Peterkin

Curbing interest rates might help, as well. Fundamentally, Capitalism runs on debt: having to pay your investors back with interest is an incentive to grow (whether growth is needed or not, beneficial or harmful), which tends to generate more debt, etc. But it can be kept functioning for quite a long time with commensurate taxation and very strict regulation. Those are the somethings that need to be done in the very near future. Whether they can be done is a different matter:the opposition is powerful and growing.

Yes, but they rarely come armed with carefully selected counter-data. In this instance, the question was: It follows a scatter-shot refutation of some of "these claims". Anyone want to address this part?: I shudder even to contemplate it. I realize that's a reflexive, emotional reaction rather than a scientific one - it's just that I'm partial to whales.

That ^^ certainly poses a threat to all of us. Of course, many of the migrants will die along the way and not be recorded as victims of heat. In fact, record-keeping will become impossible as fatalities mount up from the cumulative effects - including energy system breakdowns as the demand for cooling grows in industrial nations. Of course, an even bigger question is: What will all those people drink and eat? But, never mind, they might not even be able to breathe. The fact of an occurrence being not unusual doesn't preclude its size, intensity and frequency being unusual. Maybe not Siberia. But that certainly poses a threat to all of us. Of course, many of the migrants will die along the way and not be recorded as victims of heat. In fact, record-keeping will become impossible as fatalities mount up from the cumulative effects - including energy system breakdowns as the demand for cooling grows in industrial nations. Of course, an even bigger question is: What will all those people drink and eat? But, never mind, they might not even be able to breathe. The fact of an occurrence being not unusual doesn't preclude its size, intensity and frequency being unusual. Sorry about repeating myself there; can't seem to edit out the mistake.

You can't see the difference in glaciers? Or the polar ice? Why would NASA fake this data? Why Russia for fires, cyclones in Australia, and hurricanes in the US? Why not fires in Spain, droughts in India, floods in France? ... Better still, why not compare overall predictability of weather, or change in patterns in any one place over time, or a combination of extreme summer and winter weather on one continent? Or insurance statistics in one country? There are so many factors in climate change, so many kinds of manifestation and so many sources of information, it's hard to get a clear overall picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm1p9mE9RBw

He understood far more than the concept: he understood the importance of faith as a unifying force - which Jesus apparently had not, but Paul did and Constantine used. Of course, that was before Christian sects broke away in all directions and started fighting one another. The language of prophets is not an issue, since they speak to different peoples, under different historical conditions. I think we've pretty much exhausted any commonality between religion and physics.

I didn't say both were correct. I said the analogy of Newton-Einstein and Jesus-Muhammad was good: in both cases, the person who lived later had the other's ideas to draw on. However, With science, we can test hypotheses and measure the degree of accuracy of any prediction. With prophets, we have no way of measuring or testing the "correctness" of their pronouncements and denouncments. We have no standard of comparison for any two prophets' degree of accuracy; we don't even know how to interpret the meaning of their prophecies.

Yes, I knew that. So was the ice-water bath to cure hysteria, but that didn't work and had to be replaced by lobotomy and elctro-shock therapy, which didn't always work either. Does being invented by professors automatically make something scientific? Have the results of the two products (as distinct from authors' credentials) been compared in scientific studies? I mean the kind where you make a prediction based on a theory, then set up an experiment to test it. Is there any measure of the accuracy of either method from outside the psychometrics community? Does 'scientific' = 'accurate'? For that matter, where do psychology and psychometrics rank on the rigour scale of sciences? Is there literature on this? I don't know the answers - I'm skeptical about the validity of all personality classification and testing.

You also have to compare the cost in energy of solar equipment to the cost in energy of equipment for whatever system it's replacing. And then figure in the lifetime of the equipment in both cases. Solar panels and batteries are improving all the time: I understand they're lasting 25 years now - during which time, nothing needs to be replaced by men in cherry-pickers. (And you'll have no power outages, or poles or live wires falling on your car during the big storms coming at us more frequently each year. )

You can't make a potential romantic interest or friend take a personality test. In social and intimate relations, we all fly by the seat of our pants most of the time. One exception: I got to know my SO through old-fashioned mail correspondence. Something to be said for pen and paper vs email: handwriting and unspellchecked style tell you much about a personality. A personnel manager can simply ask: "How well do you work on a team?" "Can you function effectively in a noisy room with other people?" "Would you be happier with a male or female supervisor?" and like that, depending on the conditions of that particular work-place. An interview can focus on the specifics of the desired "fit", where an anonymous test can only classify in broad terms. For instance, someone who rates high on Neuroticism may be perfect for the position of archivist if they're anxious, shy and depression-prone - not if they're suspicious, hostile and angry. These categories are not tailored suits; they're kaftans. PS If I were to choose one, I'd also prefer M-B over B5, even though it was panned as unscientific, while B5 gained credibility because it was made by academic professionals. There are many, many other personality tests that don't get as much respect at the monet.... but just wait till Walmart starts marketing their own version and watch it become the industry standard overnight. If you've ever worked for, as or with executives, you'll know how quick they are to clamber onto any bandwagon labelled Better Management. My objection is not so much to the test itself, which seems harmless, but to the reliance being placed on it, rather than exercising judgment. Sure, everybody limps sometimes - and they should sit out that race. And personnel managers who can't assess potential employees by listening, probably should have some other assignment. It would be interesting to see how many employees who had been hired on the basis of such a test are still happy in their placement five years later.

