It's an interesting video excepting that it is filled with distortions and outright lies:



The claims of this video have widely been debunked even by secular skeptics:

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/

The theory that the historical person of Jesus Christ is derived from ancient mythology is dead in the water. You will not find many in the scholarly community who have drunk this kool-aid.

looks like rolling shutter distortion to me. possibly made worse with image stabilization.

I remember this guy.

Kicked out of Tulane university for one of the worst research papers in its history. This is the guy that doesn't even believe in how our eyes function:

"There is in fact no evidence at all that having this layer of nerve fibres (which are largely transparent) in front of the receptors significantly blocks, distorts or diffracts the incoming light in any way."

Total ripoff artist.

If you believe he was ever an Atheist, then I have a secret to tell you.

I am the Batman.

Your examples are flawed.

Place a rose-tinted glass in front of someone, and they would think you've placed a rose-tinted glass in front of them. The would expect the image transmitted by the glass to be rose-tinted as well.

Place a white sheet in front of them, and they would think you've placed a white sheet in front of them. They would expect to see a white sheet.

Place a clear object, such as a drinking glass, in front of them, they would think you've placed a drinking glass in front of them. They would expect to see through it, maybe expecting a perfect image, maybe a distorted one.

Fill that glass with water, and they do NOT expect to see a reversed image. It's an illusion. The arrows are not faced right, they are faced left, but they SEEM to be facing right.

By your yardstick, a mirage, the most common form of illusion, isn't.

Fibre can go a pretty long distance before it affects the signal though...

Fibre is comprised mainly of silicone, the more pure the fibre, the less dispersion issues occur at or around 1550nm (one of the main wavelengths used for long distance transmission, as we can easily and cheaply amplify this using ebrium doped segments and some pumps!)

Any impurities in the fibre will absorb the 1550 at a greater rate than other wavelengths, causing linear distortions in the received carrier along greater distances. This is called Brillouin scattering.

In the context of the above video, consider a paralell cable sending data over 100m. If one of those lines is 98m, then every bit that is sent down that line, will be out of order.

Same deal with Brillouin scattering, only on the optical level. Thats one of the main issues we gotta deal with at distance, however it only ever occurs at or around 1550nm, and only ever when you are driving that carrier at high powers (i.e. launching into the fibre directy from an ebrium doped amplifier at +15 dBm)

Theres some fancy ways of getting around that, but its not cheap.

Anywhere from say around 1260 to 1675nm is the typical bandwidth window we use today.

So, say 415nm of available bandwidth.
If we want that in frequency to figure out the theoritcal bits/sec value from the shannon-hartley theory, then we just take the inverse of the wavelength and times it by the speed of light.

7.2239e+14 hz is the available spectrum.

...thats 7.2239e+5 terahertz....

Assume typical signal to noise on fibre carrier of +6dB (haha, not a chance in hell it would be this good across this much bandwidth, but whatever..)

For a single fibre you would be looking at an average peak bandwidth of around 20280051221451.9 mbps.

Thats 19,340,564 Terabits per second, or 18,887.3 Petabits per second.

You can fudge that +/- a couple of million Tbps based on what the actual SnR would be, but thats your average figure.....thats a lot of Terabits.

On one fibre.

Source: Im a telecoms engineer

There's no such memo.

"He's talking about people with more money than they can possibly spend looking for more tax breaks so they can accumulate even more wealth that they're never going to spend."

This is just stupid. Sorry to say. People don't just hoard billions of dollars under the mattress.They spend it. They buy bonds, stocks, assets, goods, services, investments, start businesses or expand existing ones, advertise, do all sorts of things with it.

"unlike those billions sitting in off shore account."

In the case of money sitting in off shore accounts, first, it is being spent by the banks that are storing it. Second, it is also invested in overseas businesses, like Apple stores in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe or paying dividends. And third, it would not be there moving so slowly if not for government taxation which incentivizes a lack of flow. To the extent that it does not circulate (and I contend it flows much more than you allege), the stagnation is the result of yet more government-caused distortions.


