>> ^shinyblurry:

I haven't conflated anything. You've simply misconstrued everything I've said because of your belief that RNA is simple, or could spontaneously evolve.


Really? You thought that putting those two words together like that would convince me that you are taking anybody else seriously?

>> ^shinyblurry:

You think your simulation demonstrates the creation of information which could lead to a system that creates cellular life.


No, Please re-read your claim, and my response. You claimed that Information comes Only from minds, I provide counter evidence, you assert that I was claiming something else. I claim that you are not listening, you provide evidence.

>> ^shinyblurry:

such a system could never generate RNA of cellular life.


We have such a system, it's called the universe, and in it we find RNA. The universe does generate RNA, you and I are not in dispute on this point, only on the mechanism of that generation.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell. Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell.


That claim makes no sense.

To assert that something takes a particular amount of time requires a context of how wide spread the attempt is.

As an example I can not build a rocket to put people on the moon, this is impossible, I will not live long enough... None the less a large number of people, working in concert, with worse technology that we have access to did accomplish this task, it's possibility is a matter of scale.

In order to make an anthropic argument, I only need life to have happened once in all the space and time of the entire universe. Now I realize that you are just talking out your ass, that you have no numbers to back up your claims of probability, that your are simply making an argument from incredulity, but if you decide to try and cover your ass with some numbers realize we have about 100B years and 10⁸⁰ atoms to work with.

>> ^shinyblurry:

There is no experiment which has demonstrated that RNA can spontaneously evolve and be capable of creating life, now or ever. There is also no experiment which shows life evolving from non-living matter.


There again with the nonsense phrase, trying to really hit it home that you really have no clue what you are arguing against?

RNA is a molecule, it's not magic, it does nothing but what chemistry would expect of it, and still, it generates information through mutation/selection. This is, again, evidence against your absurd initial position which your argument from incredulity can not address. Even if you question the source of the molecule, the mechanism is the same, RNA is not a god antenna, it's a molecule, that synthesizes information through a simple, well understood, physical process.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The information is what designed and built the simulation, and its structure generates different arrangements of that information based on certain preprogrammed variables which do not change. You are not making anything truly new, rather you are just shuffling things around.


And neither has anybody, and you never have, and I never will. We are all bounded by our universe, we can not create or destroy, only move and arrange. There is, as far as we can tell, never anything new, and to say that that is true of the simulation provides no information about how it may be different from the physical universe in which we live, it is only one more way in which it is similar.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Such a simulation could never evolve on its own outside of programming.


Do you not get the concept of simulation? Nobody has claimed that the simulation is "real" only that it mimics, in a predictive way, certain aspects of the physical universe. Specifically it illustrates the compounding result of mutation/combination/selection, which is to synthesize information about the environment in a manner coded to best deal with that environment, a process, which you assert can not happen.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Just as DNA could never evolve on its own. The digital information it contains transcends its medium, just as a story transcends the paper and ink it is written on. Information only comes from minds, and that is what DNA code points to.


Your comparison is poor, paper and ink don't create words, DNA does. Understanding the information may require a "mind", whatever that means, but the information effecting and shaped by the physical world only requires mutation/selection, and we had that on this planet for billions of years before anybody realized there was any information in the system at all.

@westy, I don't agree with this statement of yours: "He does have a very camp posture and very effeminate Mannerisms."

When he DANCES, he chooses to camp it up. I see a mimic, an actor, a dancer. I don't see him being camp or effeminate at any other time. I see a joyful carefree kid.

He may be gay, he may not be gay.

Here's what I do know -- he says he isn't. So the gay channel is inappropriate.

There are several tags made on top of the original Robbo's piece. That didn't cause such a fuss, so why would it be a problem when someone famous does it?

Anyways, I'm gonna go out on a limb and propose a theory. Perhaps maybe Robbo did meet some person who claimed themselves to be Banksy, and maybe he did slap that kid. And maybe just perhaps Robbo is a very naive person and believes anybody to be exactly what they claim to be.

And just maybe that banksy he has met, was not the real banksy, and maybe Robbo doesn't really want to fact check, maybe because he probably has been out of the street graffiti loop for so long that he doesn't know who to contact to find out for sure.

So maybe him and his friends, who are all out of the loop, is just sticking with robbo's side of the story without fact checking, and maybe is creating this whole hype over some sort of graffiti war.

