Deception by Science

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by RenaissanceMan, Nov 18, 2010.

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  1. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    I do take exception to being described as a christian hater. My parents, and my sister are both christians - and my grandfather was a minister.

    I am in fact a hater of extremist muslims ........ but as there is no (pardon the pun) fundamental difference between extremist christians and extremist muslims I see no reason to exclude the former.
     
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  3. RenaissanceMan RenaissanceMan Registered Senior Member

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    Let's examine your thesis, that nuclear weapons are evil.

    Throughout all of human history, what weapon has killed more people than any other? Upon hearing the question, anyone will instantly recognize that nuclear bombs are far down the list. In fact, one might argue that near the top of murderous, indeed heinous killing tools would include salt water and surgeons' knives. At least 30,000,000 babies in America alone have been cut out or burned out with simple tools that were available for at least a thousand years.

    Military experts estimated that if America had to invade Japan, casualties would have been 1,000,000 killed. The two atomic bombs killed far fewer than that number.

    Swords and arrows have been among the most deadly implements in human history. Those and socialism. Socialism is far more evil than nuclear weapons, and socialism's victims number over 100,000,000 dead.
     
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  5. birch Valued Senior Member

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    you had me until this part, then it dawned on me 'idiot alert!'. it's not even in keeping with your line of logic.

    people kill people, not socialism.
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I don't know how salt water got on your list unless you're concerned with drowning victims, and in any case salt water is the medium that allowed animal life to evolve. Our bloodstream is a fully-enclosed salt water environment. As for the surgeon's knife, this is a tool. Accidents happen with any tool but that does not make them evil.
    Oh I get it. This is a poorly disguised rant against the legal right to abortion. All I can do is quote my wife: "I'll give a flying fuck what men think about abortion the first time one of you assholes gets pregnant." So on behalf of our female members, who have an actual personal stake in this issue rather than a philosophical one, and who typically stay away from mental masturbation threads like this one, I suggest that you please stuff your combination Male Chauvinist Pig and Religious Redneck Retard rant up your ass until you grow a uterus.
    The figure is typically set at ten million (Allied soldiers alone would have accounted for at least a million) and some say it would have been a hundred million. Others say that the Japanese military leaders could read the handwriting on the wall once they realized that A) The Soviets were opening a new front on their northern frontier, and B) The Germans were going down and soon all the Allied military might would focus on Japan, and would have surrendered within a few weeks anyway.

    In any case, regardless of how many times they are used, it's hard to understand how nuclear weapons can be regarded as anything but "evil." The bow and arrow was originally invented to hunt game for survival, after all.
    You're conflating socialism with communism--which is understandable since the Communists encouraged that confusion. Communism is an offshoot of Christianity. Despite his Jewish ancestry Marx was a Christian and, "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability," is an elaboration of a line in the Book of Acts. Before you object to that, imagine the probability of a self-respecting Confucian, Hindu or Jew suggesting that an economy can survive in which what a man takes from civilization need not correlate with what he gives back. Only Jesus preached economic irrationality.

    Now if you want to take up a crusade against Christianity as being more evil than nuclear weapons, I'll march right beside you. Except I will insist that we include the other two major Abrahamic religions as well since they all preach irrationality of several kinds and irrationality invariably breeds evil.
     
  8. RenaissanceMan RenaissanceMan Registered Senior Member

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  9. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    that's true but capitalism is also taking more than what one contributes too. :shrug:
     
  10. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know, but I think I can sense a certain desperation when one starts with a premise that science is deliberately deceiving the world by not including ppm of water vapor in graphs of ppm CO2, which is a pretty silly and uninformative thing to do, then one diverges into somewhat rabid arguments about the evils of socialism, equating that with atheism and abortion, you have to ask if deliberate ignorance is the real evil.

    There's nothing looks quite so ridiculous as someone who is sure they have 'the facts' when what they have is an ignorant uninformed set of beliefs and an agenda.

    Then equating abortion with murder of 'babies' has to be the ultimate ignorance. Is one saying a fetus is a baby? Aren't babies the result of a successful pregnancy and can't a lot of things go wrong during pregnancy? Are miscarriages actually a form of infanticide, and should women who miscarry for whatever reason be charged with murder? Does that depend on whether you believe in socialism?
     
