@newtboy,

If North America is to adopt the Amish lifestyle, how many acres of land can the entire continent support? The typical Amish family farm is something like 80 acres is it not? I believe adopting this nationwide as a 'solution' requires massive population downsizing...

If you want to look at the poorest conditions of people in the world and advocate that the poverty stricken regions with no access to fossil fuel industry are the path forward, I would ask how you anticipate selling that to the people of California as being in their best interests to adopt as their new standard of living...

You mention overpopulation as a problem, then invent the argument that I think we should just ignore that and make it worse. Instead I only pointed out that immediately abandoning fossil fuels overnight would impact that overpopulation problem as well. It's like you do agree on one level, then don't like the implications or something?

The massive productivity of modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuel usage. Similarly, our global population is also dependent upon that agricultural output. I find it hard to believe those are not clearly both fact. Please do tell me if you disagree. One inescapable conclusion to those facts is that reducing fossil fuel usage needs to at least be done with sufficient caution that we don't break the global food supply chain, because hungry people do very, very bad things.

Then you least catastrophic events that ARE NOT supported by the science and un-ironically claim that it's me who is ignoring the science.

You even have the audacity to ask if I appreciate the impacts of massive global food shortages, after having earlier belittled my concern about exactly that!

The IPCC shows that even in an absolute worst case scenario of accelerating emissions for the next century an estimated maximum sea level rise of 3ft, yet you talk about loss of 'most' farmland to the oceans...

Here's where I stand. If we can move off gas powered cars to electric, and onto a power grid that is either nuclear, hydro or renewable based in the next 50 years, our emissions before 2100 will drop significantly from today's levels. I firmly believe we are already on a very good course to expect that to occur very organically, with superior electric cars, and cheaper nuclear power and battery storage enabling renewables as economical alternatives to fossil fuels.

That future places us onto the IPCC's better scenarios where emissions peak and then actually decrease steadily through the rest of the century.

I'm hardly advocating lets sit back and do nothing, I'm advocating let's build the technology to make the population we have move into a reduced emissions future. We are getting close on major points for it and think that's great.

What I think is very damaging to that idea, is panicky advice demanding that we must all make massive economic sacrifices as fast as possible, because I firmly believe trying to enact reductions that way, fast enough to make a difference over natural progress, guarantees catastrophic wars now. Thankfully, that is also why nobody in sane leadership will give an ounce of consideration to such stupidity either. You need a Stalin or Mao type in charge to drive that kind change.

Seeing him in action and not just through the speaker made this. Perfect ending!

I remember my brief few months in fast food. They weren't bad at all. I enjoyed myself and the people. You gotta love your job no matter what and make people smile -- when you think of the people you're serving, and you distance yourself from workplace negativity, you'll love every minute of the day.

And when you no longer love enjoy your day -- which is inevitable -- that's a sign that you need to move on to bigger and better things.

Guys like this do their thing and then move on. That's the natural progression of quality employees. Don't get stuck. If you don't put on a show, it's time to move on.

All the kids were watching to the left of where the action was happening, enough so to throw me off completely from the illusion, though some do follow it to the center as it goes on. If this isn't added in post, I'd guess this is using something akin to the Dubai video above, and like the video projections on buildings. They map the space, then when the audience is there, project the image live to a monitor, which is what the kids were watching to the left.

Basically it is an improved version of the goal line and projection seen on American Football games. That technology has come a long way with far more information being displayed on the field of play.

This would be a natural progression the technology and I'm surprised we don't see ads and the like on the field while watching a game. While American Football is filled to the brim with ad space, one of the problems American TV has with the "beautiful game", soccer here and a few places, football to most of the world, is the lack of ad time. I wouldn't be surprised to see mini ads playing around the action. Joe the Cameraman just keeps the action to the left half of the screen, and the right half has an ad on the field... perhaps starting off subtle, could be tied to the video monitors on the sideline of the fields that are already showing ads. Just amp that up... not a future one really wants to see, but I'd guess it is coming as more people ad skip.

