Actually the FBI and stats canada. look up violent crime and you'll see yourself...did you know that out of ALL the killings in the states around 3% are done with ALL types of rifle, not just the dreaded AR15?
3%, wow so much fear for such a statistically insignificant number.

Would it be better if, instead of just saying user is not authorized, @siftbot said "pending review" with a link to click to allow privileged users to complete the action?

In terms of actual effect this might not be too different, since quite a few people read the comments and will make the invocation that siftbot refused... I'm just wondering if it would look better?

p.s. Actually, the cranky bot is a sift institution... how about if it just adds a note along the lines of "well I won't do this, but some insignificant human will be along shortly to review it"? Or a mention in the FAQ that the bot is cranky so don't worry about the rude messages, but the humans are usually friendly?

Witnessing the, literally, incomprehensible scale and power of the sun - a relatively small object in the universe - puts its own scale on our puny existence. Not only are we an insignificant distraction to earth, the earth is an insignificant distraction to the sun, and the sun is an insignificant distraction to the universe. And yet, still, there are the deluded who maintain that; "It was all created just for us."

The event has 'cast a blanket, or shadow, over everyone who wants to own a firearm' -- just as thousands of other tragedies have. Pointing out facts, even with a satirical tone, is not in itself political. I did not suggest that this event should motivate any political action.
Perhaps it's just that that the rational political action is just so glaringly obvious, that it seems to be inherently implied?
I also do not associate you, or any other individual gun owner who hasn't used a gun to express his paranoid fear, with the man in this video. I do realize, however, that with guns as prevalent as they are, events like this are inevitable.
You personal story is utterly insignificant considering the number of other gun owners out there, and the resulting number of gun accidents and acts of gun violence.
My personal story, equally insignificant, is told differently. I have been personally affected by two accidental gun deaths, have been threatened twice with handguns, and have been constantly bombarded with stories like the one in this video since I was old enough to comprehend them. I am surrounded by compatriots who are obsessed with tools of death. Despite this, I have never used a gun against a human towards a positive end, and (in civil society) I don't personally know anyone who has.

Eric Idle rewrites Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song” to celebrate the wonders of biology
Lauren Davis

To market the BBC Two series Wonders of Life, hosted by Brian Cox, the BBC got none other than Eric Idle to write and sing new lyrics to "The Galaxy Song" from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. But instead of singing about the massive scale of the universe and humanity's insignificance in it, this time Idle sings about the miracle—and weirdness—of life on Earth.

http://io9.com/5971938/eric-idle-rewrites-monty-pythons-galaxy-song-to-celebrate-the-wonders-of-biology

Let us not have another year like this. Be kind to your brothers and sisters, and hope to a new future where petty grievances are a thing of the past.

Fuck, I don't know what I'm saying. It all seems insignificant of what I thought that was important in the past year. My problems are a piss in the pool in comparison.

Good point about evidence based arguing.

Looking at this tv news segment (which is not a study):

It has a non-random sample - they put out word that they were offering training - only those interested will reply and they are all from a similar age group (a university is a non-random place).

It has a statistically insignificant sample size of 6 - it needs about 100x that many participants to have confidence level of 99% with a confidence interval of 5.

It doesn't have a control group.

Basically it is almost meaningless.

@shinyblurry

[me:] … invited … yadda yadda. [you:]I get your overall point.

That's all that matters. And I'll add that I too think you're a valuable member. I've even taken to defending you around the place, if you can believe that.

Now on to the other topics.

Apparently you haven't heard of Chiastic structure:

You're right, I hadn't heard of it. That's neat stuff. But it doesn't change the fact that Matthew's choice to use that structure created *an error in the text*.

No, they can't be scientifically measured. You would never know during your test whether God was simply feeding you a certain kind of result. Think about it. God knows the entire time that you're trying to test for His existence outside of what He ordained (faith in Jesus Christ). His choice is either to give you results that will prove His existence outside of Christ or results that will make it ambiguous. What do you think He is going to do?

As far as I can tell, either you don't understand science or my mind is incapable of understanding how all the things you're saying about God can be true at once. This is going nowhere. I'm dropping this prayer/science topic.

You're acting is if I have no evidence for my beliefs.

