Was gone for the weekend and it turned into word fights (almost)...

It is so hard to carry on a discussion... the heat too easily turned up. Sorry if I contributed in the heat.

Thing is, I don't think any of us need to argue for God's omnipotent or his non-existence. God can select to do or not do anything he wants. He can choose to reveal Himself to a believer or a non-believer, or NOT to. What's the point. It has been argued for millennia and I doubt we are "The Chosen One(s)" to end this. And I think, most of us in our Western society, whether you're Christian or not, we know quite a bit about the Bible CONTENT. But the 99.99% of us non-Bible-scholars probably don't know the exact CONTEXT of the tough stuff. The churches avoid them too for obvious reasons.

For me the important things is, there are really horrible things done in history (and present) in the name of religion. Allow me to be a bit self-serving and consider these terrible, inhumane events as evil beings hijacking their religions so they can get away Scot-free. We can't allow that in this day & age. Hold the evil doers & hypocrites accountable, not the religion.

When I read the Bible, I see all the crap that makes no sense too, but I see the discrepancy as humanity making progress. There are so many years between us & the Bible's original writings (or oral pass-me-downs), words & meaning invariably changed (and not always for the better). Could it be the clear-as-day word "gossip" (its Hebrew equivalent) was not part of its language yet? Therefore Paul said those sexist things (in our modern eye)? Or just people speak funny in those days? I can't be sure.

So, I *try* to figure out the meaning of those difficult Bible verses by keeping the context of Jesus' teachings in mind. I mean, come on, all he want is us all having compassion towards each other, be respectful of God and oh, there's the promise of heaven. Like, THAT'S IT, that's the gist of it. Anything else is pretty secondary & incidental to me. The part that concerns between human-human interact? Yes, it's hard to put in practice. But it's not hard to understand what's needed to be done. E.g. If someone offends my religion, should I go on the defensive and then all Super-Saiyan retaliation mode? Or should put my focus into finding out why he offended me and try to understand the reasoning behind it, and if possible, do something positive about it? I believe Jesus asks of us the latter.

Thing is, as a Christian (granted, some Christian might not consider me one that much, maybe?), I'm OK to leave a lot of things in the Bible in the "gray zone"... because it is *I* that haven't the smarts to comprehend what's written fully. But I do think I understand its purpose enough to know what I need to do to be better. The world is full of hurt, we can't just standby and focus on sometimes pointless fights (ironically I'm typing this post, lol, mea culpa, but hope it's worth it), better put more energy on making things better -- like Jesus, arguably the most progressive thinker/doer of its time, wanted to make the world a better place. Jesus didn't spend his time setting up a religion, he was there for a peace & compassion revolution.

Seriously sad that when the topic touches on religion, there're way too much stereotypes & presumptions on every sides. I see the reality as far more nuanced. I can understand, and in fact conditionally support, a lot of the abolition of "Religion" with its ritualistic practices in today's society. I really don't trust anyone loudly proclaiming themselves "devout" but support sexist/racist/unjust policies. The smell of hypocrisy, ulterior motives & power corruption are too great. Don't sheepishly give them the political & God forbid... military power to do great harm to humanity. History has proven that time & again.

Misleading title, otherwise it would be a good post. The slave trade of the 1700's would never have grown into what if became if there were not buyers.

@newtboy, you are correct. Slavery indeed long predates the trade of Africans across oceans. Though, it probably didn't start in Mesopotamia because it was probably happening a little bit everywhere there were tribes that were aggressive with each other.

When slavery is thought of in a modern sense, we tend to think of the slave trade during the early stages of the industrial revolution.

And indeed, members of different tribes were more or less kidnapped and brought to the coast by coastal tribes, where they were sold to ships, which usually originated in Europe or N. America.

One of the busiest ports for the slave trade was Dakar, Senegal. The kingdom there would collect people, to take to Goree Island where they would be later loaded onto ships.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor%C3%A9e

*ban self link/spam. Also same account name posted here https://www.izlesene.com/video/caremometer-innovative-thermometer-case-revolution-in-food-safety/9850054

"Literally doom the human race."