I don't understand this desire to try and "one up" scientific thought, as if the concept of a demiurge were religion's alone. It's not for man to decide what is truth and what is not, it is for us to discover only that which we may mechanically use, whether through ystem theories, mathematic constructs, or physically engineered structures.

Science may be harmonious but only if it is honest and seeks only that which is not fueled by attachment to being. Any reward, whether in heaven or on earth is a materialistic concept which separates us from the body of human experience. Rather than naturally progress within our own capabilities, we obsess over grand concepts of our narcissistic, non transitory being and the entity of of a God. Meanwhile, our minds suffer at the leaps and bounds that imagination inflicts upon our honest beings. Behavior modification for the sake of a concept you would seek to elevate over the hard earned work of the scientific process.

Again, I don't understand why you pounce on these sudden epiphany driven straws lying amidst a rigorously disciplined field as the sciences. You have straws with no tangible truth, only the ability to prove that, yes, you are a pattern detecting being. I can find a 1000 faces of a 1000 gods in a spackled piece of drywall, don't mean any one of them is real or if any were, that it's the god that I've put a name to.

Now for a lesson in system analysis: determining whether the pattern you've detected within a metaphysical concept is congruent with reality as we know it, or have you detected a false positive. Also known as the proof between a Christian God and every other concept of the concept of God, through all its faces back to its ultimate being: Infinity. The Infinity could be ANYTHING.

It's the natural progression of Custer's Revenge.

Now it's just funny to make homophobic jokes ironically. Like pretending to be Eric Cartman or similar sentiments. But actually witnessing childish homophobia... that's pretty weird to me nowadays, even among the people I know who don't necessarily approve of the lifestyle.

I wonder when/if our generation of offensive, abusive irony will dissipate? I don't mind it, but it seems like a natural progression for popular culture. For example, do you really hear "retard" jokes any longer? Was In Living Color the last mainstream sketch comedy with mentally challenged jokes?

I could be wrong on this, but I don't recall recent stuff along those lines -- except South Park, but they're very, very special.

I feel like it's something of a natural progression to go from this as a teenager to something less chivalrous a few years later, though not necessarily as far as @cosmovitelli's example.

I think the problem is we're raised by women who have been treated like shit enough times to have learned to stay away from guys like that, but in daily teenage life we're around girls who haven't learned that lesson yet and often seem to prefer abusive pricks.

The logical conclusion for us is that mom didn't know wtf she was talking about. We grow up to not be chivalrous and courteous right around the time women start to value those attributes and it's kind of a disaster for everyone.

>> ^messenger:
Wow. I'm surprised to hear there are Christian churches that don't practice sacraments. Do you mean, none of them? No weddings, no communion, no confession, no confirmation, no last rites, no.... the other ones? Especially communion seems a strange omission since you were commanded by Jesus to do so. Or did you interpret, "Do this in memory of me" to only apply to the Apostles?


You won't find the word sacrament in the bible. Marriage, that is fine. Baptism too, although it isn't sprinkling like the catholic church teaches; it is full body immersion. Child baptism is not biblical. Christians should take communion, but not according to the pagan rituals of the catholic church, or regarding what they call the "trans-substantiation". The cracker does not literally become the flesh of Jesus, nor the wine His literal blood. It is simply something we do to symbolize our fellowship with Him, and the body of Christ.

The rest you have mentioned are nowhere to be found in the bible. They simply come from the traditions of the catholic church. It is not a Christian institution, and this is why neither you or your family has ever come to know Jesus Christ.

>> ^messenger:
With my question here, I was indirectly taking issue with your assertion that only if I pledge myself to Jesus can I truly commune with God. So in my question, my intent was to find out if you ever fully give yourself to any religion before Christianity, like become an active, fervent follower. I'm guessing the answer is no. If I'm right, then I don't see how you can say Christianity is the only way to commune with God. If I'm wrong, and you did fully dedicate your soul to some other religion first, then I'd simply like to hear about that experience.


