Via Liberty.me: The status of the police is bound up with the perception of the value of the entire public sector. The police are the “thin blue line,” long perceived as the most essential and irreplaceable function of the state. Now that this perception is under pressure from public opinion over what happened (and is happening) in Ferguson (and many many other places around the country), a shift in intellectual opinion that's been developing for decades is gaining traction.

What’s at stake here if not the very foundation of public order as we know it? If government can’t do this right -- if the police are accomplishing the very opposite of what they claim to accomplish, namely, to "protect and serve" -- if they are, in fact, undermining the public's security rather than providing for it, (and this is widely understood to be the case, time and time again), then we have the making of not only an ideological revolution, but an authentic turning-point in the history of politics.

Security is not the most essential function of the state; it is the most dangerous one, and the very one that we should never concede lest we lose our freedom altogether. The "night watchman" is the biggest threat we face because it is he who holds the gun and he who pulls the trigger should we ever decide to escape from their "protections" and provide for ourselves.

it's been a really bad week for my back and lots of meds have been needed, which impairs my math skills. My mistake there...and I've retracted that....and I apologize.

It's no problem. It's completely understandable for what you're going through over there. I'll say a prayer for you and your family. Hopefully some pain free days are coming your way soon.

Doing the math correctly, I see you ARE right that it's about 400 times the distance.
But they (and so you) are wrong that it's 400 times the "size". You are right that the radiuses/diameters are a ratio of 400-1. That's different from size, even 2d size.
It may seem semantical, but to me it's an important distinction. This is what I took issue with mostly, since I was CERTAIN the actual "size" (in 3D) is no where near a ratio of 400-1, but closer to 64 million -1. Even in 2D it's nothing like 400-1.

Point taken..you were just trying to be accurate in the way the terms were defined.

Also, I'm not intentionally ignoring your point, it is an interesting fact that the ratios are close, but only coincidental IMO, certainly not 'proof' of anything supernatural.
EDIT: even if they were a perfect ratio, it would only suggest a physical law of motion we don't know or fully understand yet.
I would be interested to see a list of other planets and their moons to see if any other planet/moon (or combination of moons) in our solar system shows the same ratios. Neither answer would make me think anything supernatural however, it's just not that kind of question in my eyes.

Taken by itself, it is an extraordinary coincidence if you deem it as such. Yet, when you pile on the many other factors that have to line up for us to have life here, I find coincidence isn't the appropiate word. Now, some say that because it is such a huge Universe, there are bound to be planets like these (which isn't proven, btw)..and we shouldn't be surprised to find ourselves on one of them because we would expect to find conditions which allow for our existence, given that we exist. I don't think that is a persausive argument.

There is a good analogy about this that I borrowed from the net:

"Suppose you are to be executed by a firing squad of 100 trained marksmen, all of them aiming rifles at your heart. You are blindfolded; the command is given; you hear the deafening roar of the rifles. And you observe that you are still alive. The 100 marksmen missed!"

Taking off the blindfold, you do not observe that you are dead. No surprise there: you could not observe that you are dead. Nonetheless, you should be astonished to observe that you are alive. The entire firing squad missed you altogether! Surprise at that extremely improbable fact is wholly justified - and that calls for an explanation. You would immediately suspect that they missed you on purpose, by design."

At work and unable to watch at the moment, but the most important question in my mind is: did the non-father in a parental role in the child's life for any length of time? The second most important question is: where the hell is the kid's actual father and why hasn't the mother helped track him down?

It's one thing if the guy is just some stranger who has no relationship and no relation with the child, but another thing altogether if he is the child's father figure.

I don't understand why she doesn't do what most women (and men) who don't want to be approached (be it by men, women, panhandlers, whomever!) while walking through a city do, and wear earbuds??? It's a very simple solution and provides an easy and practical way of ignoring most of these attempts (if not dissuading them altogether).

Also.. This.

And:
"Let's all stop and focus our attention on "catcalling" women. Let's forget the drone bombings of entire cities, the fact that the US has 900 military bases in over 153 countries, the fact that you are almost 9 times more likely to be killed by a police employee than a terrorist....let's take a break from that and focus on the fact that sometimes men are creepy to pretty women."


And:

"The path to empowering women is not by disempowering men.
While many feminist campaigns and viral videos are great at expressing the (superficial) problem, they're not helping to solve it. Prolonging the "battle of the sexes" and "blame game" mentality will never stop rape, harassment, or abuse. All that's being done is expressing pain and anger, which is fine, unless it's directed at another. Attacking men for attacking women isn't going to solve anything.
We need to go so much deeper than this. So much deeper.
We don't need to see more proof of "how fucked up society is"; this only propagates stereotypes that induce resentment and fear. We need to see the power of compassion, love, forgiveness, healing, empathy, and acceptance between both sexes. We need to learn why people hurt other people (hint: it's because they're hurting themselves) and how to heal it and empathize with it.
We need women to open up and love in the face of men approaching, not shut down and run away. We need men to open up and love in the face of rejection, rather than becoming bitter or forcing our will upon another.
Unabashedly, I do not support or promote campaigns that are based in pain, resentment, anger, or fear, no matter how noble the cause. I wish to lift up both sexes – nay, all people – without perpetuating the pain and conflict.
This darkness has been illuminated out in the world, now it's time to illuminate the darkness within ourselves and heal it. What we see out in our culture is a reflection of how so many of us are unable to resolve the conflicts, rejection, and hurt caused by the masculine and feminine inside of us. We can not fix this by signing new laws or going out and trying to control everybody; we do this by starting the forgiveness and healing process within ourselves and going out into the world shining love instead of hate."

