The problem with both parties here in the US AND Communism is that they're all based around central planning. Central planning is always going to have hideous unforeseen consequences and drawbacks, and those consequences and drawbacks will become continually more spectacular and significant as the world becomes more complex.

Being against central planning may sound like an anti-regulation or Libertarian view, but it's not. Libertarians want as little government as possible...I don't. I just want government to stop trying to create and manage complex systems based on mathematical models of the world that can never be complete.

Regulations should be roughly akin to commandments, but should be flexible. You come up with a set of rules and then you tinker with them over time. It's a lot better to tell people not to do things you know are bad than it is to try and tell people how to do things. The latter nearly always ends up being terrible for some subset of whatever group you're trying to make policy for. The former is reactive, and therefore politically non-viable because humans generally have a bias toward intervention. People pick leaders because of what they say they know and what they say they'll do. People need to start learning that saying "I don't know" is often the most honest answer, and doing nothing is often the best course of action.

Centrally planned government as we know it and corporations are pretty much the same thing in my book.

I think FDR had it about right...you do something and if it doesn't work you try something else until you find something that does work. It's called tinkering. It's what nature does! Not to mention every significant invention in the history of the world has been produced in this way...discovered by accident while tinkering with something questionably related. Probably the best example of this that relates to any videos that have been on sift lately is the DeGrasse-Tyson video about the big bang...the two guys that won the Nobel for physics in 1978 won it purely by accident.

sex and capitalism:

http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-03-17-sex-at-dawn-shattering-the-monogamy-myth-and-more

woooops wrong thread

I think the difference is that I doubt both the secular and the religious narratives. Though, one leaves room for doubt and change, the other is static.

I doubt both in completely different ways. I doubt the science, because doubt is part of science. You must be willing to change your view whenever new evidence provides a better narrative than what you had. If dating methods are inaccurate, that isn't proof or even evidence that any god exists. It's circumstantial information that follows your narrative. Like Neil said in the video...you don't throw out good ideas just because the measurement was somewhat off. If you don't have a better explanation, you keep trying to get better measurements for the explanation you have.

The problem with religious narratives is that they do not change, they only seek to disprove and explain away that which goes against the narrative. Science is the opposite. It's a narrative that constantly builds and adds on new ideas based on new observations and experiences. Science is a way of looking at the world which can exist on any world anywhere in the universe. Any species could come up with the scientific method without any outside influence or assistance from any sort of creator.

I can easily imagine a "god" of some sort which exists outside of the laws of our universe, entropy, time, etc. creating the universe and sparking the Big Bang with unimaginable powers. I can also imagine that this imaginary being is an infinite amount of possibilities other than the Christian God or the god of any other earthly religion.

I can also easily imagine there being a lot of other non-religious explanations for the creation of the universe. I doubt all of these explanations, but some are more likely than others, in my opinion, and none of the scientific ones demand I live my life based on one specific book and the story contained within. Science is limitless...religion lives only with limits.

Imagine giant tubes of water in huge buildings. Now imagine them being installed incorrectly.

I skeptically bought Brink day 1. I expected a lot better. A LOT better.

Yahtzee isn't exaggerating this one to make jokes. If you took my opinion after playing it for 10 hours or so and magically gave me Yahtzee's wit and accent, I'd have put out a nearly identical review.

He said he only does like 400...where's this 1,000 come from!?

Cool vid...I loved Looney Tunes growing up. We had a beagle named Bugs...because it was a rabbit dog. GET IT?

Thank you, natural selection.

May 23rd is my new favorite day of 2011.

@GeeSussFreeK @truth-is-the-nemesis

The Libertarian point is that we can't assume we know what's best for other people. Yes, there are extremes to every line of reasoning and every principle, and that's where they usually start to break down. For many people, the principle of freedom starts to break down when your choices are causing harm to someone else.

It's the classic Libertarian vs. Utilitarian argument. If you're interested in hearing a lot more about this philosophical subject, watch this series:
http://www.justiceharvard.org/

The idea that's missing from most Libertarian arguments is community. As the world becomes more interconnected, our choices increasingly affect those around us. The idea of personal liberty in the philosophical sense has been around since the Enlightenment. Libertarianism, as a philosophy, is a little dated because the roots of its arguments come from a time when people were nowhere near as socially and economically connected as the world is today.

I like that Ron Paul is putting these arguments forth. I think it's a valuable discussion to have in America right now. Our government tries to do way too many things out of this sense of "must do what's best for the greater good". Chief among these are monetary policy and the drug war. The fact that anyone thinks it's a good idea to control the economy with Keynesian models is ridiculous to me, and the idea that anyone should be put in jail for possession or sale of marijuana is equally as ridiculous.

However, extending the principles of personal freedom all the way to legalizing all substances is a little sketchy. The problem is, Paul putting the "Libertarian" stamp on what he's saying and then taking things to crazy extremes often invalidates the entire principle of Libertarianism to people who don't like those extremes.

Guess we need a new word for it...pragmatic libertarianism or something much more catchy.

I don't remember the cube physics working like that on PC.

I agree that she doesn't sound completely terrible, just incredibly mediocre.

Just shows how bad all studio pop is when performed live (even if you're one that likes the album versions). In a strange way this actually makes me think more of American Idol...LOL.

Canned art...it's always bad.

>> ^TheSluiceGate:

I hate in in these "recreations of media past" when the producers go to all the trouble of getting the look and texture of a video recording and then totally blow it by not treating the sound in the same way too. It's far too crystal clear and 2011 sounding. Still though, good job...


Totally agree. The sound gives it away easily, but yes...good job.

I lol'd at "wormhole generators" right next to "stereo FM radio".

The burp at :29 and the boy's face at :54...LOL

They should've had a well dressed blind guy with a seeing eye dog walk by with a sign that said, "Hey blind dude, I can't see your sign."