My experience was, that after I became aware that God exists, He led me through the various religions and philosophies of the world over a number of years. He gave me clues along the way, leading me step by step, until He finally brought me to the bible. This was not a natural progression for me, because I had a big resistance to Christianity. It was actually one of the religions I thought was the least likely to be true. But He had given me signs beforehand about truth that was in the bible that I didn't understand at the time, so that when I started to read the bible, I could see it was His book. This gave me enough faith in it to give my life to Christ, and when I did, He supernaturally transformed my life. This isn't stated metaphorically; I mean it in a literal sense.

>> ^messenger:
I think you know what I believe and don't, and what I know and what I don't. At this stage, I think definitions are just semantics, and I'm not going to explain again what those words really mean. So, here's my official statement with all the contentious words taken out: I don't believe that any description of God I've ever heard is true, and I don't know if my belief is accurate.


What that means is that you don't know if there is a God or not. That makes you an agnostic and not an atheist.

>> ^messenger:
Seriously? You cannot claim to understand science, and then state that the burden for a non-claim lies with the person not making the claim. Scientist Anna says, "I believe the Higgs boson exists." Scientist Bob says, "I don't believe that the Higgs boson exists." Neither of them have any evidence. Anna is introducing a novel assertion about something. Bob isn't. Bob can ask Anne to prove it exists. Anne cannot ask Bob to prove it doesn't exist. Anne may, however, ask Bob why he doesn't believe it exists, since the Standard Model predicts its existence. If Bob shows why be believes the prediction is false, either by showing the SM has been used incorrectly, or stating he doesn't believe in SM at all, that's the end of his "burden" for that question. He does not have to scientifically prove the Higgs boson doesn't exist. He can't. It's logically impossible.


I understand I have my own burden of proof, but if someone wants to say that I am wrong, they are making a negative claim. It's up to them to provide reasons to substantiate their claim, and no, I don't think this need constitute absolute proof. If they're just saying "I don't know", then that is a different story. Most atheists don't want to concede that they don't know, because then they would have to admit that God could possibly exist, so they invent a new definition of atheism to obscure their true position.

>> ^messenger:
The theistic equivalent is you asking my why I don't believe in God. To this I tell you that to me, there's insufficient evidence, which is a position you should understand since it was exactly your own position until you got some direct evidence. That's the end of my "burden".


It depends on what you're trying to claim, about your own beliefs, or mine. Yes, I can relate to your position, having been there. That is why I describe atheism as religion for people who have no experience with God. I too was a true believer in naturalistic materialism until that veil was torn, and then I immediately realized that everything I knew, was in some way, wrong. Can you even conceive of such a thing, messenger? Do you care enough about the truth to be willing to let the tide take your sandcastle away from you?

>> ^messenger:
An equivalent for you might be if I asked you to prove to me that Thor and Ra don't exist. You couldn't. You could only give your reasons why you believe they don't exist. Same here. I'm in the same position as you, except I don't believe that Thor, Ra or Yahweh exist.


I wouldn't try to prove to you that Thor or Ra do not exist. I believe they do exist, but that they are not actually gods. They are fallen angels masquarading as gods, as with every other false idol.

>> ^messenger:
And my point is I wouldn't spend any effort trying to rule it out at all. I would just assume you're another false buried money promiser and move on. The reason I'm talking now isn't to rule anything out -- I never accepted the premise to begin with.


That's exactly the point; your conclusion is fallacious. You merely assume I am wrong because some people have made similar claims which were false. That is not a criterion for determining truth. If you had an incurable disease and only had a few days to live, and some people came to you promising a cure, and some of those claims turned out to be false, would you refuse to entertain any further claims and simply assume they are all false? I think not.