""Since 2 of those 3 [religions] have already internally dealt with the most horrendous of their ideas"

Now that is fucking funny, and the crux of Sam Harris's ignorance"

To think that they haven't, it would seem to me, is to be either forgetful, or ignorant of their pasts and just how horribly they behaved.

To pretend that you've made a point by sneering dismissively is just juvenile. Explain your stance.

The wholesale, unabashed genocides in the old testament seem to me to be more horrible than anything that jews are doing, for religious reasons in the present day. And that is taking Israel into account.

The picketing of soldier's funerals seems altogether less bad than the spanish inquisition.

It's not to say that Judaism and Christianity don't still have some work to do. Of course they do. But they've already climbed quite a distance.

The original video attacked the ideology. this guy attacked the person and made it personal. Big diff.

again we're seeing more tearing down of the existing system and no building up of your system. It's a huge strawman. No one says gov't is perfect. We just went through a large wave of criticizing problems with the police. we are quite aware of the many flaws.

Even Lantern's obsessive defense of the cops is far more rational and understandable than advocating complete removal of the police force and disbanding gov't

As for the Ayn Rand thing, another strawman. I never brought up Objectivism. Ayn Rand hates gov't. non-statists hate gov't. it's pretty easy to see how they're linked. taking benefits from something you despise isn't very cool. If she were so principled, she would have left gov't altogether and never paid into it. She also tried to hide taking the benefits by doing so under her husband's name if I recall correctly.

Sadly HK is a totally different deal altogether. When Britain returned it to China, people there were used to a certain way of life and they were given a pretty unique status as being semi-separate to China but still part of it. They're currently trying to take away the right for people in HK to choose their elected official (or perhaps refine the choice to China-favourables).

The people there are very sensitive to getting trampled on. They're so different and separate in many ways to mainland China... i don't see how the Chinese can force their mainland rule onto HK without a complete uprising on their hands. Imagine taking the vote away in a western country.

His points are, on the face of it, correct. However, the whole question here is whether religion itself creates these issues or if they are inherent in society. One might argue that they are inherent, but that would be incorrect. The fact of the matter is that the more a society is based on science and secularism, the more peaceful and prosperous they will be. See pre-McCarthy United States or Sweden or Canada today.
So I agree with him that painting a large brush across all Muslim countries is idiotic, but at the same time, we can do that quite successfully with secular countries. They are, quite simply, more moral countries. And for those of you who want to argue that Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia were extremely secular and atheist, I urge you to re-evaluate the evidence you have of this. Nazi Germany was distinctly religious in numerous ways, including in the deep relationship they had with the Catholic Church. And it would be easy to succeed on the argument that Soviet Russia, while appearing atheist to the outsider, worshiped an altogether different kind of religion: communism.
While Reza is correct that not all Muslims or their countries are violent or willing to subject women to numerous horrors, they are certainly more likely to than secular countries.

Which is why I intend to stop "arguing" on videosift altogether. Other people's choice to remain anti-gun and therefore unarmed is none of my business. In fact, I encourage you to give up your guns if you have them. Just don't expect other Americans to do so. And if you don't like, well, move to Australia.

I think he did. He said the study shows a 1.5% to 3% difference between the two groups, though i think he should have referred to how significant that is, statistically speaking - i.e. what are the uncertainties, cos if it's ±2% uncertainty then the results are practically meaningless. He also said that the study only took sun-time into account, and spoke about the habits associated with people that avoid sun altogether - difficult to exercise and be active without exposing yourself to sun. He mentioned vitamin D deficiency - which is synthesised by sunlight in humans, and deficiency has an impact on all kinds of health issues. Finally he mentioned that there wasn't a control group - average people who neither hid from the sun nor bathed in it, because that would help them narrow their uncertainties or identify critical problems with the study.

I don't know enough about the situation in Palestine, or what kinds of laws are imposed from outside there, but just hypothetically, I wonder: what if they renounced all initiation of violence altogether, and just dropped the push to set up their own state? What if, instead they declared their territories to be "state-free" and "tax free havens?" Maybe they could open some casinos a la Native Americans; and provide some tax-free banking; let tech giants set up tax-free research centers there without all of the immigration restrictions that seem to impose so many unnecessary challenges.. And what if, instead of waging war or attacking Israel, they simply used any military capabilities they had to set up private security firms, and secure their banking system, maybe provide some safe gold depositories? In a generation or two, the Israelis would see that they are the ones living in a prison/tax farm, not the Palestinians. I wonder if they could get away with it...