  11. NMSquirrel OCD ADHD THC IMO UR12 Valued Senior Member

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    how much pressure has been put on ppl to 'take a stand' 'believe in something' 'stand up for what you think is right'(that requires thinking about what one thinks of as right)

    one has to figure out what is right before one takes a stand..

    our only source to that ends, tends to be from man
    man has proven himself fallible..
    that doesn't mean we have to find some 'god' to TELL us what to believe..
    the more information we get,the easier it is to make a 'stand' for ones beliefs
    where you get that information is not from 'one' man (then it is not YOUR beliefs, it is that 'mans')..
    Inspiration does not need to be validated..
    inspiration comes from many sources..
    i believe god can be very inspirational..
     
  12. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Not at all. The essence of capitalism is that one creates capital. Rather than merely contributing labor and other resources to the economy and extracting sustenance, security, and the other vital necessities at the bottom levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the organization of a capitalist system permits and (if properly administered) encourages everyone to contribute to the community's surplus. "Capital" is, after all, just a fancy term for "surplus wealth, and "capitalism" is (again, when properly administered) a decentralized, constantly evolving system for managing that surplus heuristically and in real time. The fact that the infrastructure, savings, inventory, luxury goods and services, educational institutions, professional entertainment and other economic factors unknown in the Stone Age have been increasing steadily (if not monotonically) for twelve thousand years is evidence that, in aggregate, we all do indeed contribute more to the planetary economy than we take out.
    You're being too kind. We Moderators refer to that as "intellectual dishonesty." In a place of science and scholarship it is the most egregious form of trolling: pretending not to know something in order to pursue a line of reasoning so articulately and passionately that our younger members, who come here expecting to find information and wisdom, may be convinced of something that isn't true.

    R-Man has been banned for two weeks, although not for intellectual dishonesty since that narrower decision is under the authority of the Moderator of this subforum. I banned him for insulting an individual (my wife) who is not even a member and therefore cannot respond in her own behalf. He called her "sick" for expressing a classic feminist point of view.

    His next ban will be permanent, and I predict that it will occur shortly after his return.
     
  13. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    i was addressing the earlier post about the quote.

    in that regard, i don't see that capitalism is different. also, those who 'own' haven't necessarily really created anything (in some cases they do) but gain more wealth through private ownership with labor contributed by others. one can get a loan and buy a shop hiring employees. if it's successful, the majority of profits will be for the owner. this owner may be out shopping everyday and only doing a fraction of the work while garnering the profits. that is the profit motive of capitalism for the everyman. the bottomline is someone has to work for another at less pay for someone else to profit more. this is a case of 'get more, contribute less' by the creation of ownership just as well. clever. this is not necessarily wrong or unbalanced in all scenarios but can be exploitive or can be extremely lopsided.

    also, just about every service in existence available is not due to one's abilities. for instance, people are not denied medical care if they are a fast food worker anymore than if they were a high-paid attorney.

    the point is, its just not true that a capitalistic system has an even in/out process. not that it has to be literally or exactly either but still.

    if that were the case, there wouldn't be multi-millionaire paid athletes and less paid, more educated and obscure researchers that tirelessly trying to find cures for diseases. there wouldn't be those who do dirty or dangerous jobs that are extremely difficult who get paid less than those who may be dust bunnies in some corporate office trained to pass the paper trail along to the next which many could do as well. what you get paid and what you are worth monetarily does not always equal to how much one's services are needed, how skilled, or how hard-working one is either.

    what is of worth in a capitalistic system is not always determined by what something is truly worth. much of it is an artificial creation just as a painting or work of art can garner millions because of perceived value.

    i'm not saying that everything about capitalism is wrong or not useful but i don't think it's analyzed often enough for what it is either or it's negatives. capitalism is always presented with a shiny veneer of showmanship and only in the positives.
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2010
  14. Darius Macab Registered Senior Member

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    honestly, this discussion is just stupid

    if Rman wants to be wrong it is his right but don't let him wast our time by forcing us to argue with him.

    he is just trolling and if everyone leaves he will have no one to troll

    DM
     
  15. NMSquirrel OCD ADHD THC IMO UR12 Valued Senior Member

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    i used to believe that..till i started my own business..(contracting)
    since then i realize how hard it is to actually make a profit..
    think about what it takes to pay for SSI, unemployment,state,fed taxes,bonding, tools, upgrades, maintenance,fuel,licenses,etc..
    then top that with getting good help,if you want to keep good help you got to pay them more AND keep them busy..
    meanwhile the customers are looking for the lowest bidder..they don't want to pay for a $20hr hand when they can get a $10hr hand..
    PLUS any misinterpretation of what the customer wants falls to the contractor to fix it..
    contracting also has the added problem of everyone and his brother think they know how to do it..

