YaDinghus

If this goes where I think this is going - without watching the video - there should be the factor (x-x) in there, which makes the answer quite trivial...

1 minute ago, dimreepr said:

Well, that post took a dark turn.

I love dark turns ;-)

"Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahme" is a real thing in Germany. People create a problem for someone to solve just to make them do something. It's like an empty reference joke: the reference itself is the joke and doesn't depend on the content. 

10 hours ago, dimreepr said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia

Quote

The word comes from Greek: οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place") and means "no-place", and strictly describes any non-existent society 'described in considerable detail'. However, in standard usage, the word's meaning has narrowed and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society.^[5] Eutopia, derived from Greek εὖ ("good" or "well") and τόπος ("place"), means "good place", and is strictly speaking the correct term to describe a positive utopia

It doesn't help that "Utopia" and "Eutopia" are ponounced exactly the same in English

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

And that's the fundamental issue to overcome; how come they get something I have to work for (it's not fair)? 

Money for nothing

We can only moan about this injustice, while we can vote out justice for those who can't play guitar or get a job.

I do assume I would keep working for money even if I could live on BUI, if I got at least 20% more than BUI for a regular job. I would certainly not be as stressed out at my job because I wouldn't have to fear losing it. Maybe I would just become an artisanal blacksmith and sell cutlery (always wanted to do that) or armor for LARPers. That I would even do just to cover the cost of the materials and a marginal profit. Right now I am stuck earning money doing something utterly useless. And there are plenty of jobs that are just "Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen" (A job for the sake of having a job with no productive or service value, just to not be unemployed in the statistics)

40 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

hmmm.. a comma goes a long way in the above sentence.

F*** commas. Periods are the real deal now

2 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

More to show the problem of loose wording. Very very similar lack of restrictions in our law here.

People seeking to take advantage of the incentive even if they are going against the spirit of it.

No matter how you word it, there will always be someone who will take advantage of the incentives. This only becomes impossible if EVERYONE GETS THE SAME PERIOD. And even more strictly so of nobody gets anything because then there are no secondary effects like increased inflation

24 minutes ago, gwb said:

the basic idea of a utopian society is a 'perfect' society, whereas working toward a better world is perhaps in pursuit of a 'perfect' world but it is more concerned with fixing the problems relating to the present situation. and I think that we should turn our attention to science, primarily the humanities which also includes economics, business management, political science and ever religious studies.

I wonder what political scientists would discover if they were free to experiment with different political systems. I also wonder what religious scientists would discover if they were free to experiment with the issue of human spirituality. I could be wrong about this, but I am not aware of either group experimenting with questions relating to their fields.

returning to the question of utopia, if we are to create a better world, the first big challenge is defining a utopian dream everybody can accept. however we describe a better world, we would be wise to seek advice from multiple sources. the distribution of resources is one factor but so is the distribution of power, the application of justice, the development of children, the state of families, the appreciation of art and entertainment, etcetera, etcetera.

another concern is that whenever we try to create a better world, or we try to improve something in one area, we typically have unexpected consequences in another area. a quick example is the use of fertilizers and pesticides, they worked wonders for helping farmers improved and protect their crops but they had undesirable consequences on the environment.

I also dislike the notion of a utopian society because of the connotations of perfection. simple things can be perfect but complex things are incredibly difficult to be perfect. for example, a line can be perfect or near absolute perfection, but a metropolis of ten million humans will never be perfect though we can work toward making it a better city by tackling problems as they arise.

I'm not sure if your agreeing or disagreeing with me

On 6/8/2015 at 11:53 AM, Sorcerer said:

That was pointed out the theory only describes the universe from a time of 10^-49 seconds onwards (according to what Mordred posted before). But the reasoning that lead to the creation of the idea, inevitably leads to the crossing of spacetime at the origin, where it has no volume and is infinitely dense.

 

This logical consequence was abandoned because we lack the tools to describe it with our current knowledge. But that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't what happened before that. It doen't necessarily mean it is either, however that would be the conclusion from the reasoning which first created the theory.

 

The fact that you need to give a time of 10^-49 seconds, implies that time before it.

I wouldn't get hung up on the fact that it's 10^-49 seconds that defy our current understanding of physics. Also, Big Bang is an historic misnomer

Quote

He coined the term "Big Bang" on BBC radio's Third Programmebroadcast on 28 March 1949. It was popularly reported by George Gamov and his opponents that Hoyle intended to be pejorative

From Wikipedia - Fred Hoyle.

But this term has lead many people to imagine the beginnig of the universe as an explosion from a single point.

But now just imagine that you could appoint an infinitely large amount of numbers to every real number. Every real number here is a single point, on a scale consisting of an infinite amount of points. Our observable universe might have sprung from a single point, but it needn't have been the only point that was there at the "beginning", so even though this point would be special to our observeable universe, it would be utterly insignificant among a lot of insignificant points, and the cosmological principle would continue to hold

17 minutes ago, gwb said:

it seems to me that a better question would be how do we go about creating a better world for everybody. and the answer to that question is to ask science: anthropology, sociology  and psychology. see what they have to say about the problem of creating a better world.