No. I'm acting as if you are not giving appropriate weight to the evidence on both sides. All evidence against your beliefs, you massage into being compatible with some very, very loose rules, to the point now where words in the Bible don't even count as words anymore. Yet any mote of evidence against my beliefs (even things that aren't evidence at all, such as lack of an answer --which is entirely consistent with a world without a God) you throw around like it's absolute proof not only that I'm wrong, but further that you're right. You even tell me that I'm suffering cognitive dissonance—not that you *think* I might be, but that I am. Basic statements of humility elude you, like, "Humans are far too complicated even for humans to understand, and therefore any argument from complexity/arrogance/hubris applies to belief in the existence of God just as much as it applies to belief that humans invented God." And even after you say something like that (I believe you did acknowledge in another thread that it's technically possible you're wrong), you continue to speak like you're right and I’m wrong. In a nutshell, I come to the table with my beliefs, I acknowledge they are my beliefs, and I act towards you as if they are only beliefs, not absolute fact. And that's the basic humility I'm asking for in return, and which frankly I require to have a real conversation about the existence of God.

My worldview is internally consistent, and it is also rational.

I disagree that it's rational, for the fact that you hold it to be absolutely true, bar nothing. From where I stand, it's irrational for a mere human to hold that they are absolutely correct about their interpretation of anything as complex, critical and subjective as the things you claim about God and the Bible.

you reject the evidence I have receive apriori.

As a rational actor, I must be sceptical of your subjective evidence. To accept it OR dismiss it would be irrational of me.

To you there must always be some other explanation … You've already come to the conclusion that … Rather than letting the evidence interpret the conclusion, you are interpreting the evidence through the conclusion.

Anybody willing to look can see that there are internally consistent plausible alternatives to your beliefs. I say again and again only that there are alternative possibilities. I have come to no "conclusions" about anything. As a scientific-minded person, I simply cannot think so rigidly, ever, especially not about something as important as the nature of the universe. I mostly see how the evidence could fit in your worldview. Sometimes I don't, and that's OK. I suggest that there are other possibilities with words like, "could", "maybe", "I think," "From where I stand," and so forth. And nearly every time you treat me like I'm claiming atheism is absolutely 100% correct, end of conversation. The only thing I believe I'm 100% correct about is *that I have proposed* internally consistent plausible alternatives to the existence of God. That's all I'm ever saying: other things could be possible. Read all my messages again; I'm pretty consistent. So I'll ask you again, please read my words literally, not with some defensive filter like every sentence of mine is a skewer.

It was only when I questioned that and investigated the evidence that I found [the Bible was right and science was wrong].

What evidence do you have that science is wrong? I'm not saying science is perfect (it's human), but you're no expert to claim that what you've read is scientifically valid. To be frank, you've got a reputation on the Sift for quotemining and have been caught at least once on the Steven Pinker quote. People with insignificant scientific backgrounds and/or clear non-scientific primary agendas don't count.

It's only a literal reading [of the Bible] that makes any sense.

A literal reading of the Bible gives two different accounts of the same genealogy. That doesn't make sense.

Even atheists know that:

You mean, "at least one atheist once thought that, maybe". A quick out of context copy-paste from christianforums.com of a vague quote from a 1978 periodical by a group that neither speaks for nor represents atheists. Why bother? You can do better.

This is sad, pathetic and frightening. Is this ever done in synagogues, or churches, or temples, when some provocative or propagandist material against those religions is published? No. But because of the violent bullying of crazed Islamic crowds (incensed by hate-mongering mollahs) the Norwegian police (and politicians all over the "civilised" world) thought it necessary to go and publicly distance themselves from an insignificant piece of propaganda and (here specifically) ask that the Muslims keep their acts within the purview of the law.
I would find that last point highly offensive to the Muslims, but when you look at what happened over a few cartoons far less antagonistic than the anti-Islam film, I can see why it would seem necessary to some.

Simple answers to statistically insignificant 'problems'...

1. Don't use Medicare/Medicaid.
2. Get a better plan and use those providers.
3. If you can't do 1 & 2, then pay for your own care out of pocket and deal with your providers directly.

I reject the narrow definition of what is and isn't acceptable in the vid. There's a whole world of options - all of them easily available and affordable just about anyone. All it takes is the guts, gumption, and initiative to go out there and take them. The problems this woman is harping about can be easily avoided by the vast majority of the US population. The mathematically small percentage to whom this argument applies does not merit the need of a nationalized, federal policy. People that down & out can avail themselves of the many charitable organizations that exist for the truly in need.