>> ^messenger:
Changing my whole perspective of the universe is an immense effort of mind. It's not "nothing". And why would I bother? Just to win an argument with you? Like I said above, I don't for a minute accept it's true, so I have no motivation for spending any energy proving it.


What effort does it take to entertain a possibility? You could simply pray something like this:

Jesus, I admit that I do not actually know if you are God or not. I would like to know whether it is true. Jesus, if it is true then I invite you into my life right now as Lord and Savior. I ask that you would forgive me for all of my sins, sins that you shed your blood on the cross for. I ask that you would give me the gift of faith, and help me turn from my sins. I ask that you send your Holy Spirit to me right now. I thank you Jesus for saving me.

If you pray that and sincerely mean what you say, then I have no doubt Jesus will answer it.

>> ^messenger:
1. No. If that's true, he gave me my life, and he can take it away if he wants to, but I have no respect for Indian givers.


It's appointed one for man to die, and then the judgment. He isn't going to take away your life, he is going to judge the one you have. Do you believe that you should be above His law?

>> ^messenger:
2. No. I don't serve anyone. He can do what he likes. He made me the way I am -- someone who relies on empirical evidence and sceptical about all superstition, and if he doesn't like it, it's his own fault. He should love me the way I am. And if he does, he should just let me come into heaven because he loves me, not because he needs me to worship him. I don't like egotists any more than Indian givers.


That isn't true; you serve yourself. If God has a better plan than you do, and your plan can only lead to a bad end, why wouldn't you serve God?

Yes, God made you the way you are, a person who knows right from wrong and has sufficient understanding to come to a knowledge of the truth. He loves you, but not your sin. He gave you a conscience to know right from wrong, and when you deliberately choose to do wrong, it isn't His fault. Yet He is patient with you, because He wants you to repent from your sin, so you can go to Heaven. As it stands now, you're a criminal in His eyes, and you are headed for His prison called hell, and He would be a corrupt judge if He just dismissed your case. But He is merciful and doesn't want to send you there. That is why He has given you an opportunity to be forgiven for your sins and avoid punishment. He sent His only Son to take your punishment, so that He can legally dismiss your case and forgive you, but also you must repent from your sins. If you refuse to stop doing evil, why do you think you should be allowed in?

>> ^messenger:
3. Yes and no. Yes, if Jesus turns out to be God, then there'll be no faith required. I'll know it. You can't disbelieve something you know is true. But no, I wouldn't trust him. A god isn't by definition benevolent or omni-anything. If he told me to accept that anal sex is a sin, he and I would get into a debate about what "sin" really is, why he defined sins to begin with, why he created the universe such that people would sin, why sin displeases him, and how those people can be faulted for following God's own design. And if the only way he could convince me he was right was by threatening me with eternal torment in a pit of fire, and promising to reward me with eternal happiness if I agreed with him, then I'd think he must have a pretty weak argument if he has to resort to carrot and stick tactics. I likewise don't like people who resort to violence or threats of violence to make people agree with them.


There'll be no faith required when you die and see Jesus at the judgment seat, but it will also be too late to receive forgiveness for your sins. Neither is God trying to convince you that He is right, because your conscience already tells you that you are wrong. You know that you are a sinner, and that you've broken Gods commandments hundreds, if not thousands of times. You're acting like I don't know you are a human being. What are you possibily going to have to say to a Holy God with your entire life laid bare before Him?

OMFG, why is it so hard for you to see the FLAGRANT corruption that's going on here.

It's not like the police arrived, saw the "fight" ending, observed that Zimmerman was reasonably threatened and was justified in shooting, then interviewed and released him.

The cops lied. They failed to collect crucial evidence. The Sanford City Police INTIMIDATED WITNESSES FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

This case is far from "usual" in the just sense.

[Altho, "privileged man gets of scot-free" is pretty usual in Scam-erica i.e. Goldman Sachs, etc. ..whoa channeling QM there a bit]

Stop being blinded by your fantasies. The United States isn't a Just or Fair or Equal place.