I should think too that the first question they should examine is what constitutes a better world?

I think what you are asking is implicitly at the core of this thread. Utopia is a model of a better world, like a platonian idea of what we imagine to be the perfect world to live in. So it's not entirely useless to imagine how we would design such a Utopia.

You name some important branches of science to look into for knowing what Utopia might look like. I've often torn down economics for not being a real science, mostly because economy students are stereotypically interested in making money, and not for scientific ambition. Economics also get a bad wrap among intellectuals because it is (or more aptly: the people in this branch of science are) predominantly concerned with justifying and refining a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many. But really economics are concerned with resource rationality, and determining how an individual or a small collective can get the most out of a pool of a scarce resource, or a set of scarce resource pools, while contending with a large amount of competitors. Economics also describes how the conditions need to be in order to be favourable to all individuals when they act altruistically. It is not a stabile configuration, which doesn't mean it doesn't work, but that upholding these conditions requires a constant input of work, and that purely and unfettered market forces will tear such a system apart faster than an angry grizzly your neck.

What I just wrote suggests that a Utopia would have to make Altruism so favourable that it is equal to Egotism. I don't believe this is the case. I do believe that Utopia shouldn't be neoliberal dog-eat-dog cut-throat capitalism, but a society where neither (financial) Altruism nor Egotism are punished. If you love money, then you shall have it, if you don't care about it, you should still be able to live a decent life doing exactly what you think is important.

If scarcity is removed, I believe this can be achieved. I wouldn't go so far as to guarantee it, however...

7 minutes ago, Justatruthseeker said:

It has everything to do with GR. It is GR that has been tested to a 99.9% accuracy inside the solar system without the need for that Fairie Dust. yet the second you attempt to apply it to the rest of the universe they suddenly have to add Fairie Dust.

I'm not bashing GR. I think it is an incredibly accurate theory for describing non-ionized matter or .1% of the universe...

The observations that lead us to the assumption that Dark Matter is needed to explain the movement of stellar bodies in the galaxies is already seen with purely newtonian gravity. GR has givren us the (or a) tool to confirm this assumption with the effect of gravitational lensing. GR is (part of) the solution here, not the problem

2 minutes ago, Itoero said:

Then why didn't he just kill all people? Why die he kill nearly all plants and animals in the process? He could come up with something better then the Flood.

2 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

Now God couldn't have that, but he was lazy and didn't want to start creation from scratch so he just told a pious dude (Noah) who was in the prime of his life (ca 400 Years then) to save all the animals on an arc.

I hereby posit the "lazy god theorem". So God really is just a slob like all of us ;-)

3 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

I think you are talking warlocks.

Different name, same charge from THE SPANISH INQUISITION (nobody ever expects them)

2 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

That's interesting. Mine went purple.

But it was Sensei  I was referring to.

Oh I know. I just wanted to start the shattered mirror support group and add the curious information of the subsequent color change. Seems to be more widespread than I had assumed at first

2 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

4 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

the shards turned black...

Witch!!!

Shoulda known this would happen when I signed a contract with that devilishly handsome and persuasive [insert preferred gender denominator here] with my blood

I really tried escaping the World Cup this tine around. It is virtually impossible

9 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

You should get a mirror.

Tried that. First it shattered spontaneously, then the shards turned black...

1 minute ago, Sensei said:

Omnipotence is e.g. ability to create the new Universe..

 

I'm no theologian, though I really like getting into arguments over this kind of topic (obviously). If an omnipotent being didn't  make a better Universe than the one we live in, then either this omnipotent being isn't omnipotent (couldn't) or it isn't all-benevolent (wouldn't). Since omnipotence encounters the often-quoted paradox that @John Cuthber introduced above, and the only solution to this paradox seems so be that there is no omnipotent being, that only leaves all-benevolent, yet incompetent. Purely hypothetical, since this requires the a priori assumption that such a being exists, which we don't accept here

5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I think it's more philosophical, as in, how do I protect myself?

@Superboy wasn't particularly eloquent and precise when he posed his question to the community. I choose to look at it from an engineering point of view (which I did here 

1 hour ago, YaDinghus said:

If you want to make a shield to actively block physical impact, I can imagine a solution that works in an atmosphere. You could train a neural network to recognize attack patterns via cameras on critical points of the object or person you want to protect and shatter incoming threats with a concentrated sonic blast. 

). As for philosophical points of view, I am quite partial to creative non-violent solutions. Agreeing to fight in a different location and just not showing up might seem cowardly, but as we've seen in Game of Thrones (Daenerys takes Casterly Rock without resistance, while the Lannister Army is free to pillage somewhere else), it is a prudent tactic

37 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Can He set Himself a task He can't accomplish?

If He can then that task id impossible for Him.

If not then the job of setting that task is impossible for Him.

 

One way or another, one of those is impossible for Him.

 

How long will it take you to realise that the preachers have misled you?

