minority large enough to warrant force as a response, force is no longer the appropriate answer. Otherwise, at this point, you have to allow voice to this community or you are a verifiable dictatorship/tyrant/oppressor or despot, and no longer the best representation of your collective people.

In the end, the discussions that all forums ultimately fall into is one that simply tries to snuff the other out. Lantern53 is a a verifiable, uneducated menace, ass, and an example of the ignorance that is readily welcomed by an all-to-eager agency whose present desire is to employ thugs more than representatives of the people.

However we, collectively, need that voice. We need to know who in our society has such widely disparate views in order to regulate and balance our own perspectives. It is healthy to encounter perspectives that are not your own, and it's up to everyone and each individual to temperate our reactions, despite how offensive they might be. In that sense, people such as Lantern, BobKnight, Shiny, Choggie, and all the other "assholes" who've sifted through the sift, possess a little more bravery than most of us. (Or they're trolls, but in communities such as the sift, they're more likely just angry people with a drastically alternate perspective from the majority).

The next time you encounter someone like Lantern, just take their perspective and defeat them with logic and reason. If you don't have the knowledge to do so, research factual evidence to do it. If you cannot find factual evidence to do so, you may well be in the wrong.

I have; everyone has. It just comes down to trying to shout into submission those with different views - or - converting them to an understanding perspective with reason and evidence. It's not a one-side versus the other, either. It must go back and forth to a certain extent, because that is how you reach mutual understanding.

If all else fails, y'know, find out their address and bring a tire-iron.

I stand by my original statement that this was better than the original ending.

However, I also concur with everyone else that this show went on way too long. These are not mutually exclusive statements.

I'm just saying that the ending they fed us originally was complete "get out of jail free" craptastic. And this one was better.