Holy shit, this coming from one of the most politically biased individuals to ever puke up worthless polarized talking points on the sift.

Ignore story about murder and injustice for minorities.
Raise hell about "startling new details" in the Obama birth certificate saga.

Riiight...

You and everyone like you are demented.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Best thing we can all do is shut the news off, ignore the media, and not listen to a single word that anyone says about this whole thing. Let the courts do what they do, and stop getting sucked into these ideological knife fights that are clearly politically motivated.

>> ^TheSluiceGate:

Not strictly perpetual: ocean currents are caused by winds, which are in turn caused by the earth's rotation. And the earth's rotation is slowing down, infinitesimally, all the time.
But your point is valid and there are many research programs to this effect: http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/documents/docs/OCS_EIS_WhitePaper_Current.pdf


No, winds are just currents in air that is 1000 times less dense than the surface water, and maybe only 10-100 times faster at best, their effect on currents small. The earth's rotation, the moon's gravity, the sun's heat, plus any underwater volcanoes and vents all supply energy into the system and the underwater topography funnels the effects of these to provide the startling display we have just witnessed.

It took me a second and then lolololol>> ^sepatown:

I'm so startled!

I'm so startled!

Yeah, the girl does just kinda warp.

However, I'd like to point out that the guy isn't a douche for punching, that's actually what I do if something startles me.

First instinct is to take a swing at it, I've had to check myself multiple times because I don't want to take a swing at my family.

[edit] Actually, no, the girl just happens to walk up along with the man. If you pause the video just as you see the red shirt entering the screen, you should just be able to see her shirt right behind him. Keep an eye on the feet while watching in fullscreen and you'll even see her turn around to stand beside it.

Not true. Venture capital is not necessary for businesses to exist. How do I know? Many businesses began without investments of the size that require venture capitalists. Parents give their children money to start businesses, or people find work to do that others want done and save and re-invest. Before capitalism, just about every business started without capital investment.

And yes I do believe that. I'm not at all in favour of redistribution of wealth. I'm in favour of fair distribution of wealth. To me, that means people earning whatever they can within the law, and not using their wealth to create legal conditions that favour their making money at the expense of those without as much money. Such a system keeps the rich rich, and makes it nearly impossible for the lower and middle classes to become rich. In fact, it erodes the middle class because doing more work than before only keeps you level, not going higher. It used to be that a household only needed one breadwinner. You'd think with all our new time-saving technology we'd need even less labour, but no, it now takes two breadwinners.>> ^quantumushroom:

Without investors (and capital) laborers have nothing to build or create. Without biz leaders, laborers build products no one wants and go out of business.
And the rich who earn their money honestly and keep it without manipulating Congress etc. are entitled to enjoy it, in my books.
You don't really believe this.

>> ^messenger:
You mean that all profits should go to the labourers (literally, the productive), and that those who have lived off the riches created by labour merely by being investors should die?
That's a startling new stance for you QM, and I'm starting to warm to your philosophy, but I don't think lazy rich should die. And the rich who earn their money honestly and keep it without manipulating Congress etc. are entitled to enjoy it, in my books.>> ^quantumushroom:
Death to parasites, wealth to the productive who created it.

Without investors (and capital) laborers have nothing to build or create. Without biz leaders, laborers build products no one wants and go out of business.

And the rich who earn their money honestly and keep it without manipulating Congress etc. are entitled to enjoy it, in my books.

You don't really believe this.


>> ^messenger:

You mean that all profits should go to the labourers (literally, the productive), and that those who have lived off the riches created by labour merely by being investors should die?
That's a startling new stance for you QM, and I'm starting to warm to your philosophy, but I don't think lazy rich should die. And the rich who earn their money honestly and keep it without manipulating Congress etc. are entitled to enjoy it, in my books.>> ^quantumushroom:
Death to parasites, wealth to the productive who created it.

In other startling news - human beings require the respiration of oxygen for survival, and sunlight powers photosynthesis! The system is corrupt? Who knew?!? :eyeroll:

You mean that all profits should go to the labourers (literally, the productive), and that those who have lived off the riches created by labour merely by being investors should die?

That's a startling new stance for you QM, and I'm starting to warm to your philosophy, but I don't think lazy rich should die. And the rich who earn their money honestly and keep it without manipulating Congress etc. are entitled to enjoy it, in my books.>> ^quantumushroom:

Death to parasites, wealth to the productive who created it.

Man, her voice startled me.

>> ^robbersdog49:

gwiz is right. This isn't cute, it's horrible. That poor little fella is going to die with people laughing at it. If I remember right the condition affects the kitten's ability to eat and it will starve to death. Nice.


I'm not sure where you got your information but in general this condition is very manageable and only incapacitates an animal for a few moments per episode.

Unless the kitten is constantly exposed to startling stimulation there should be no issues with it getting enough nutrition.

>> ^MonkeySpank:

Just what kind of pussy are you talking about?
>> ^petpeeved:
Myotonia congenita is the definitely the cutest genetic disorder.



The easily startled kind.

Just because the universe might be eternal, does not mean that God is the automatic solution, nor the simplest explanation. That's just the one that makes sense to you. I would say that an eternal universe filled with rocks and gas is a little less complicated than an eternal, thinking, feeling, all-powerful being. But again, that's just my opinion. Those are large concepts, and the rules of physics, or even the seemingly bizarre rules of quantum mechanics do nothing to help explain them.

