The first half is very good. He kinda loses his thesis though. Upvote for discussion.

Edit: NDT says something in line with the first half of this video:

"We spend the first year teaching children to walk and talk and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down."

http://videosift.com/video/Neil-deGrasse-Tyson-Want-Scientifically-Literate-Children

Nice reply. Thanks Gwiz.

At the moment I am doing honours in ethics looking at gender reassignment surgery. The science behind it all is extremely subjective and there seems to be a lot of cherry picking of factors and studies where a certain result is desired. There are a few scientific findings that have consensus and they mainly involve how little difference there is between men and women. Lots of the differences we see are at the extreme end of the scale, aka sports analogies. In every capacities men and women are capable of doing pretty much the same thing. Some extreme cases will involve things that only men can do due to the outright strength involved but other things we may think to be too physical women have done and are doing in other 3rd world nations all the time. Women can be conditioned to be very strong and very tough. We just don't value that or pursue that in the West.

The Elevatorgate and other examples should simply be ignored. They are immediately identifiable as being ridiculous and threaten to undermine to the entire project of a meritocracy that seems to be at the core of the liberal tradition (liberal in the post enlightenment sense, not the Fox news "All liberals are evil" sense).

You are right that society is probably not consciously trying to keep women down. THis is one of the major criticisms that feminism brings forth. It is that we do it tacitly and automatically. When we see an all women rock band we say "That's an all womens rock band" but when we see an all male rock band they are simply "A rock band". Simple and largely harmless example but it extends to every facet of society. Look at CEO's. When a women makes CEO of a huge multinational it is noteworthy. There are certain assumptions made that she's a ball breaker or a tough business woman. All things we associate with masculinity. Its as if there is no role for femininity in powerful roles either from women or men.

Ramble ramble too. Running out of stuff to add without writing a HUGE thesis.

@Deano and @Stormsinger:
"Liberal street gangs and urban youth" refers to the portion of gangs and urban youth who have liberal values (nearly all gangs and urban youth). Those gangs and urban youth are the source of most violent crime, so your thesis that violent crime is due to rural gun-owners is inconsistent with the data.

@EMPIRE and @Fletch:
Your response is that because I have different opinions than you and I'm willing speak against the mainstream, I'm a "troll." That definitely proves me wrong that liberals tend to be closed-minded conformists who punish intellectual diversity

@shinyblurry

I have a concession, perhaps a confession to make. An admission if you will. I accept your thesis: every scientist on earth, more or less (except a few religiously devout who still see the truth for what it is) are lying, or they are caving to the pressure of their lying peers, or they have been duped somehow to lie to you. In reality the universe is about 10000 years old, give or take. But all these scientists are, for whatever reason, contributing deliberately or undeliberately to the false claim that the universe and earth is many orders of magnitude older, something like billions of years old. Its all lies. Just about every scientist for the last 200 years have been contributing to this lie, and alternative ideas are being supressed for some dogmatic reason.

Lets suppose all that is true.

Suppose that all these lies, published in peer-review, has been backed up by equally lying peers.

Fine.

I give you that point

I dont think its logical, in fact I think its an insane conspiracy theory, but nonetheless, I concede the entire point. Right now.

How about that shit, eh?

Theres just still one problem for creationism, and its fucking everywhere, its called EVIDENCE. Like maybe you are reading this on a smartphone, with a GPS in it. That GPS unit is communicating right now with 2 sattelites, in freaking ORBIT, triangulating your position right now. Thats some insane science at work right there, but actually thats not the crazy part: The crazy part is that it wouldnt work at all, unless the people who designed that GPS system understood Relativity. Thats right, Einsteinian freaking relativity. The satellites, and their speed relative to earth, would actually give the wrong postion if they relied on Newtons laws.