Just to top it all off, maybe the issued painting under the bridge was painted over long before all this hype (as the photos suggest of its last condition of Robbo's work, which was graffitied over by many other random tags), and it's being made an issue only after the alleged claim from King Robbo.

It is just a maybe though, just maybe.

The problem is that both Banksy and King Robbo operate under anonymity, which leaves a lot of things unorganized and unruly. Anybody can start claiming to be them without any kind of proof as long as they can mimic the original artist's style well, and nobody could tell the difference or know who exactly did what. Even for 'Team Robbo', this is just a collective mass, and anybody can start claiming themselves to be Team Robbo, and start putting up work under its name. So why can't this be the scenario for Banksy's work as well? Seeing there are lot of imitators out there.

I mean this is England, lot of dumb wankers out there. These are the same young people who just recently trashed their own neighborhoods because they were bored and riots felt exciting. You can see the immaturity of these gang's minds by calling Banksy a 'la rat'. It's a negative connotation because it's French, and French is bad because French are pussies, etc etc, that sort of typical immature insult which all English hooligans and lower classmen love to use. And to think, Robbo must be in his 30s, and yet he's still caught in this mess. He allowed himself to be caught in this silly feud that's been created by young teenagers of London. Jeez.

Sure. As far as I understand 'open' is that my Android phone has heaps of free apps developed by anyone to mimic a number of Apple ones, that I believe you would have to pay for through Apple and which need formal clearance from Apple before they become available.

I have no idea if that is true, though.

Or just steal it?>> ^Krupo:

LOL, I read about this. If they deliberately KEPT playing the ad in the UK I might be tempted to go buy their product.

>> ^hpqp:

oh @marbles darling, did I touch a nerve?
I already told you, I am a program run by the New World Order to scour the Sift for renegade truth-bearers such as yourself. Don't you think you should stop trying to attract your worst enemy's attention? Tin foil hats cannot stop predator drones you know.
>> ^marbles:
hpqp's arrogance (or more like the abundance thereof) up 'till now suggests that he is a tool. An ignorant one at best, a state owned one at worst.
>> ^hpqp:
Burzynski's evidence (or more like lack thereof) up 'till now suggests that he is a quack. A well-intentioned one at best, a fraudulent one at worst.
>> ^marbles:
Preface: It's great if this really is a breakthrough.
I'm a bit skeptical though.
1. Genetic engineering/manipulation "therapy" has had little success. 5 years ago they claimed gene therapy could cure melanoma in the American Journal of Science. It's addressed in this article here: Don't be deluded that this is the cancer breakthrough.
2. The Powers-that-be don't really want a cure to cancer. Antineoplastons show great promise as a cure. They're non-toxic and replicate natural occurring chemicals in the body that inhibit the abnormal enzymes that cause cancer. Antineoplastons are responsible for curing some of the most incurable forms of terminal cancer. Why have you never heard of it? Good question. This is the answer: http://videosift.com/video/Burzynski-Cancer-Is-Serious-Business





Oh, I get it. So you mimic government propaganda then. Maybe that explains why you're using Obama's tasteless predator drone joke.

Alex Pareene: "Hah! It's funny because predator drone strikes in Pakistan have killed literally hundreds of completely innocent civilians"

>> ^bareboards2:

My favorite Koko story....
"They" say that gorillas don't actually use language, they are mimics and learn "make this sign, get this".
The scientists were concerned about Koko's mental health, so they put a rhesus monkey in with her, for company. Koko did NOT like the monkey -- loud, stole her food, etc. She would sign "feces monkey" when she saw it -- in other words, called the monkey a "shit." She made that up to describe her feelings.
We are an egocentric species, thinking we are so different....


It's also a compound term. Gorillas are now well-known to create their own compound term from two previously unrelated concepts, which is fairly definitive example of linguistic cognition. Funnily enough the compound terms created for things the gorillas dislike usually involve feces.

My favorite Koko story....

"They" say that gorillas don't actually use language, they are mimics and learn "make this sign, get this".

The scientists were concerned about Koko's mental health, so they put a rhesus monkey in with her, for company. Koko did NOT like the monkey -- loud, stole her food, etc. She would sign "feces monkey" when she saw it -- in other words, called the monkey a "shit." She made that up to describe her feelings.

We are an egocentric species, thinking we are so different....

If you want to have a great country, you have to pay for it. Echoing the last point, 90% tax rates on the rich is how we got the space program, the internet, an interstate highway system, just to name 3. All three of these things are essential to modern commerce, yet none of it was developed by private industry.