 

Omnipotence is in general a paradoxical attribute. It just makes no sense. Though it's more like a blind person telling another blind person to follow them. Neither of them actually have a concept of their own blindness, because nobody knows what seeing means in this context. So the leaders themselves are mislead by their own implicit perceptions of patterns that don't mean anything, unless they want them to.

This should propably have gone into "What is Faith"

7 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

It's easy to be wise if one knows one can win, the art/wisdom of fighting without fighting is persuading the stronger that he/she can't win. 

Otherwise, you're just taking the piss before you beat the shit out of them.

Reminds me a lot of a passage from Sun Tsu: If you are weak, make your enemy believe you are strong; If you are strong, make the enemy believe you are weak.

Anyway we're steering off topic. Though I'd also posit that the topic is rather an engineering than a physics problem

2 minutes ago, koti said:

I read it as in reincarnation but this right there ^ clears it up very accurately.

I feel you, bless you brother (to stay on topic) 

Watching Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman recently has opened me up to my inner honest person ;-)

Just now, koti said:

Should that read „early” life or did you intend as it is?  

As in a life I've tried to forget but the attempt of forgetting it has only bestowed upon me a phenomenal tolerance for alcohol and a sarcastic streak

On 7/7/2018 at 11:03 AM, MassMan said:

Some people argue that the killings in the exodus part of the Bible is not just. But there is an explanation of it. The killings are act of punishment by God to those evil people. But there is a deeper explanation of it. God is omniscient. He knows the future of those people which He punish in the exodus. He sees the future of them still evil and no hope of repentance or change for the good on those people, so to avoid further damage by those people and to stop their evil deeds God decided to punish them when it still early. Someone can ask " How about those innocent babies who are killed also?" The answer is God sees that those babies when they grow will also be evildoers because of the influence of the society around them. So while they are innocent, their life ends. We see here the love of God to those babies. He doesn't want those babies to commit sin and experience evil when they grow up. The acts of the killings in exodus are justified. Keys of understanding are considered here- God's omniscient, love, and punishment. Everythings has a purpose.

You're asking for justification from an entity that is beyond reason.

I did some bible studies in an earlier life. The whole foreplay of the deluge is that Humanity, which consisted largely of descendants of Cain, were ravaging the earth and it's natural resources. That wasn't the bad part, though. The people (except for the pure descendants of Seth) were defying god, claiming that they no longer needed him, and strived to become Gods themselves. Now God couldn't have that, but he was lazy and didn't want to start creation from scratch so he just told a pious dude (Noah) who was in the prime of his life (ca 400 Years then) to save all the animals on an arc. The plants had reproductive methods that would allow them to go on after the deluge, but the land animals not so much.

Humans kept defying god, so later he sought more subtle measures to subdue them, like confusing their tongues so they couldn't organize against him anymore. Being God seems to have a learning curve...

If you want to make a shield to actively block physical impact, I can imagine a solution that works in an atmosphere. You could train a neural network to recognize attack patterns via cameras on critical points of the object or person you want to protect and shatter incoming threats with a concentrated sonic blast. 

Ok so a lot of stuff has been said here. A few things I'd like to adress: all but very few white people can actually turn quite dark with ample UV exposure. So for the most part, that's not really a problem for white people migrating to more sunny climes. Also, people with a higher basic pigmentation can actually get plenty of Vitamin D in northern climes, and not just in the summer. Light skin is actually a rather recent adaptation to a lifestyle that involves the mass consumption of Vitamin D lacking cereals. Native Americans near the arctic circle are still quite dark skinned, because cereals never became part of their culture until really recently, same with the native Yakutsk tribes of northern siberia.

Regarding the loss of knowledge, yes this would become a problem over just one human lifetime. But a few bastions of knowledge would remain like the monastic orders of Europe that conserved lots of the wisdom of the Roman Empire, which was rediscovered by in the Renaissance and made available to anyone who had the time and inclination to study them. I would hypothesize that this is where the word Renaissance Man comes from, someone who studied the ancient Roman sciences and made use of them. There are so many people and someone somewhere would still know how to fire up a PC and read their greatgrandparents digital copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I think someone wrote "played too much Fallout"? There certainly are some really weird folks and organizations portrayed in the series, but I don't think it's all too far fetched. An organization that used technology for their own goals and for whatever reason restricted the use of technology by other people after the Fall isn't too far fetched. It would basically give them a strong regional chokehold over whomever is in range of their fully operational rocket launcher base. If they wanted to expand their territory, they would have to install a sort of feudal hierarchy, so they would see societal structures akin to the middle ages.

I wouldn't want civilization to fall. I am wholly dependent on it. Unless I ended up near a pharmaceutical laboratory, assuming I can defend myself from physical harm and not die of hunger, thirst or exposure, without medicine I'd be dead within months anyway

29 minutes ago, beecee said:

True probably, but if one was to jog their collective memories, and get them to realise that most of what they do, is a result of theoretical research. Even if it stirs just one.....

I don't have insight into any of their minds, or their recent transactions, but I find it hard to believe that either of those isn't funding fundamental physics research. Even if it's just a few million here or there