THOSE VERY SAME principles and knowledge actually is used to tell us how far away stuff in the universe is. some stuff are actually (As in your-GPS-can-ACTUALLY-tell-you-exactly-where-you-are kind of "actually")really fucking far atway, like billions of light-YEARS. which means the light left from other parts of the universe literally BILLIONS of years ago, before they reached our telescopes. Like Bill Nye explained, a smoke detector works on principles that we understand about the half-lives of atoms, again the same shit used to understand the age of fossils and shit we find in the ground. the LCD screen you are likely looking at is an innovation that comes from understanding wavelenghts of light, again used to measure the distance of galaxies that emitted light billions of years ago.

You dont have to trust scientists, most of the EVIDENCE is RIGHT FUCKING THERE, in front of you, in your pocket, in your hand, around your home, in every school, in every home, in every post office or courtroom, in the streets. ACTUAL REAL EVIDENCE, right there, PROVING, every second, that the universe is billions of years old.

Every scientist since Newton could be a lying sack of shit, all working on the same conspiracy, and it would mean fuck all, because the evidence speaks for itself.

The earth is definately NOT ten thousand years young.

So your saying that I have gained the whole world and lost my soul because I seek to understand the meaning of existence without the bible? Since you can't show that I have a soul, I think that is a good trade! Joking aside, quoting scripture to me is a pretty useless thing, why would I care? We are talking science, and since we are talking about science, and the bible isn't a science book you are just quote bombing with no real usefulness, your knowledge of scriptures that pertain to your own believe structure aren't very useful in a conversation with others. It would be like me quoting the Koran to you, why would you care?

The topic of the video is what academics think about God. And when they're talking about God, they are really talking about the Christian God, so it is relevant to the conversation.

I don't know what you just don't stay out of science threads, it is obvious you have no respect for it, and all the advantages in life you that gain because of it you just toss aside with a mental gymnastics that should earn you a gold medal. You have no moral problems with using the technology that science creates while simultaneously saying we are twice as damned because of our pursuits.

Psalm 19:1-3

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.

I don't have any problem with science. I think the exploration of the creation reveals the glory of the Creator, which is something I highly esteem. I only take issue with the hubris of men who exalt mans position in the Universe over God. It's kins of like that joke..

"God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to
Him, "Lord, we don't need you anymore. Science has finally
figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other
words, we can now do what you did in the beginning."

"Oh, is that so? Tell me..." replies God.

"Well," says the scientist, "we can take dirt and
form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus
creating man."

"Well, that's interesting. Show me."

So the scientist bends down to the earth and
starts to mold the soil.

"Oh no, no, no..." interrupts God, "Get your own dirt.""

As for evil, what I do see is a time in man that we are finally closer to understanding and coaxing human nature away from immorality with science. We are starting to confidently grasp the physiological, neurological, and chemical elements of our existence that determine our behavior. And for many decades now, medical science has been helping people of all faiths with very measurable success rates in problems that in the past were relegated to prayer and usually suffering followed by death (god left infant morality rates much higher than science and technology has).

What's different in the world? 30 thousand people starving to death every day in a world that has a 70 trillion dollar GDP. The inequity in the world today is greater than at any other time. Most people aren't aware, and don't really care about anything which is happening outside their limited sphere of interest. There is no actual difference between the man of yesterday and the man of today. If anything, he is even more corrupt than ever.

As far as infant morality rates, God didn't create the world like this. It became this way because of sin.

It is important that you don't think I hate religion, but maths are what enabled Newton to formulate his theories, not bible calculus or some methodology set forth from the bible...it was all Newton and his brain. Religious value is at best intangible is what I mean, the fruit of Newtons efforts are entirely repeatable without any religious interactions at all.

It doesn't really matter if you hate religion, it's whether you love Jesus that is important. Did you?

Newton gave the credit to God, and said all of his inspiration came from Him. The value of his faith in God was very tangible to him, and the fruit it bore benefited all humankind.

Your 2 most important questions are also not only answerable with scientific inquiry, but also not really the 2 most important questions.

What scientific inquiry will answer them?

There are no "most important questions", only questions a specific person find important. I personally obsess over knowing "Truth", others just care to know how things work mechanically, others still to be a good father or wife or husband, others still how to cure global poverty...all of these quests are good, and all have answers that can be found outside biblical answers. Not to mention that most of the Christian world has vastly different ideas even though they read the same bible. So while you think your are quoting universal truth at me, Christians are as dis-unified in their believes as to make me question your main thesis of the "2 questions"; I doubt any significantly large group of christian's actually shares that those 2 questions alone are the most important 2 questions in a christian's life.