    also not to single out contracting..
    look at the domestic car companies..
    ppl holler and scream about wanting cheap vehicles, and at the same time employees are screaming they want more money..this translates to inferior parts that only last till the warranty is up..
    then when the economy tanks, they are first in line for government hand outs..they should be just as susceptible to failure as all businesses..IOW if they can't pay their bills, then close shop..
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2010
  16. birch Valued Senior Member

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    5,077
    it's called a generalization. particular examples don't necessarily negate the general point.

    you use these examples, just like how you exaggerate that christianity is a victim of discrimination because of what affects you and your self-interest. because you own a business, you will have a relative bias. when the point is more general, you aren't using personal examples that well that counter the general point because the root of the problem in your examples stem also from capitalism and it's inherent problems associated with it. you are just scratching the surface and looking at the symptoms.

    as for real estate, that is also a good example of how people make money off the buying and selling or prices are inflated. they put in x number of work and hopefully can sell it for way more than the time and money put into it. that's the perks of capitalism.

    my point is capitalism is not always based on some fair rate of exchange as people make it out to be.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2010
  17. NMSquirrel OCD ADHD THC IMO UR12 Valued Senior Member

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    5,478
    (bold mine)

    huh??

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    :shrug:

    capitalism is based on making a profit..
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    That is not wrong, but it misses the point. Capitalism is the decentralization of the management of surplus wealth (or "capital"), so that the production of surplus wealth (or "profit") is controlled by those with the greatest familiarity with the processes of that production and the greatest stake in its success (or "capitalists"), and also so that those processes can be adjusted as quickly and efficiently as possible in response to the needs and desires of consumers (or "market forces").

    Any economic system must ensure that surplus wealth ("capital" or "profit") is created. This is the engine that drives the advancement of civilization. New resources come into existence that can be used to launch new enterprises and entirely new technologies, increasing the per-capita income and wealth of the population.

    It is one of the duties of government to ensure that the minutiae of its economic system actually work reasonably well. During the early years of the Industrial Revolution, the enormous increase in surplus wealth was distributed so unevenly among the population that it was quite reasonably regarded as "unfair."

    Slowly and painfully this was righted, and now in the industrial nations virtually everyone--even the most unproductive, even the most unfortunate, even the most foolish--lives better than the vast majority of the population in Dickens's era. Nearly all people classifed as "living in poverty" in the United States have roofs, central heating, indoor plumbing, stoves, refrigerators, adequate nutrition, education for their children, basic medical care, telephones, televisions, and cars or in a few cities excellent public transporation. This utopia is starting to feel the strain of the current recession just as it did in the 1930s, but once per century is not a bad record by historical standards--and it does ensure that there are always a few people alive who remember hard times and nag the rest of us into not becoming too complacent.

    The problem with the experiment with communism in the 20th century was that it inevitably produced a negative surplus. The combination of centralized, corrupt, unresponsive management of production by bureaucrats with no stake in its success, with an unmotivated labor force whose rewards were not correlated with their production, was a death spiral. It succeeded by only two means: 1) the dissipation of capital left over from the pre-communist era and 2) the occupation of neighboring countries and the dissipation of their capital. Once all sources of capital were exhausted and per-capita wealth not only no longer enjoyed a surplus but began to suffer hardship, the economy imploded from the relentless and inescapable force of arithmetic.

    Some futurists (including yours truly) believe that the defining "product" or "goods and services" in the dawning Post-Industrial Era will be information. Information has the unusual attribute of being able to be reproduced and distributed for almost negligible cost. The Electronic Revolution that launched this era may usher in a new paradigm of economics in which infrastructural and life-supporting work is done by automatons with only a modicum of human supervision and our "jobs" consist of spending one hour a day organizing and peer-reviewing information posted by others. But the economy will continue to produce a surplus, a surplus of information that will need to be disinfected, catalogued, indexed and correlated a whole lot better than it is today with resources such as Google, Wikipedia,... and SciForums.

    Our surplus wealth will be represented not just by the information itself, but by the processes developed for its management.
     
  19. NMSquirrel OCD ADHD THC IMO UR12 Valued Senior Member

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    what are the economic statistics for the politicians?
    I mean how are they living?
    how much money do they have?
    how many politicians have maids?
    compared to the middle class..
    SciForums as a knowledge vault??

    excellent post btw..
     