Oh... What? Those charitable groups tend to be religious organizations that don't want to give Sandra Fluke barrels full or free condoms, or run abortion abbotiors, and who counsel adoption instead of free, unfettered, instantly accessed, no-restriction abortions? Ah - well - now we know what this is really all about... Whatzerface isn't whining about the number of clinics. She's whining about state covering her birth control and abortions and she doesn't want to have to walk 30 minutes to get there (as if she couldn't drive). :eyeroll:

not to degrade the seriousness of what Assange may have done in Sweden to those poor gals, but can you imagine for a second what would happen if you switch the type of crime and the country it was done in? Lets say, as a food for thought, that Assange was involved in some selling of chewing gum in Singapore and they want to extradite him for that offence. Would you then consider this crime as insignificant enough? After all, being in jail for selling some chewing gum is silly!

Thanks, Lucky. Will do! Sorry for my mixup.
In reply to this comment by lucky760:
This type of thing has been an issue since *dupeof was introduced. The response 100% of the time to an invalid killing has always been to strip the invocation from the invokers. (This is for the reasons I mentioned in my PM to you.)

The original video was quite different because it had different editing and visual effects and was presented as a commercial for Silk.

Given your appeal, I'll reinstate your *dupeof/*isdupe privileges because it seems you did watch both and genuinely considered them duplicates, which can be understandable since the two were so similar.

In the future, if they aren't actually identical, which was the case here, please opt to *discuss the issue in Sift Talk instead of just killing.

Thanks!

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Wait a second. I saw both videos before the first one died. It seemed like a dupe to me. @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://seltar.videosift.com" title="member since June 11th, 2006 @ 13:55:42" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#f875ff">seltar assumed that I had not seen the first video posted but I had. If there was any difference in the videos it is slight.

I've had videos that were deemed dupes of dead videos before and I've seen other videos where a similar situation happened. Why is this the first time this has become an issue? There is nothing in the rules/FAQ regarding this:

"A duplicate video is one which contains content already wholly available on VideoSift in a published, queued, personal queued, or dead/deadpool video submission. Minor changes in content, like a few additional insignificant seconds of video or alternate background music, will still be considered dupes. The only exception to this is if the change in audio makes a significant difference to the video content.

If a newer submission's video is a clip of content found within an existing post, it will be considered a duplicate unless it meets both these criteria:

The original post is at least 15 minutes in length
The original post is at least 3 times longer than the clip
If a duplicate cannot adequately be considered an exact or reasonable replacement of the original, it should be * discarded.

Otherwise, instead of * discarding, privileged members may invoke * dupeof on a video that is a duplicate. This invocation will kill the dupe, transfer its votes to the original, and add the duplicate embed code as a backup to the original post. A duplicate video may have * dupeof invoked on even if it has been discarded, so such votes may still validly be transferred to the original video."

It takes two sifters to declare a dupe so that a video is not wrongly duped and in this case two sifters thought that Seltar's vid was a dupe of his one. You're taking Seltar's version of events without even asking me or the the other duper. I don't exactly invoke "dupeof" all that often so a punishment after a first offence seems a bit overkill.


In reply to this comment by lucky760:
Your *dupeof/*isdupe privilege has been revoked for invoking against a video that was clearly not a duplicate or that was dead at the time (which means you could not possibly have known whether or not it was a dupe).

Your action caused a great deal of lost time on the duped post, which cost it all of its hotness and any chance at the Top 15, and a lot of wasted effort was required to undo your mistake.

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
oh and *isdupe

This type of thing has been an issue since *dupeof was introduced. The response 100% of the time to an invalid killing has always been to strip the invocation from the invokers. (This is for the reasons I mentioned in my PM to you.)

The original video was quite different because it had different editing and visual effects and was presented as a commercial for Silk.

Given your appeal, I'll reinstate your *dupeof/*isdupe privileges because it seems you did watch both and genuinely considered them duplicates, which can be understandable since the two were so similar.

In the future, if they aren't actually identical, which was the case here, please opt to *discuss the issue in Sift Talk instead of just killing.

Thanks!

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Wait a second. I saw both videos before the first one died. It seemed like a dupe to me. @seltar assumed that I had not seen the first video posted but I had. If there was any difference in the videos it is slight.