The vast majority of Christians have agreement on all of the core teachings of the bible, going back to the early church.

I don't expect you to agree with me that they are important; you of course have your own ideas about what is important. However, God did put you here for a reason, and you can only find that reason out from Him. If there is no God, there is no purpose, truth or meaning for anything. Did you catch this video?:

http://videosift.com/video/The-Truth-about-Atheism

I notice that you put the word truth in quotation marks. Do you know what truth is? Without truth, you are living in a world of uncertainty. You are staring down a hall of mirrors, not knowing which is the true reflection.

There are only two routes to know what truth is. One is that you're omnipotent. Two, is that you are given revelation of the truth by an omnipotent being. I am claiming the second option; that's the only way I know what the truth is. What is your route to the truth?

The only salvation the bible offers is from the own hell that it proclaims, it is saving you from the hell that isn't visible with a cure that isn't testable in a sea of other religious that claim similar and dissimilar truths. There is no reasonable argument (an argument that is undeniable from a logical standpoint) that can lead you to faith in any religion, it has to come from some other place that isn't your brain (and by this I mean reason and thought, not the brain technically)...and to me, this isn't worth investigating any further than when I did when I was a christian. Faith is ultimately irrational, and I have given up on indulging irrational behavior inasmuch as it is in my power.

These are rational beliefs until you are given revelation by God, and then you throw these theories out the window and start over. That's where I was at before I was saved, because I didn't grow up in a Christian home like you did. I grew up in a secular home without religion, and I thought along these same lines, and I was equally skeptical about all supernatural claims. It's only because God had mercy on me and showed me He is there that I know that He is.

The way it works is, God gives you enough information/revelation to know that He is, and then He puts the onus on you to seek Him out. You probably believe you are rejecting God for intellectual reasons, but you're really not when it comes down to it. You are rejecting God because of the sin in your life, because sin is what separates us from God. Sin corrupts your intellect and twists your logic just enough to keep you from seeing reality. If you honestly want to know the truth, and are willing to give up everything in your life to have it, then you will find it:

John 14:6

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the truth. Those who are seeking the truth end up on his doorstep. The way you know God is true is when God reveals Himself to you through personal revelation. Would you give up everything in your life to know the truth?

A Christian is someone who has surrendered their life to Christ. It sounds like you, like many others I've spoken to, grew up in a Christian home and were never taught how to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You had your parents faith and didn't really understand why you believed. When you encountered the skepticism of the world, you found you couldn't justify your belief to yourself and fell away. Does that sound about right?

You don't become a Christian through osmosis from your parents; you need to be born again. Without the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, you won't have any reason to believe. You have nothing to stand on if your entire experience of Christianity is is going to church, reading the bible, and praying. Why would you do any of it if you didn't experience the tangible presence of God? To know God is to know Him personally, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.

Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps there is some undeniable bit of logical truth that leads to Christendom and if I were ever exposed to such knowledge I would gladly embrace truth of any kind. I highly doubt such incorruptible knowledge exists, however, so Agnosticism for the duration of my life is the only reasonable thing to do. Do you know of some undeniable claim that can't be logically refuted that leads to Christianity as the answer?

Now this is interesting, what you're saying here, when you mention "incorruptible knowledge". I'd like to explore this, but before we do, could you answer two simple questions?:

Tell me one thing you know for certain, and how you know it.

Could you be wrong about everything you know?

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@shinyblurry So your saying that I have gained the whole world and lost my soul because I seek to understand the meaning of existence without the bible?

@shinyblurry So your saying that I have gained the whole world and lost my soul because I seek to understand the meaning of existence without the bible? Since you can't show that I have a soul, I think that is a good trade! Joking aside, quoting scripture to me is a pretty useless thing, why would I care? We are talking science, and since we are talking about science, and the bible isn't a science book you are just quote bombing with no real usefulness, your knowledge of scriptures that pertain to your own believe structure aren't very useful in a conversation with others. It would be like me quoting the Koran to you, why would you care?