What specific corporation or individual do you claim does not invest its surplus money? Name one.

For starters, corporations need to either invest their profits or pay dividends.
So, again, who are you referring to specifically?

Even if they have some money in the bank, the banks are investing that money, lending it out, etc. So again, who specifically are you referring to?

As I've said before, ignorance may be bliss, but thankfully, we don't all have to be as ignorant as the least informed among us.

It wasn't me who first pointed out Simon as a hypocritical "liberal bully."

"Here’s why I assert Simon is a bully. His own words reveal him to be a petty, nasty, mean-spirited guy. “…anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were [bleeped] up, wrong, and that I was the [bleeping] center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.""

Statist narcissism.

There's as much as you'd like on this. How about...?

"David Simon, a multi-millionaire writer for Time-Warner, one of the largest corporations in the world and a cultural leader, jetted across the globe to speak in front an audience of people with both the financial means and free time about the horrors of “unchecked” capitalism and the tragic loss of the social compact."

"It is rich that a leading light of Hollywood, that of unpaid interns, unmatched inequality of pay, tax-avoidance schemes, exploitation of public subsidies, industry scheming, etc., would criticize a “broken social compact.”"

"Meanwhile, in the real world of unchecked, no-social-compact capitalism, the WSJ is reporting that the “Burger Wars” are expanding to Africa. The heartless capitalist system is stepping in where communism, socialism and other authoritarian systems have failed, bringing with it the digging of new wells, food production systems, jobs, etc. All that awful stuff that comfortable capitalists take for granted."

EDIT: To be clear, I have no specific interest in advocating for Koch, or Simon, or whomever, or in prosecuting them or @radx or anyone else. But I do think this kind of pernicious thinking/bullying can and does spread and causes much harm, even to those engaging in the thinking/bullying, it distorts them in an undesirable way, so I point it out.

Do enlighten me: How do you think "dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof [will] strongarm retailers?" That simply won't happen. Rather, there will be fewer barriers to entry for other widget manufacturers to enter the market, either independently or working for competing "dominant" corporations when they discover that it's more profitable to not be "paid off" but to compete in the market instead.

A dominant corporation cannot buy every possible competitor. That's absurd. And there will always multiple "dominant" corporations, and not just one, or one and a number of "start-ups." Where there is Coke, there will be Pepsi. Where there is Apple, there will be Samsung. In a free market, monopolies and cartels cannot exist except in the very short term and at an eventual loss (unless they have the primary monopoly of the government to back them up).

If there are patents, there's no free market. A free market, by definition, must exclude all patent, trademark, copyright, and other such IP law. So, you may have picked the worst example.

Free markets without patents is not a problem at all. Not for the market and not for consumers. Companies may just be more careful about spies. They certainly wouldn't be incentivized (like they are now) to spend $millions just to hold patents on products that are never produced, only to corner the market and "strongarm" competitors (like they do now).

Companies like Bed, Bath & Beyond have been trying to price upstarts out of the market for years, decades even! And they're still not able to get rid of competitors! Same can be said about Walmart. Many stores other than Walmart sell TVs, even at higher prices, and remain competitive. Other stores sell linens besides BB&B. So, you have a distorted view of how markets actually work. No one corporation can monopolize the sale of any goods or services. That's just incorrect (unless the government helps them to do so). It just doesn't happen.

There's no such thing as a "natural monopoly." Name one. In Texas, for example, there are competing utility providers, and people can choose which energy service to use. This is in contrast to CA, where most of us are forced to "choose" PG&E over zero other alternatives.

"Restriction of information/prevention of rational, informed consumers"

I'm sorry, but anyone who has been involved in business knows this is complete horseshit. If you have a better product/service (the only way to outdo the competition), you will let the customers/market know right away.

And there's no scale at which markets collapse. The same forces of the market apply to big, small, and medium businesses. There is no arbitrary size for which these forces do not apply. And keep in mind that without government granted privileges, corporations would be much smaller than they are now, because competition would make it easier for competitors to participate, thereby forcing a re-allocation of resources to accommodate the market's demands.