It never has been, and as long as fools like you keep eating the crocks of shit the Oligarchs hand to you.. it never will be.


>> ^Darkhand:


If someone could tell me how long it usually takes a murder suspect to be put on trial I would be interested in learning. To me it seems like people get arrested and then it's months before the case comes to the courts. Having said that this case feels like a natural progression so far.
If they didn't find a reason to arrest him they aren't going to do an about face all of the sudden. They're going to wait till they have their case together then arrest him which I figure will be about the end of April?

>> ^messenger:
B: the issue here is that the legal system itself is failing. Considering that, waiting for a conviction from that same legal system and deciding what happened based on that is exactly the wrong thing for us to do.>> ^Edgeman2112:
Innocent until proven guilty. We can't deevolve into a mob mentality.



If someone could tell me how long it usually takes a murder suspect to be put on trial I would be interested in learning. To me it seems like people get arrested and then it's months before the case comes to the courts. Having said that this case feels like a natural progression so far.

If they didn't find a reason to arrest him they aren't going to do an about face all of the sudden. They're going to wait till they have their case together then arrest him which I figure will be about the end of April?

It's really unfortunate this battle is being fought under the flag of copyright protection. I don't think the opposition to this new digital world order (if I may) has played their cards very well. There's a red herring here alright, and that's the claim that Intellectual Property has any real relevance to the debate around SOPA and the rest of this control.

The argument that should be being made more forcefully is that SOPA is censorship, it sets a terrible precedent, and if all it takes is something as insignificant as piracy to get people to throw away their rights, then I don't want to see what happens when they really start pounding the security drum to get the Internet under control.

Doctorow, in his recent speech/article "the coming war on general purpose computing", hinted, or I overread, that this fight is being fought as an intellectual property fight because it is such an obscure little backwater of human society. Very few people give a damn about copyright, as you can see by the amount of money and effort the content producers have put into getting people to equate piracy with stealing. The problem is, if censoring the internet to protect IP rights becomes acceptable, it will certainly be acceptable in order to protect financial and security interests.

In other words, it's too much to go after politically volatile material directly, so this is the fight we're having instead. I don't know how intentional that is, it may just be the natural progression of things, but those are the stakes anyway.

Copyright is a privilege granted under the assumption it will do more good than harm to society. It's starting to look like the opposite is true, if SOPA is what is needed to protect copyright holders.

1) iPad 3 will definitely come out this year with a retina display.
2) Apple will flirt with idea of making apple TV into a playstation with iPad 3 innards, controllable by ipad/iphone and make a contender to console gaming. (Natural progression of Airplay).
3) Ron Paul will do better than ever in the polls, but won't win.
4) Obama will win.
5) SOPA will not pass.
6) SOPA-light will pass and will be almost as bad.
7) Esports, primarily Starcraft2, will continue to grow. (2011 was HUGE)
The mayan calendar will end and no one will notice. (Wave hello to Harold Camping)
9) God will continue to recede into obscurity as our common knowledge grows.

@NetRunner

I'm genuinely surprised you would think the left has "lost" over the decades, especially after petty tyrant FDR rewrote the US Constitution, distorting the commerce clause to mean government can do anything it wants.

Then again, Jefferson said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground," and that's EXACTLY what's happened. If Democrats create all of this big government (e.g. like Nixon creating the EPA) and Repubs do nothing to dismantle it and in fact vote to fund it, then effectively both sides are Democrats.

Don't you see? You've WON!

We are a few beats away from becoming a socialist outhouse like Europe. It's nice to declare that everything is "free" by birthright (and great for the politicians that promise it) EXCEPT when there are no more productive souls to pay for the phantasy. GREECE is the word.

>> ^NetRunner:

>>.