I don't know what you just don't stay out of science threads, it is obvious you have no respect for it, and all the advantages in life you that gain because of it you just toss aside with a mental gymnastics that should earn you a gold medal. You have no moral problems with using the technology that science creates while simultaneously saying we are twice as damned because of our pursuits.

As for evil, what I do see is a time in man that we are finally closer to understanding and coaxing human nature away from immorality with science. We are starting to confidently grasp the physiological, neurological, and chemical elements of our existence that determine our behavior. And for many decades now, medical science has been helping people of all faiths with very measurable success rates in problems that in the past were relegated to prayer and usually suffering followed by death (god left infant morality rates much higher than science and technology has).

It is important that you don't think I hate religion, but maths are what enabled Newton to formulate his theories, not bible calculus or some methodology set forth from the bible...it was all Newton and his brain. Religious value is at best intangible is what I mean, the fruit of Newtons efforts are entirely repeatable without any religious interactions at all.

Your 2 most important questions are also not only answerable with scientific inquiry, but also not really the 2 most important questions. There are no "most important questions", only questions a specific person find important. I personally obsess over knowing "Truth", others just care to know how things work mechanically, others still to be a good father or wife or husband, others still how to cure global poverty...all of these quests are good, and all have answers that can be found outside biblical answers. Not to mention that most of the Christian world has vastly different ideas even though they read the same bible. So while you think your are quoting universal truth at me, Christians are as dis-unified in their believes as to make me question your main thesis of the "2 questions"; I doubt any significantly large group of christian's actually shares that those 2 questions alone are the most important 2 questions in a christian's life.

The only salvation the bible offers is from the own hell that it proclaims, it is saving you from the hell that isn't visible with a cure that isn't testable in a sea of other religious that claim similar and dissimilar truths. There is no reasonable argument (an argument that is undeniable from a logical standpoint) that can lead you to faith in any religion, it has to come from some other place that isn't your brain (and by this I mean reason and thought, not the brain technically)...and to me, this isn't worth investigating any further than when I did when I was a christian. Faith is ultimately irrational, and I have given up on indulging irrational behavior inasmuch as it is in my power.

Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps there is some undeniable bit of logical truth that leads to Christendom and if I were ever exposed to such knowledge I would gladly embrace truth of any kind. I highly doubt such incorruptible knowledge exists, however, so Agnosticism for the duration of my life is the only reasonable thing to do. Do you know of some undeniable claim that can't be logically refuted that leads to Christianity as the answer?

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Jinx:
because ddos is hacking like crowding the entrance to a bank is a bank robbery.

Hacking is now an all inclusive term, it just means anything we don't approve of done with a computer. The news can't educate anyone, and the term keeps being used ad nauseam. Sometimes I get lectured by older people on the dangers of hacking, it's sad that they have know education on the subject yet they choose to inform others.
EDIT: By the way there is a documentary coming out about Anonymous and their effect on our society. It looks to me like it's full of itself, saying that Anon is now seriously influencing geopolitics. I don't see any changes brought about by Anon so I'm not really sure how the movie will present it's thesis. It seems to me that the world talks about Hackers with a sort of awe, and some of the hackers are buying into it.

It annoys me how full of it they seem to be. DDOS is the online equivalent of turning up on the street outside of a business with signs and protesting. Its fitting in this online world that we should have online activism but calling it hacking (ok, I guess if they are running a botnet then you might just about define that as hacking) really only serves to delegitmise any cause whilst simultaneously giving the anons a false sense of importance or power. They need to realise that their actions, while perhaps well intentioned, are still only really a mild inconvenience and they shouldn't let their message be distorted by the medias poor attempt to label them. My 2 cents anyway.

>> ^Jinx:

because ddos is hacking like crowding the entrance to a bank is a bank robbery.