So, yes you most certainly "overstated" your case. All markets can be free, regardless of size. Whether it's a small farmer's market or Whole Foods. The same market forces apply. They all have to court voluntary customers through service, price, quality, etc. Again, anyone who has had to work with marketing will know this.

BTW, things like "price dumping" are circumvented all the time. Does Rolls Royce care that Hyundai sells cheaper cars? Does Mercedes care that a Prius is less expensive?

Target makes money because Walmart is cheaper, not in spite of it!
And everything Walmart sells, you'll find many other stores selling it, even though Walmart might sell it cheaper.
The local natural food store in my neighborhood sells, more or less, the same things as Whole Foods. None of your objections pose any real problems in the real world.

I don't see Walmart buying every other TV seller, or even trying to do this. Microsoft tried but, so what? They failed, because they could not buy every single competitor in the software world, could they?

Even in Somalia, to use @enoch's example, in the telecommunications industry (to pick one that saw growth), no one even remotely managed to do any of the things you say could happen. In 20 years, no corporation did any of these things. Why not?

Because they couldn't.

And did "dominant" corporations take over all small retailers and sellers? No way, not even close! They couldn't. Only regulations can really kill all small retailers (and they do it all the time). Your outrage is gravely misplaced. Do the countless bazaars and sellers of Turkey, India, or Thailand get taken over by "dominant" corporations?

Hint: No.

Only when government meddles, do the big corporations wipe out the little ones, and sometimes each other.

In any case, Coke will not eliminate Pepsi (or Sprite, or Dr. Pepper, or A&W), government or no government.

Try as I may, I just don't care about wealth inequality. I care about poverty, but I really don't care about how much money a rich person has. And I may care about government redistributing money one way or the other (usually from the bottom up), but about "inequality," per se, I really don't care.

Praxeology shows you what a just environment for the maximum wealth of a society should look like. Thymology shows you why inevitably some people will make more money than others in a fair playing field. When inequality results not so much from thymological differences but from praxeological distortions, then you should suspect foul play.

Too often, anti-inequality folks ignore thymological differences while trying to distort/impose praxeological laws to force compliance, a recipe for certain failure.
Still, much of the world has been coming out of poverty, a testament to the power of commerce and its ability to bypass governments altogether.

@budzos
@lucky760
@Truckchase

It wasn't a clinical study, I think the point was merely to show that it was possible for a overweight, borderline obese man to eat only MCD menu items, be satiated and maintain the calorific deficit needed to gradually lose weight, provided basic exercise was maintained.

I don't think the point was to stress that changing to MCD made his diet better (in that case adding exercise is obviously cheating), just to show that it is possible to lose weight and eat MCD.

Taking this as a reference for calorie burned:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities.htm

45 mins walking is about 300 calories burned. Considering that teaching is primarily a pretty sedentary job (outside of class), that's only freeing up an extra 15% of your roughly daily intake needs of 2000 calories.

Not huge. I think the main takeaway here is, junk food or not, if your goal is losing weight (ignoring long term health complications), then it's all about portion control.

@JiggaJonson

As above, I think this is the main issue. I usually want half the portion that take away food outlets offer. Pricing structure then distorts the cost of the smallest size to make the larger 'value meal' much more attractive. One reason why I tend to prefer sashimi eat outs.

Nice selection that distorts my argument. Let me quote you in the same fashion.

Sirex said, "wait, what ?" Yeah, great argument there sirex, couldn't have said it better. Lol. Wait? What? Great immortal quote of sirex.

No way-That story made international news and a whole lotta folks lost face-That was rarity of justice. For every one that gets caught, as the saying goes...

The stories of the invading Japanese army's machine-gun barrels distorting from the heat as they tried to gain an advantage over the advancing Chinese troops and they, "Just kept coming?"
There's your analogous scenario.