To me the worst part about a lot of right-wing assumptions about the left is that they assume we're their mirror image, and project their hostility, dishonesty, ruthlessness, and groupthink onto us.
The truth is, as a group we're too nice, too honest, too forgiving, and too independent, which is why the right ends up eating our lunch so often.
Oh yeah, and they deny that they've ever eaten our lunch. They insist on pretending to be some sort of oppressed underdog, even though they've been effectively running the show for as long as I've been alive.

Thanks for proving my point.

Also, I don't believe you have the ability to take my argument apart, despite your brag. I'll give you a power point if you can mount something even marginally decent. >> ^marbles:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Black and White thinking is an effective way to guard irrational belief systems from critique. If your beliefs can't stand on their own, then it's most beneficial to cloak them in the armor of a lofty ideal that is beyond critique. It's much easier to dehumanize than empathize.
-The religious cloak their irrational beliefs in the authority of an all-powerful, all-good, supernatural creator of the universe. Disagree with irrational religious beliefs and you are a heretic, bound for hell upon death.
-Ayn Rand cloaked her irrational beliefs in the armor of objectivity. Disagree with her irrational beliefs and you are disagreeing with objective truth, which makes you wrong before you open your mouth.
-George W. Bush cloaked his irrational beliefs in the armor of freedom. Disagree with his irrational conservative beliefs and you disagree with freedom. "You are either with us or against us", he said.
-Capitalist Libertarians cloak their irrational beliefs in armor of liberty. Disagree with irrational market beliefs and you disagree with liberty. You are a tyrant and a statist.
For those who believe in democracy, the belief system and the ideal are one in the same, for better or worse. There is no armor needed, because critique is an essential part of democracy.
I think it's important to always draw a distinction between the bible and morality; between selfishness and virtue; between nationalism and freedom; and between fundamentalist capitalism and liberty; so that we can deny this craven tactic from taking more hostages.

I love the conjecture, but I'm not sure what you're referring to. Freedom is black and white.
I would knock down all your strawmen, but I'll have to save that for later.
Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Democracy is government officials pandering to the crude and mindless whims of the masses. Democracy is a means to an end, naturally progressing into oligarchy.
Why do you think democracy was never mentioned in the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, or Declaration of Independence?
Democracy operates from the false concepts of relativism that everybody is exactly the same. Democracy you think in terms of the rights of man, not the rights of individuals.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Black and White thinking is an effective way to guard irrational belief systems from critique. If your beliefs can't stand on their own, then it's most beneficial to cloak them in the armor of a lofty ideal that is beyond critique. It's much easier to dehumanize than empathize.
-The religious cloak their irrational beliefs in the authority of an all-powerful, all-good, supernatural creator of the universe. Disagree with irrational religious beliefs and you are a heretic, bound for hell upon death.
-Ayn Rand cloaked her irrational beliefs in the armor of objectivity. Disagree with her irrational beliefs and you are disagreeing with objective truth, which makes you wrong before you open your mouth.
-George W. Bush cloaked his irrational beliefs in the armor of freedom. Disagree with his irrational conservative beliefs and you disagree with freedom. "You are either with us or against us", he said.
-Capitalist Libertarians cloak their irrational beliefs in armor of liberty. Disagree with irrational market beliefs and you disagree with liberty. You are a tyrant and a statist.
For those who believe in democracy, the belief system and the ideal are one in the same, for better or worse. There is no armor needed, because critique is an essential part of democracy.
I think it's important to always draw a distinction between the bible and morality; between selfishness and virtue; between nationalism and freedom; and between fundamentalist capitalism and liberty; so that we can deny this craven tactic from taking more hostages.


I love the conjecture, but I'm not sure what you're referring to. Freedom is black and white.

I would knock down all your strawmen, but I'll have to save that for later.

Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is tyranny of the majority. Democracy is government officials pandering to the crude and mindless whims of the masses. Democracy is a means to an end, naturally progressing into oligarchy.

Why do you think democracy was never mentioned in the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, or Declaration of Independence?

Democracy operates from the false concepts of relativism that everybody is exactly the same. Democracy you think in terms of the rights of man, not the rights of individuals.