I've had videos that were deemed dupes of dead videos before and I've seen other videos where a similar situation happened. Why is this the first time this has become an issue? There is nothing in the rules/FAQ regarding this:

"A duplicate video is one which contains content already wholly available on VideoSift in a published, queued, personal queued, or dead/deadpool video submission. Minor changes in content, like a few additional insignificant seconds of video or alternate background music, will still be considered dupes. The only exception to this is if the change in audio makes a significant difference to the video content.

If a newer submission's video is a clip of content found within an existing post, it will be considered a duplicate unless it meets both these criteria:

The original post is at least 15 minutes in length
The original post is at least 3 times longer than the clip
If a duplicate cannot adequately be considered an exact or reasonable replacement of the original, it should be * discarded.

Otherwise, instead of * discarding, privileged members may invoke * dupeof on a video that is a duplicate. This invocation will kill the dupe, transfer its votes to the original, and add the duplicate embed code as a backup to the original post. A duplicate video may have * dupeof invoked on even if it has been discarded, so such votes may still validly be transferred to the original video."

It takes two sifters to declare a dupe so that a video is not wrongly duped and in this case two sifters thought that Seltar's vid was a dupe of his one. You're taking Seltar's version of events without even asking me or the the other duper. I don't exactly invoke "dupeof" all that often so a punishment after a first offence seems a bit overkill.


In reply to this comment by lucky760:
Your *dupeof/*isdupe privilege has been revoked for invoking against a video that was clearly not a duplicate or that was dead at the time (which means you could not possibly have known whether or not it was a dupe).

Your action caused a great deal of lost time on the duped post, which cost it all of its hotness and any chance at the Top 15, and a lot of wasted effort was required to undo your mistake.

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
oh and *isdupe

Wait a second. I saw both videos before the first one died. It seemed like a dupe to me. @seltar assumed that I had not seen the first video posted but I had. If there was any difference in the videos it is slight.

I've had videos that were deemed dupes of dead videos before and I've seen other videos where a similar situation happened. Why is this the first time this has become an issue? There is nothing in the rules/FAQ regarding this:

"A duplicate video is one which contains content already wholly available on VideoSift in a published, queued, personal queued, or dead/deadpool video submission. Minor changes in content, like a few additional insignificant seconds of video or alternate background music, will still be considered dupes. The only exception to this is if the change in audio makes a significant difference to the video content.

If a newer submission's video is a clip of content found within an existing post, it will be considered a duplicate unless it meets both these criteria:

The original post is at least 15 minutes in length
The original post is at least 3 times longer than the clip
If a duplicate cannot adequately be considered an exact or reasonable replacement of the original, it should be * discarded.

Otherwise, instead of * discarding, privileged members may invoke * dupeof on a video that is a duplicate. This invocation will kill the dupe, transfer its votes to the original, and add the duplicate embed code as a backup to the original post. A duplicate video may have * dupeof invoked on even if it has been discarded, so such votes may still validly be transferred to the original video."

It takes two sifters to declare a dupe so that a video is not wrongly duped and in this case two sifters thought that Seltar's vid was a dupe of his one. You're taking Seltar's version of events without even asking me or the the other duper. I don't exactly invoke "dupeof" all that often so a punishment after a first offence seems a bit overkill.


In reply to this comment by lucky760:
Your *dupeof/*isdupe privilege has been revoked for invoking against a video that was clearly not a duplicate or that was dead at the time (which means you could not possibly have known whether or not it was a dupe).

Your action caused a great deal of lost time on the duped post, which cost it all of its hotness and any chance at the Top 15, and a lot of wasted effort was required to undo your mistake.

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
oh and *isdupe

The size of the Universe does not determine our relative significance in it. Why should Gods letter to mankind focus on mankind? Because He wrote the letter to mankind?

If the bible were a collection of mere stories then Islam couldn't be true, since Islam, like mormonism, is derivative of Christianity. Islam is a 6th century cult which claims to have extra-biblical revelation, which is flatly condemned by scripture.


>> ^mentality:

>> ^shinyblurry:
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?

Feynman is not saying that god can't touch something on the scale of the universe. Feynman is saying how self centered, naive and provincial your silly little bible is to only focus on our tiny little insignificant corner of the universe.
Where are the tales of space Jesus who died for the sins of Omecron Persei 8?
Also, what I want to know is, what makes your understanding of a creator more correct than other religions? Why not follow Islam? I hear they have the direct word from god himself, far superior than your collection of mere stories.