I used to be a global warming denier, then a skeptic. I've come around that it is real and that it is caused in large part by human actions. I do admit that I'm still a bit skeptical about how catastrophic it would be to do nothing. Doom the human race? Nah. Decimate the human race (literal/historical definition of "decimate" meaning 10% dead)? Possible, but I think unlikely -- extremely unlikely unless deaths by famine/disease are wholly attributed to climate change. Lots and lots of people displaced over the next 100-200 years if, say, all polar and glacial ice melted (resulting in a ~70 meter sea level rise)? For sure. But they won't drown unless they are incapable of moving away from the ocean at a rate of at least a few meters per year.

In climate terms, a 4 year presidential term is a fraction of a second. In geological terms, 4 years is absolutely nothing. If the (admittedly terrible) climate policies of any single person, even one as powerful as the "leader of the free world" President of the United States over 4 years could literally doom the human race, we'd have been dead a LONG time ago.

I'm not saying it isn't important, and that it won't matter at all what Trump does with regards to climate, the EPA, etc. But even if you limit the timescale to sensible human terms (say, since the Industrial Revolution roughly 250 years ago), another 4 years, no matter how bad, aren't going to throw us over some sort of unrecoverable tipping point.

I voted 3rd party (Stein, but Johnson would still have been a better option than Trump or Clinton in my opinion). I'm comfortable and happy with my decision.

Hillary would have gotten some good-on-the-surface stuff done, compared to Trump's bad-on-the-surface stuff. But I simply don't/didn't trust her to not do dangerous and terrible stuff on the sly. She's a corrupt weasel. Trump is an incompetent blowhard that has been and will continue to be under a massive amount of scrutiny. I think the long-term damage he can do will be limited.


...Except for the Supreme Court. If there's one "lesser of two evils" argument that gives me pause in favor of Hillary, that's it. But even including that, I'm still comfortable with the way I cast my vote.

Basically, things have to get worse before they get better. Revolution, upheaval, something's gotta give. Trump has the "advantage" of making that more obvious, more quickly than Hillary would have. So, uh ... yay Trump?

Driverless cars and AI in general. AI is capable in the very near future of kicking off a revolution to rival the industrial one we all learned about. Huge increase in productivity and a reduction in expenditure for large corporations that currently rely on human labour. And AI that can fix and monitor the robot workers.

Which also means unemployment without a new job to go for. But if 50% of people don't have an income, who is going to buy the stuff the robots produce? That's where universal basic income comes in. Tax AI to fund UBI which would allow people to pursue their own goals in life. Fully automated luxury communism ala star trek! Credit to Aaron Bastani for that idea.

I await someone mocking the idea of UBI, calling me a lazy idiot, saying people will turn to drugs and crime, without providing a single alternative solution to the certainty of automation and what it will do to the economy. If boardroom jockeys find out that they can get robots to do the work of 1/2 of their staff for 1/100th of the cost, 1/100th of the errors, none of the stress, illness, holiday or sleep time, do you honestly think they won't? This IS going to happen.

Meanwhile RE: housing prices - if roast chickens had increased in price at the same rate houses have, each would be £50 - it would be unacceptable. Having a place to live is equally necessary for life, so why is it acceptable and even encouraged, celebrated by some?

Ok, so every video I've watched on this still seems to take the view that both laps are the same distance. If that's the case then it's impossible (T2 = 0, etc).

But a lap is just a revolution of the track, you don't have to run at a fixed radius (and therefore a fixed circumference).

If you increase the distance (even by a tiny amount), it is possible.
If the 1st lap is 100m and you run it in 100s, then you get 1m/s. If the second lap is 200m, then you would need to run that in 50s (V1 = 1m/s, Vavg = 2m/s, 300m @ 2m/s = 150s, 150s - 100s (for the lap you've already run).

So if you double the distance, you need to run 4 times faster.
If you triple the distance, you need to run 3 times faster.
If you run 10 times the distance, you need to run 2.2222m/s

Basically the bigger your lap the slower you can go approaching 2m/s.

Conversely, the smaller the difference the faster you need to go (e.g. for 101m, you would need to do the 2nd lap at 202m/s or around 450mph )

Oh, and the bike CAN go forwards, you just need a ridiculously low gear.

Your video, Depeche Mode - Where's the Revolution? (2017), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

<3

The tactics of low budget filming ahahahahahahhaaaa... I would be pissed if someone cut down the tree in my yard though! My side, your side, my side, your side -- MY TREE. Sounds like it was a lot of fun -- and stress lol.

Love me some Akira Kurosawa, tooooo. Yoooooooo! Also made Seven Samurai AKA The Magnificent Seven. I love the cross pollination between Japanese, American and Italian cinema. Not to mention British, French, Spanish, German and Russian. (Sorry for leaving your country out, all cinema is connected tbh.)