Now, instead of wanting to mimic those successes, some of the shortsighted rich want to turn America into some banana republic, where government only exists for protecting the property of the rich. If republicans had their way in the 20th century, our economic and technological progress would be stuch in the 1920s.

...athletes and celebrities...



Doesn't everyone want to mimic the most useless people in society?

...taught to rely on mysticism and esoteric knowledge...



That sounds vaguely familiar. Almost biblical...

I am assuming that time is somewhat meaningless, actually. I assume that time had a beginning when the Universe was created and will have an end when the Universe is destroyed, and after that existence will be eternal. I think a Creator is far more plausible than an arbitrary process that mimics one. For one, there is no impetus for anything to happen in eternity. It wasn't caused so there is no inertia for anything to happen; it is infinitely stable. Why should a well ordered temporal Universe that creates beings that ask these questions spontaneously arise from an eternal continuim?

Our dating methods are far from infallable. Scientists have dated rocks they knew the age of (within decades) and yielded ages of millions and billions of years. Archaelogists have found human fossils and tools in rocks that were supposedely hundreds of millions of years old. Fossils don't have date tags on them, and there is this circular logic of using the rocks to date the fossils and the fossils to date the rocks. I could give you hundreds of examples of flaws with dating methodology. There is quite a bit of evidence supporting a young earth and a young Universe.

I think you're assuming that the truth cannot be known, or if it could, it isn't accessible. In my experience, it can be known, and absolutely at that. Empirical proof for a spiritual creation does not or could not technically exist. God can never be empirically proven because He is a Spirit, and more than that, exists outside of space and time. That doesn't mean there isn't any evidence, it just means that you can't put God in a testtube and derive a result.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
@shinyblurry
Your assuming time is a real element of existence and not an element of minds. In addition, a "Being" is not the only logical necessary/essential element of the starting point of existence. If anything, a "Being" has more baggage to explain than an arbitrary set of meta rules governing all things that exist. Hawking had an explanation close to this, though, like most scientists, his philosophy missed the mark ever so slightly (100% claims to materialistic causes don't have concrete foundation).
The big bang, however, has certain problematic elements to most religions creation explanations, mainly the element of their self contained explanations of the passage of set amounts of time. A 14 billion (or so, it keeps changing!) year old universe is way off the mark for most of the creation events we have from the larger religions. Even if the big bang isn't entirely accurate, if the time window for the universe is even marginally accurate, the 10k year old earth proposition seems highly dubious. There is some wiggle room, but it mostly seems like an equivocation of the actual text of Genesis.
In closing, it isn't any more certain that the cause of all things is an "eternal being" anymore than it is an "eternal formula". It also isn't certain that; time is a real thing, events are causally linked, or that a human can making any intelligible claims to the way "Noumenon" MUST exist. </lunch break rant>

That. Is. Awesome.

(And by 'That' I mean the incredibly well done mimic and not the song. That song is the perfect example of why dubstep is considered bad music by many. A continually repeated hip-hop beat with some semi-rhythmic screeches and drones overlayed (and nothing else) is the formula and makes for a very boring progression. On the other hand, the above Rusko remix is a perfect example of well-made, and very rare, dubstep. You can hear the melodic continuity from one section to the other even between sections with vastly different aesthetic feels. Please, all you dubstep producers out there, try. (: )

>> ^marbles:

>> ^MrFisk:
>> ^marbles:
Central planning of news! Is Fox the only one?
Six Major Corporations Own the Mainstream Media
Mainstream news brought to you by bankers and corporate kingpins.

While true that those corporations control 80 percent of the U.S. media only Fox News Corporation was designed specifically as a political mouthpiece.

So being a mouthpiece for the state isn't political? The only reason FoxNews fits smoothly into one half of left/right political structure is because they have been pretty consistent with their bias since their inception. MSNBC tries to play the antagonist role to Fox News a lot and the rest are usually more subtle and inconsistent. They can take turns flaunting their bias where Fox is the sole opponent by default. But the bottom line is it's all unintellectual lazy journalism. What more can you expect with centrally planned news coverage?


What, exactly, do you mean by "mouthpiece of the state" and "centrally planned news coverage?"