I don't think DMT opens a window to god or w/e. These experiences might help you understand that even when your not tripping our perception is full of illusions, from the tricks the brain plays with what you see to the way it fabricates memories. I'm not sure if DMT really dissolves the ego but perhaps it does give you the insight that your world view is a distortion and to be wary of that fact.

How am I supposed to continue to interact intelligently when you keep twisting my words to imply things I have repeatedly stated I was not saying?

I deliberately chose my words to make it clear that I was not saying the driver MUST have done anything but only that he MIGHT. Simple reading comprehension; trying to twist my words for emotive effect is not going to work on me. (apart from getting a rise which it totally did)

You only seem willing to entertain a single perspective assessment of the situation and appear completely closed off to any other interpretation/speculation I have attempted to present.

The fact you have repeatedly ignored the core argument I have been making (that there is no such thing as one perspective and morality is a relativistic concept) suggests that either A you don't understand what I'm trying to say (in which case I'm happy to explain further) or B. don't want to understand (in which case I can't do shit for you sorry)

Let me put it another way. Do you think we understand Hitler and the Nazi's better by A. calling them racist fags and blindly denouncing their actions as "evil". or B. attempting to understand the mindset and motivations for what they did with a minimum of emotional compromise?

When you take the care to examine life's little unpleasantries like Nazi's or bike gangs or whatever from a less emotive position, you realise that they were/are not just some abhorrent alien force in society. Any one of us has the same capacity to behave like this, they aren't fundamentally different creatures and the belief that they are is exactly what allows people to justify doing this kind of thing in the 1st place. (If you asked one of the bike gangers to describe you and I you'd likely find they used the same kind of derogatory and dehumanising terms and categories, we're just slipping into the reciprocal tribal mindset)

Do I think bike gangs (and for that matter large groups of people in general) generally represent humanity at its worst? Yes totally, they are to my sensibilities 1st class arseholes. That's why I've agreed with you repeatedly on this (from post 1 onwards in fact!) I just like to come at things from more than one perspective because ultimately perspective is all that really exists to us, in this case I shared some measure of perspective with the bikers as I can see how thing thing could have escalated from that POV and how they might well have justified their actions to themselves.

Ethics/morals are little more than deep aesthetic preferences, they have no observable basis of authority in the natural world, only our own minds. While it's an illusion were arguably better off with, it does rather get in the way of objectivity.

All I really take exception to is having my words and meaning distorted and my core argument ignored. It's called a straw-man (reciting a deliberately distorted and weak version of your opponents argument to then tear it down) that shit wouldn't even fly in a high-school debating club and it certainly wont work with me here. Its fine that you disagree but at least get what your disagreeing with right please.

It's not about "good and "bad" "right" and "wrong" but rather "why" and "how". In short it's more complicated than "bike curious fags" and reducing matters only to that does nothing to help the situation other than to illustrate ones deep aesthetic distaste (which in itself is totally valid and I've not contradicted at any stage). I have somewhat more split "deeply held aesthetic preferences" here which is what I originality began talking about, perhaps that's why I'm finding it easier to at least relate to the bikers side of things even if I don't agree or condone.

"....and also disagree that anything excuses...."

^ This phrase beautifully demonstrates the folly of rigid non-perspective based morality. By embracing any arbitrary absolute truth or principle such as this one renders objectivity and transcendence impossible. Justification is a personal thing, what I'm interested in is provocation and explanation, we can argue what's justified until the cows come home because its not an objective concept it's a subjective preference.

This, when all semantics are stripped away is the core of why we are disagreeing I think. You think Ethics/morals are actual things that matter in their own right, I think they are no more than strong preferences who's usefulness is directly proportional to ones ability to understand and sympathise with those of others. Everything else has really been a play around that (by both of us) in less direct terms I fear....

This puts the finger on just what I've been thinking this last year.

Ideology is insanity. It was only good during the revolutions, to make something better of the way we were ruled and society. Now it's just like glasses making everyone see in distorted visions.

I thinked mainly of political ideology, but the same really goes for religious as well.