It's interesting to me how some folks tend to (more or less) "take sides" in defense of states (or would-be states) in conflicts like this one. As if states somehow had "rights" or as if states somehow represented "the people" within each state. That is simply, prima facie, false: For one thing, I think armed conflict on any sort of large scale inflicts violence against innocent parties on both sides; who, in their own rights, have reason to see the other side's violent acts as aggression (or at least as material threats to their human rights).

So I certainly agree that Israelis have a right not to have rockets coming at them, but it also seems to me that individual Palestinians have a right not to be collateral damage in Israel's bombings. Surely the hundreds who've lost family in Gaza have reason to be angry at Hamas, but you could see why they too would want to defend themselves.

The logic of war often leads to a situation where if you can defend one side fighting, you have to see why the other side would fight as well. And so we can condemn both sides, or sympathize with the innocent victims of both sides, but I don't see any simple formulation that shows why people who happen to live on one side of an arbitrary line have more of a "right" to respond violently to attacks that threaten their lives than the other side has.

The United States commits many forms of aggression quite frequently. In revenge, terrorists murdered innocent Americans on 9/11. Those Americans had a right not to be attacked and as Americans, we have a right to defend ourselves. But if tactics our government employs hurt third parties, doesn't it seem that the logic of collective self defense could easily be used to justify perpetual war?

None of what I say relies on any assumption that Hamas is any less criminal than the Israeli state. Even if it's much more criminal than the Israeli state, it seems to me that collective defense = perpetual war, because of the innocents on both sides who seem to have no way of striking against belligerents without violence that itself puts innocent people in harm's way.

This map/video is so wrong on so many levels.

Firstly, to call the entirety of the present day United States "Indian Land" before the states were created is wrong and idiotic. Native Americans (another misnomer) were not present in every spot of every bit of the lands in any way. For the majority of the middle of the states, Natives were nomadic peoples, thus while they could lay claim to all of the land if you asked, it is just as dumb as saying that a bear owns all of the territory it can walk on.

Secondly, for those of you who think that Native Americans should have more reservations, you should read any number of books by Native American scholars that say that the worst thing the governments have done is treat Native Americans as separate from standard citizens of the countries that have them. What they should do is eliminate reservations altogether to get rid of the dependency trap that is killing the Native American people as we speak. One might say, "well, they will lose their culture." But this, too is incorrect. Have the Chinese lost their culture in North America? Have the varying kinds of Europeans? In my city many people still celebrate Chinese New Year and lots celebrate Saint Patrick's Day and Robbie Burns day (regardless of whether or not these are ex-pat holidays).

So in conclusion, what the government did in the past vis-a-vis the murder of Native Peoples was absolutely despicable. However, taking land was very often something that happened without bloodshed and was done with trades and treaties, the bloodshed that followed was a clash between terrified Europeans and the people whose culture they didn't understand. But for many of the incidents the Native Peoples sanctified the taking of the land.

"One child per family"
And that is bad why ?

Wish the government would ban cunts like Beck from procreating altogether

War on Terror, my ass....Here's a few suggestions:

War Of Semantic Fist-Fucking
Newsspeak Bullshit
War on Common Sense
Criminal Government Asshole Cunts

We should eliminate it altogether and call the bullshit for what it is...Shaping Minds Like Putty

Goddamn boys.... you two and your fucking double-team on good people-You've both got it wrong, and you've both got ego issues larger than planets.

No newt, don't blame it on you, it's not about you at all. You seem to take everything to heart and personally, I have a legitimate beef with unilateral grudges. You both can't seem to derive meaning from the written word when it comes from someone you personally dislike, this poll was not posted as a public address siren to alert you and chicco to your need to let-fly your personal grudges against me. It was an honest appeal to the community as a whole, not an invitation to haters.

You want wanted my opinion, otherwise you wouldn't have chosen to shit all over me, RIGHT!!?? Well ya got it!!

Chicco still has a panty-knot about me that's fucking terminal because I hurt his fragile feelings and he refuses to speak to me in a mature manner, and YOU??? There's simply no inroad to understanding with someone who chooses the path you have taken, I have made several appeals and inroads to your humanity and civility, to no fucking avail, you simply can't process my personality, so you fucking discount me as a piece of shit person altogether, and choose the rude, uncivil, and douche-path....BECAUSE YOU LIKE IT!

I'm a fucking adult son, got a few years on ya,. grow the fuck up and keep your opinions of me to your fucking self, it's working out fine like that....




Again, I used my powers of resurrection for the OVERALL QUALITY AND BENEFIT OF THE sift, her users, visitors, newbies, etc....and I ask you....WHO THE FUCK ELSE DOES IT ANYWAY??!!

Go check recent comments and see how many people here even avail themselves of the power to fix dead pool videos...Very very few...

Fuck didactic and eternally litigious and sophistic examinations of users and their habits, SPECIALIZATION IS FOR INSECTS!!!