Anyway, love the scene at the end of A Fistful..More where Clint goes around colleting all the dead bodies on his wagon. Its such a great closer. And Good the Bad and the Ugly is epic af, not low budget at all -- it's a dang war film! If you haven't seen these films, at least watch the g, the b, and the u. It's a grand spectacle.

Duck You Sucka footage in there, which is not an Eastwood film, it's about an Irish terrorist's (James Coburn, the guy who got his luggage shot by Mel Gibson in... Cant remember the name of that film) involvement in the Mexican Revolution. The kill count is pretty impressive. Fuckin good movie, from the Once Upon a Time tril.

"The grid" means connected services, like grid electricity, city water, city sewer, piped in natural gas, wired phone, and wired internet.
Living off the grid means living where these services aren't available (or just not using them). It does not mean living like the Hamish or living as if you lived in the pre-industrial revolution era.

I can't fathom why that annoys you. He didn't claim to be living primitively, that's a different guy (and he's awesome).

Do you get your info from, faux or Trump?
I'm...wow...where to start?
"Neo-liberals" are anti war, so positive peaceful relations are what they're after, not illegal collusion and absolute capitulation to our (and our allies') detriment. The 'neoliberals' didn't even use the military to protect the Ukraine, even though we are bound to do so by treaties.
War profiteering companies are almost 100% owned and run by neocons, not liberals.

There is proof, publicly released proof. There is not yet a completed report submitted to congress, those take time to put together, verify, edit, recertify, sign off, and submit. 17 intelligence agencies have publicly stated they have plenty of 'proof', some hackers have gone on record as working on this project for the Russians at their direction, the methods and programs used have easily identified 'fingerprints' from previous Russian hacks.

The contents of the emails were completely innocuous, with absolutely no smoking gun. If you think differently, I think you've been duped by the fake news industry.
'No one cares' about the RNC emails because the Russians didn't release them, they weren't trying to hurt Trump, he's their dream president, a moron under their thumb that doesn't understand the idea of diplomacy, much less how to practice it. (That no one cares is totally not true, btw, I care...I even care that they were hacked, but I care far more that they were protected and helped repeatedly by a foreign nation they invited to illegally become involved in our election with the clearly stated intention of skewing our election for their benefit).
Sweet zombie Jesus, if Clinton had won after asking a national enemy to illicitly and illegally help her like Trump did, the right would be inconsolable and frothing at the mouth calling for revolution and blood.

@heropsycho

are we related?

well said my friend,and i totally agree with pretty much everything you just laid out.i love your commentary as a whole,but this was exceptional.

i guess i am coming from the dispassionate analysis camp.

i hope i wasn't coming across that i was dismissing the moral argument,because that was not my intention.i actually AGREE with the moral argument.i was just trying to add facets to the argument that a lot of people appeared to not even be considering.

i hold many liberal and progressive attitudes,and maybe i am just an old crotchety coot nowadays,but in my opinion..the left has lost it's way.

binary politics does not work.
dem vs repub does not work.
left vs right does not work.
demonizing people and calling them names....
does not work.

there has been a slow revolution in american politics,and has been over the past four decades.
what sheldon wolin called "inverted totalitarianism " and what john ralston saul deemed a "corporate coup detat'".

that battle is over...and we lost.

and i think that slow realization has finally sunk into the american psyche.

do i agree with their choice?
oh hell no...their choice is horrifying.
was a trump victory akin to a petulant child?
i guess thats as good analogy as any other,but now WE have to deal with the consequences.
all of us.(even including non-americans.so yeah..sorry bout this guys).

so just how do we tackle this new problem we face?

i say we start by not calling people idiots.
just a thought.

Bernie Sanders: Now More Than Ever, It's Our Revolution has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

Your video, Bernie Sanders: Now More Than Ever, It's Our Revolution, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 31 Badge!

We will all enjoyed the freedom and comfort of fossil fuel since the industrial revolution. At some point, we all have to pay for the gigatons of mess that we're pumping in the air.

The smart money is on clean energy as oil bounces back above $40 per barrel after the global supply glut had it below $30. Coal investment has tanked since oil peaked in 2009 and solar plants and wind plants are often more cost effective over their lifetimes.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/average_crude_oil_spot_price
http://www.infomine.com/investment/metal-prices/coal/5-year/