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    The base salary of Senators and Congressmen is $174K but they also bring in income from speaking engagements. The Washington metropolitan area is the most affluent in the country and therefore its cost of living is one of the highest, so that isn't quite as "rich" a life as it may appear. The average household income in Montgomery County, MD, where I live, is $90K and in nearby Loudoun County, VA, it's the highest in the country at $105K. You can't buy a humble townhouse around here for less than $300K, and Senators don't live in humble townhouses. They also have to live closer to the Capitol than I do so their real estate is much more expensive than mine. And of course they also maintain homes in their home states so they can qualify as residents when they run for office.

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    I would say that only puts them in the very upper bracket of the middle class. They live very comfortably but not like corporate moguls, popular entertainers and star athletes.

    State and municipal-level politicians, who vastly outnumber their federal peers and in aggregate do a lot more of the work of government, don't make that much money, except perhaps in key states like California, New York, Florida and Texas.
    Probably all of them. Their wives/husbands have heavy social calendars to keep up--appearances at charity events alone can be exhausting--so they're hardly going to be at home hoovering.
    As I said, personally I consider most of these people to be at the top of the middle class, not in the bottom of the upper class. America is run by its corporations and it's the leaders of those institutions who make all the money.

    Also don't forget that the twenty million non-elected government employees or "civil servants" (depending on how you count them) are not "politicians" because the civil service system was designed specifically to protect them from mass unemployment after every regime change, but they are the people who actually make the government... uh, run? work? function?... let's just say "do whatever it does." There was a time when civil service jobs paid better than comparable private-sector positions (I had one for many years) but that gap is rapidly closing. I know federal workers who make $150K and they absolutely do not live like rich people here in the Washington metro area. They don't drive Ferraris, they don't have maids and (perhaps) the majority of their children attend public schools.
    And why not? If I'm not mistaken, most of the Moderators of the hard science boards are PhD's. I see to it that my board, Linguistics, is a treasure trove of information. If you Google an arcane topic that doesn't yield a zillion hits, it's quite possible that a SciForums thread will be on the first page. This is why we try to keep the discourse civil, limit trolling, enforce the scientific method to keep the crackpottery under control, and take people who post racist crap and dirty pictures out behind the barn and shoot them: we don't want to be blackballed by any of the well-respected search engines.

    But that's my point. As an American I don't want to suppress free speech, even if it's abhorrent. How do we balance that priority against our goal of being recognized as a place of science and scholarship? Today, there really is no answer. The internet is not that mature yet. This is still analogous to the Industrial Era ca. 1860.
     
  21. NMSquirrel OCD ADHD THC IMO UR12 Valued Senior Member

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    seen that..i think its cool to do a search and sciforums pops up..

    i was gonna post links to two threads that qualified for that..
    but apparently they were deleted/closed..good job mods..

    there is a fine line..
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2010
  22. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    9,232
    Let's have a modicum of accuracy please.

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    The Russian experiment was not an expression of communism. Here's a hint: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Socialism was a step on the path to communism, but the last step - to communism - the Soviets never made, and never claimed to have made.
     
  23. RenaissanceMan RenaissanceMan Registered Senior Member

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    You go on and on and on, like a true pontificator.
    Although superficially plausible, in fact, Maslow's Hierarchy is a fraud.
    Every day throughout human history, people have risked their very lives for some of the most trivial reasons conceivable. This is a complete repudiation of Need Hierarchy. Complete. Maslow CLAIMED that our first directive was to continue living. Uh huh. So why do people risk their lives for a hit of an opiate, often killing themselves in the process? They jump out of aircraft, and do stupid stunts risking, and taking, life and limb.

    It is much more accurate to say that we are all prostitutes. We will do anything, include risking our lives, for the right price.

    Nota bene, Mister Powerful Moderator: You spoke on behalf of your wife.
    You claimed she believed and would say thus and such. Men's opinions are worthless because they can't bear children. What utter nonsense.
    Were any man to claim women's opinions on some issue are meaningless for some silly reason would be instantly derided as a "sexist." Yet your own sexism and that of your wife's doesn't seem to occur to you.

    You either overlook or else neglect the fact that men are required to pay child support for eighteen years.
    You either overlook or else neglect the fact that men too love their children, and can want to raise them, even if not married to the mother of the child.
    But promoters of child butchery don't care about men's rights, just as they don't care about precious lives. Simply killing unborn babies is the objective, and no excuse is needed.

    Anybody who supports abortion on demand, any time, for any reason, is truly sick.

    Feel free to exert your Powerful Supreme Authority, Mister Storm Trooper.

    It must give you a shiver down your varicose veined leg, as perhaps nothing else will.
     
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