To me it is simply a probability argument. If you say that everything is equally unlikely, then if you strip away all other concerns, you just have the question..was the Universe deliberately created? The answer is either yes or no. You have evidence that perhaps there is design, which implies an intelligent (and powerful) creator. You have evidence that perhaps it could have happened by chance, by naturalistic processes. From there, you have to figure out what explanation best matches reality. You could ask, does something as wonderful as life and as amazing as the Universe just happen by itself? You could ask, am I just a bunch of atoms moving through space or is there something more to me than that?

Is an eternal God hard to grasp? Yes, but easier I think than something from nothing. If it is something from nothing we will always be ignorant of the initial conditions. If God created it, He will (presumably) educate us about the mystery of His existence. He promised this:

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

It is basically saying that God promises full disclosure when His Kingdom is established on Earth..

Occam's razor is simply a pragmatic way to find a solution, it does not prove anything, but just suggest what a likely answer might be. People use that argument about the complexity of universal laws all the time, but the fact of the matter is, we still don't understand 99.99999999% of the universe or how it works. We can see that if we "tweaked the dials", it would probably look much different than the universe we know, but there isn't a scientist out there in this world that could tell you with any certainty what would happen. Only that on a large scale, things might fall inward or burst outward faster, or that water might not congeal the same way.

Well, just in the initial conditions of the Universe, you have several values which just defy any naturalistic explanation. Even atheist scientists have to admit that a straight forward explanation indicates a designer:

Fred Hoyle, Astronomer said

"A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

This has major implications for scientific theories, because it isn't simply a matter of it being incredibly unlikely, it is also matter of contradicting the predictions of standard models. I think you'll enjoy this article:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0208/0208013v3.pdf

Speaking of complexity, here's an exercise for your brain: Think about a mountain, on part of that mountain, pressure builds up, and a rock slide starts to fall. When it finally settles, the rocks, all the little pebbles and large boulders and particles of dust are arranged in just a certain way. Even though it's just a pile of rocks, it contains within it an inconceivable amount of complexity. Nowhere else in the entire universe, will there ever be a pile of rocks that have the exact specifications of this one. And even if it did, it wouldn't be composed of the same stone, And even if was, the elements that make up the stone wouldn't be arranged the same way. Nor would it be the exact same temperature, unless it was in the exact same relative position in the universe with an identical sun, with all the particles of gas and dust in between them arranged in exactly the same way.

In a way, the pile of rocks, when you think about it, is an impossibility. And yet it exists. There is no simple solution to explain it. An eternal creator, or the laws of physics? Either way, the true meaning is something that neither of us can comprehend. And to say that either one is "simpler" than the other is merely a statement of faith. Not fact.

Sure, taken by itself, such a thing is astonishing to behold. Divorced from its circumstances, it is perplexing to say the least. Yet, either explanation for the origin of this impossibility leads to a definitive conclusion. If it was naturalism, there is no meaning to it. It just happened that way and at best you can invent a meaning for it and decide to believe it. If it was created, however, it was created for a purpose. It has meaning because of that purpose; it is invested with meaning. In naturalism, you are practically looking at something alien. It is cold, dead, inexplicable, and doesn't care about you. Under creation, you are at the least staring this quote from Einstein dead in the face:

"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."

I go a step further because I believe God has revealed a bit about his Dewey Decimal System, but essentially, I am in staring at this in awe and wonder. I think those rocks are amazing and startling, but I also praise God for making them that way.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
We love you too. (but it's a rough, heathen love)
Just because the universe might be eternal, does not mean that God is the automatic solution, nor the simplest explanation. That's just the one that makes sense to you. I would say that an eternal universe filled with rocks and gas is a little less complicated than an eternal, thinking, feeling, all-powerful being. But again, that's just my opinion. Those are large concepts, and the rules of physics, or even the seemingly bizarre rules of quantum mechanics do nothing to help explain them.
Occam's razor is simply a pragmatic way to find a solution, it does not prove anything, but just suggest what a likely answer might be. People use that argument about the complexity of universal laws all the time, but the fact of the matter is, we still don't understand 99.99999999% of the universe or how it works. We can see that if we "tweaked the dials", it would probably look much different than the universe we know, but there isn't a scientist out there in this world that could tell you with any certainty what would happen. Only that on a large scale, things might fall inward or burst outward faster, or that water might not congeal the same way.
Point being, just because we can tell that the universe would be different, doesn't mean that it was designed. It just means that it is this way.
Speaking of complexity, here's an exercise for your brain: Think about a mountain, on part of that mountain, pressure builds up, and a rock slide starts to fall. When it finally settles, the rocks, all the little pebbles and large boulders and particles of dust are arranged in just a certain way. Even though it's just a pile of rocks, it contains within it an inconceivable amount of complexity. Nowhere else in the entire universe, will there ever be a pile of rocks that have the exact specifications of this one. And even if it did, it wouldn't be composed of the same stone, And even if was, the elements that make up the stone wouldn't be arranged the same way. Nor would it be the exact same temperature, unless it was in the exact same relative position in the universe with an identical sun, with all the particles of gas and dust in between them arranged in exactly the same way.
In a way, the pile of rocks, when you think about it, is an impossibility. And yet it exists. There is no simple solution to explain it. An eternal creator, or the laws of physics? Either way, the true meaning is something that neither of us can comprehend. And to say that either one is "simpler" than the other is merely a statement of faith. Not fact.

Reminds me of when I was in a bar with some friends and I selected a bunch of songs from the CD jukebox, including "Miserlou" from Pulp Fiction. There was a lull then "EVERYBODY BE COOL, THIS IS A ROBBERY!" from the diner scene with Tim Roth. They included it as the intro to Miserlou.

Startled the crap out of everybody, every single person looked towards the front door. It was pretty funny.

That one looked like narcolepsy. Like those goats that fall over when startled.