I'll generally agree with Jon Stewart that the media is often too lazy and sensationalistic. The fact of the matter is the media are a business and Fox News has become the most profitable television medium. Sure, MSNBC seems to be trying to mimic Fox News' success, from a liberal standpoint, by increasing subjective opinion by sacrificing objective news coverage. But you can't seriously mean that "the rest are usually more subtle and inconsistent" and that that suggests some sort of ulterior bias in favor of the Democratic party.

Why is she using a British accent? Is it that thing where you unintentionally start to mimic someone's style of speech? Or is she just ashamed of being American.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I am a little confuzled about calling @Skeeve and my conversation both true and a non sequitur. I guess because I am addressing a more theoretical, man kind building question and you a more practical one. Your talking about the more practical, of making things work now, I am talking more about how I want things to work, for always. A the difference between the tangible and the ideal I guess.

It seems you weren't all that confused, that's exactly what I was getting at.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I have been considering the statement "the needs of the many..." for the course of a few weeks now.

...

I find that the statement of "the needs of the many..." very closely relates to the Democratic position.


I think the "the needs of the many..." quote is a pretty crude statement of the type of moral reasoning you find on the left. The more refined version can be found described in John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, but if you want a brief synopsis of the philosophy, try this.

I would also say most modern liberals tend more towards a Rawlsian political philosophy.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
When your tribe is 20 people, and the fate of your people all hang in the balance of routine decisions, evolutionary speaking, to survive, it is easier to remove the rational component of this choice. The rational implications of every choice you make determining the fate of your entire race is a burden that doesn't aid in decision making. It is much "better" to program in an emotional response and have that being post-rationalize later, intelligence is actually more of a burden than a tool in this area. This way, we remove the impotence one might face in the light of such a larger than life issue, and set in that mind a continuing sequence of emotional ties to the event through post-rationalizations.

I totally agree. I tend to think of a lot of what humans use rationality for is to rationalize decisions they really made at a gut/emotional level.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I think the reason Democracy works so well, given this situation, is it very closely mimics the "rules of the jungle." By that, I mean force. Democracy is an interesting formalization of the rules of the jungle. Instead of the force being a stick or a knife, it is a vote.

This, on the other hand, I think is totally false. Democracy is a tool to try to tie large, diverse groups into a single tribe by getting rid of the "tribal leader makes the decisions for the tribe" aspect of tribal society. The reason we want to do that is that even though we're no longer just a pack of 20 trying to deal with tigers in a jungle, we are still facing all sorts of threats from the outside world (e.g. disease, natural disaster, food scarcity, water scarcity, etc.), as well as threats generated by our inability to cohesively work as a unified tribe (war, pollution, persecution, extreme resource inequality), and that we should all be united in dealing with that common cause.

The "rules of the jungle" is more something you see in markets. The idea in most right-wing philosophy is to keep the idea that tribes should stay entirely hierarchical, and that no tribe should feel fundamentally obligated to any other tribe. Strong tribes should be allowed to amass resources they take from weaker tribes, and weaker tribes get killed off. Theoretically there's some method for preventing these inter-tribe conflicts from being violent, but nobody's worked out a way to do that other than creating a state who will use sticks and knives (and guns and nukes) to make people play by the rules of the market by force.

The evolutionary component of markets is really the key to what its proponents like -- evolution brings us forward progress, after all. The position over here on the left is that morally speaking, evolution is cruel. People like me see the benefits of markets, and the moral downsides, and want to try to find a way to make markets less cruel. People much further to my left are moral absolutists who want them destroyed because they're inhumane.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
The course of discovery seems to be without end for man. It seems inevitable, that in time, each human will have access to such a level of technology that any one person could end all life on the planet with little to no effort. Our only current solutions for it are that of liberty, which would only take one crazy person to end it all, or regulations, of which would have to be of the most extreme kind to protect against knowledge that is easy to acquire and use. It seems that the current rules that bind this planet along with mans advancement in technology have set us on a collision course with a cruel destiny. While not a certainty, I do believe it is certain that the tools of Democratic force will not save us from our own self imposed destruction.

I think the way to deal with it is to realize that the choice between "regulations on world-destroying weapons" and "liberty demands that crazy people have the right to own world-destroying weapons" is actually a really, really easy choice, since one of them ends with no one left alive on Earth...

Will "democracy" protect us from being stupid about that choice? No.

But if humanity is ever going to make it through its technological adolescence, we're going to have to set aside these childish notions that "liberty" only exists if you can completely disavow any sense of obligation to the rest of humanity.