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If only the kid had acted as per ACLU's advice on dealing with police encounters the cop could have reached his true potential for being an asshole.

An interesting question and answer section follows the talk starting at minute 51 which can be appreciated without listening to the entire talk.

The laughter is most likely involuntary. An unfortunate bout of corpsing if you will.

budzos - I considered that possibility but then thought it would take too much work to keep everyone coordinated. The animated LEDs look quite smooth if indeed everyone is being asked to hold their positions while the camera is being moved. You are probably right - that's probably how they did it.

Loved it. So creative.

I think this is done by waving an LED around to trace out a shape in mid-air with the camera's exposure time set to roughly the time taken to trace out the shape once. So every time the camera captures an image it captures the entire outline that has been traced out using the bright LED. The quality of the animation created in this manner is greatly influenced by the person's ability to trace out the same shape over and over again consistently.

I found the shots where the camera is moving the down the hallway really impressive. In these shots they are able to capture the traced LED outlines (suggests the use of long exposure) and yet the background doesn't blur out when the camera moves (which would happen with a moving camera if your exposure was too long). They must have played around with the brightness of the leds, the amount of ambient light in the scene, the exposure time, and speed of movement until they had it nailed down. Or maybe I missing something. Obviously the people who made this video think the moving camera shots are impressive too since they play those shots several times back and forth.

To me Kucinich seems to be the most trustworthy of the lot. But I'm told he is not tall enough to be the president. And apparently he also has a really unelectable set of ears. So I guess I wont be voting for him afterall.

Wow. That doctor is so good at what he does. I was half expecting him to say.. "Now remember Kris, Mr giggles is more scared of you than you are of him."

" It's hard to understand the subject matter if you haven't read anything on the subject. This video only covers one of the letters. Hardly a reason to judge a whole book by."

Like I said my criticisms still apply to this particular letter. It exploits the basest fears that we are all susceptible to. At some point I plan to read this book as it seems to be a creative take on the age old problem of proselytizing. If the reading changes my mind on the tactics employed by Mr. Lewis you will be the first to know.

"Basing an argument off one church that seems to be all encompassing for examples is a bit naive and harsh to group other religions,or organizations along with it."

The example wasn't meant to be as sweeping as you seem to suggest. At the same time, let's not forget the "one church" we are talking about here encompasses around 50% of the Christians today and is the largest organized body of any world religion:
(source) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church
We are also talking about an easy to prove concept like Heliocentrism which the church took 300 hundred years to come to grips with in the face of overwhelming evidence. This is also a church that now claims that "other denominations not true churches."
(source) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19692094/
Surely the actions of a church of such prominence is partly indicative of the current state of religious affairs.


"Not all religions exploit people. People exploit people, sadly it's done in the name of the church that person uses as a tool. The organization of a church does not necessarily make it an organization for evil intents."

People exploit people. Agreed. But so do religions. Institutions have to be judged on the principles they subscribe too. If a religion subscribes to the concept of eternal damnation then in my opinion it is exploitative. It is human tendency to exploit others. A decent institution tries to safe guard its member from such exploitation by subscribing to principles that lead to fair play in general. Not that the scientific institution is free of its foibles but there is a reason why science is able to sustain (even celebrate) major blows to its most cherished beliefs even though scientists can be just as flawed a people as the religious. I imagine if science subscribed to the religious principles of dogma, faith, and revelation then Gödel would have been crucified for his incompleteness theorem; or at the very least denied tenure which I'm told hurts worse than a crucifixion.

"I'm curious what is the basis of your faith pro?"

Not exactly sure what this question means. I was raised in a hindu family which lead to a moderately religious outlook on life until early adolescence. I guess I have grown to become what you might call a tooth-fairy agnostic.

"Alright come back and debate your point when you've actually read The Screwtape Letters."

Why? Is the piece recited in the video not representative of the book? If indeed that is the case then my criticisms still apply to this particular letter which in my opinion is quite exploitative.

"And when you refer to "the church" which one are you referring too. "

When people refer to "the church" they are usually talking about The Roman Catholic Church with it being the largest christian church and all. I thought this would be evident as I was refering to the famous controversy involving the catholic church's insistance on a geocentric model of the universe (i.e., earth in the center) which conrtibuted to the murder of Bruno, the life imprisonment of Galileo and, to the rather embarrassing recantation of the doctrine in 1992 by Pope John Paul II.

"And why do you feel a need to associate religious beliefs with a church?"

I was using the church as an example of a religious institution exploiting/reinforcing certain fallacies common to human thinking; in this case the fallacy being an egocentric model of the universe. That is not to say such exploitation is unique to christanity (I offered hinduism as my other example) or to religious institutions for that matter.

"I never offered my feelings of possessing a soul as proof."

I believe you said something along the lines of: "How do I know there is such a thing as a soul? because..."
I realize that this is a "personal" proof that you have used to convince yourself of your soul and if I get the gist of your proof it seems to go along the lines of "I have these incredibly strong transcendent feelings which must originate from a non-material source like the soul." My examples were meant to illustrate the rather physical/chemical sources of these transcendent feelings. When I was kid I used to think I was special because I had these inexplicable experiences which I now know to be deja vus. It's quite likely you are making a similar mistake.

I doubt the point of screwtape letters is to encourage a sincere reflection on the question of existance. It might tigger that form of reflection in some individuals but in most individuals it will reinforce the fear of hell, eternal damnation, temptation of things deemed sinful in Christian theology, etc (which is what I suspect it was designed to do).

While these letters don't explicitly claim that the universe revolves around you, the suggestion that god-like creatures are engaged in an eternal battle over the possession your soul is certainly an exploitation of our tendency to imagine ourselves at the center of the universe. On a similar vein, you must certainly remember the how long it took the church to come to grips with the fact that Sun does not revolve around the Earth.

If you are looking for sources of transcendence in your life why not rely on the large supply of non-exploitative sources out there. I find travelling, music, arts, literature, science just as capable of inducing transcendence as religion and without all that heavy baggage that comes with religion.

I also don't understand why feelings of transendence are often considered as proof of the existance of a soul. Transendent experience is a common human phenomenon which can be induced in most subjects with remarkable ease:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
http://www.videosift.com/video/Can-Out-of-Body-Experiences-be-Recreated1
Not to mention transcendence has also been avaliable in pill form for over 50 years now. 200 micrograms of lsd will get your "soul" talking so loudly your neighbors will be banging down your door asking it to shut up.

I'm fasnicated by this tactic of blostering faith against attacks from reason by making the subject paranoid of imaginary beings who are out to get him/her. I did most of my growing up in India where this tactic was artfully employed under the concept of 'Maya' which suggests that everything we experience is an elaborate illusion meant to keep us trapped in an endless cycle of life and death. As a young adult it was hard to overcome this form of paranoid thinking that was beaten into me as a child and I think it still clouds some of my subconsicious instincts.

One of many reasons why I think there is no Wormwood like creature out to get me is the same reason why I think trees make noise when they fall with no one around: because the universe does not revolve around me or around the human race for that matter. We seem to be predisposed to think otherwise but everything we have learnt about the universe suggests that it is amoral and apathetic to all of existance.

One of my favorite quotes on this subject is from Hunster S. Thompson:
"What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create ... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody — or at least some force — is tending that light at the end of the tunnel."

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