Hacking is now an all inclusive term, it just means anything we don't approve of done with a computer. The news can't educate anyone, and the term keeps being used ad nauseam. Sometimes I get lectured by older people on the dangers of hacking, it's sad that they have know education on the subject yet they choose to inform others.

EDIT: By the way there is a documentary coming out about Anonymous and their effect on our society. It looks to me like it's full of itself, saying that Anon is now seriously influencing geopolitics. I don't see any changes brought about by Anon so I'm not really sure how the movie will present it's thesis. It seems to me that the world talks about Hackers with a sort of awe, and some of the hackers are buying into it.

This video makes some fair points to consider, but it's drowning in baseless assertions (i.e., actors on reality TV shows acting out in psychopathic ways that transform into social norms).

It's stuck up its own ass, failing to take a step back to view consumerism as merely a proxy by which those in power can hold on to it (much like religion, patriotism, etc.). We're not all sheeple, but we are all human and are prey to the natural tendencies that underly tribalism.

Facebook is just a courier (and the video makes mention of that fact, relating it to the argument "guns don't kill people; people kill people"). Which is quite ironic, given that the thesis misses the forest from the trees (sic).

>> ^lantern53:

Hasn't the IRS had 10 years to look at Romney's tax return from 2002? And nine yrs to look at his return from 2003, and eight years to look at his return from 2004, etc?
If the IRS has no problem with them, why should anyone else?
Has Obama released his tax forms from 10 yrs ago?
Obama hasn't even released his college transcripts, admission papers, thesis paper, his Illinois state senate schedule, his medical records, and on and on. All these things are sealed. As is our fate if he is re-elected.


The IRS doesn't "look" at returns and analyze them. There are too many. They only respond to certain red flags and that's it. And they don't "look" at them because they're political candidates as that would be unethical not to mention illegal to just start looking through a return for shits and grins and to dig up dirt.

In all likelyhood, everything Romney is doing is technically legal, just crammed full of loopholes and dirty tricks. It probably wouldn't be bad per him per se, it would just highlight the extent the super-wealthy exploit the tax codes.

I don't think you understand how much corporate influence has over the gov't

I work IT in state revenue and while I'm not privy to details, I've talked to enough of the attorneys to know that some of the bigger companies will come in and argue essentially that they don't feel they owe that much tax. no facts, no figures, no calculations. simply "we feel our tax is too high" And deals get made...they get made all the time.

We supposedly live in a land of laws, but those laws get dodged and skirted and bent all the time and its usually the wealthy that get to do it.

Hasn't the IRS had 10 years to look at Romney's tax return from 2002? And nine yrs to look at his return from 2003, and eight years to look at his return from 2004, etc?

If the IRS has no problem with them, why should anyone else?

Has Obama released his tax forms from 10 yrs ago?

Obama hasn't even released his college transcripts, admission papers, thesis paper, his Illinois state senate schedule, his medical records, and on and on. All these things are sealed. As is our fate if he is re-elected.

This looks more like someone's engineering thesis instead of some hobby project. Awesome work. Mind blowing complexity!

The thesis seems to be 'happiness is bad for you'.

On balance I'll stick with my awesome internet harem, thanks.

"basically, if your attacker has a knife, you're fucked"

In general, I'd agree with this, with two additions:
1: if your attacker has a knife and knows how to use it, it's next to impossible to disarm them.
2: you can't disarm something you can't see. If the attacker really wants to harm you, they won't show the knife until it's in you.


>> ^Kofi:

I agree with this thesis. First lesson I had at Wing Chung and I got the rubber knife through to the instructor many times and I'm no good at fighting. His defences were only viable against big sweeping and leading knife attacks and well, who does that?


It is possible to disarm someone with a knife, it's just bloody difficult. After several years of training, I would still rate my chances of disarming an attacker with a knife at about 50% and that's assuming the attacker is just some punk with a knife. In all honesty, most of the time I wouldn't even try, I'd just hand over my wallet.

I agree with this thesis. First lesson I had at Wing Chung and I got the rubber knife through to the instructor many times and I'm no good at fighting. His defences were only viable against big sweeping and leading knife attacks and well, who does that?