Actually, that's not a bad analogy. In a linear history, events and ideas draw from and add to preceding events and ideas. Einstein had the writings of Newton and many other earlier scientists to learn from and build on. Jesus had some education in scripture - whatever was written about and by the prophets of Israel before him - and drew from that tradition, then added his own advice to his people in his own time. Muhammad followed about 600 years later, bringing the example of Jesus, plus the Roman and Egyptian versions of Christianity as they developed after Jesus, and adding his own advice for his own people. Caveat: Whether a prophet is "correct" is considerably harder to test and judge than whether a scientist is correct.

He didn't need to; it wasn't part of his ministry: he was just doing the host of the wedding feast a favour. (It was the popes who later turned wine into his blood, because he had one time used that as symbol of commitment to his disciples.) Jesus had nothing to to do with Muhammad: he was not even in the same society that Muhammad later wanted to reform. Jesus was looking a whole different set of problems, from a different point of view, in a different nation, in a different time.

No, Muhammad himself had very few problems. Though an orphan, he had a good upbringing and varied work experience - including camel driver and a stretch with a Bedouin tribe, which gave him insight into how Arabs were living, thinking and feeling. He was a successful businessman and married a rich (?widow) much older than himself - because she trusted him to run her considerable enterprise. In his travels and dealings, he learned about the Hebrew and christian belief systems, and realized that religion can be a powerful uniting force. It's exactly what his own people needed. If he forbade alcohol, it was to save them from a potentially serious threat. Not just alcohol - all intoxicants.

The five are so vague and general, they're more like descriptions of a behaviour pattern than individual traits. For example, Extraversion means that someone prefers to be with other people, is talkative, assertive, energetic, seeks activity and bustle. It doesn't tell you why they chose those responses. So, this can be someone who's afraid to be alone, or someone who wants to rule the world, or just a bluff, hearty fellow who likes a good time. Or, as in my case, someone who lied on the test. Neuroticism includes even more behaviours and attitudes that can stem even more varied sources and do not necessarily occur together, but will be rated as if they all meant the same thing in terms of one's job performance - all of which applicants would probably conceal.

No, it doesn't. Your own personality determines how you communicate - including whether you can adapt your communication style to different personalities. The fact that a lot of executives buy into something doesn't prove that something is useful; it just means that executives tend to latch onto the latest fad, buzz-word and "cutting-edge tool" in order to avoid making actual independent decisions and make fewer attributable mistakes. Of course it is. It's also quite common to to believe that the sun goes around the earth and the Corona virus vaccine contains nannomikes. No, that's not a fair comparison. Executives are not wingnuts; they're just conformist and credulous. They'll buy whatever they can be convinced will improve their effectiveness. Since the psychologists are committed to this fad, the executives take that as proof that it works: after all, it's Scientific. .... is it?

That, I do understand. I wonder, though: isn't that snake eating its own tail? Does a psychologist really learn anything new about how people think and feel by shoving them into boxes of his own construction? I'm not convinced that it's either wise or informative to reduce the most complex computing system in the universe to plane geometry. I didn't miss it; I echoed it and elaborated on it: It's the purpose of the test I'm curious about. At work, you see their work habits and you set their tasks. That's what you communicate about. The rest of their psyche is - or should be - off limits to the employer. If you're a a co-worker, you already which of your peer can't be approached before lunch; which chew their fingernails, which spill the sugar and don't wipe it up; which contribute to the retirement present. As a supervisor, you already know whether they're conscientious or haphazard, careful or reckless, fast or slow learners. If you want to communicate better, try talking differently - it's not going to be solved by sitting them down with a form to fill out. Besides, you can't change your own personality or communication style to suit every category of worker. I don't think so. I think they categorize for many reasons, one of which is organizing the data we have about the world for convenience of comparison and and fact-checking of fresh data. Categorizing people by type (or gender, or race or income) doesn't help understand the world; it only puts them "in their place" in some particular hierarchy of value. That's why I'm especially leery of the use of such tests by personnel officers. I think i'd hire just the candidates who refuse to take the test. None of those jobs are assigned on the basis of a personality test. The process is either far more rigorous (astronaut, spy) or far less (ambassador).

Of course you can. They're all closely related. Judaism is a construct, that took many generations of nomadic pastoral life to construct from the ancient Middle Eastern mythologies, and then another 1500-1800 years to develop as a national belief system. Christianity was born of Judaism under the Roman occupation, and was later elaborated into its european form by Roman empire. Muhammad, as a young man, knew both Judaism and Christianity. His ideal was for "the people of the book" to respect one another, and their slightly different relationships to the same Creator. How you pray in public is cultural: a set of rituals were laid down and became traditional. How you pray in private is personal: it's entirely a matter between you and your deity. BTW, if you want the stories behind Judaism and christianity, here is a pretty good bible https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-Chapter-1/

Why do you need a test to realize that everyone isn't the same? You identify dominant behaviours in the people you witness acting in a particular environment. Those same people may differently - that is, exhibit more of a different set of their traits - in another environment. They may not always have behaved the same way before some transformative experience or pivotal event or the influence of a cult. Had this person been brought up in India, where some of his traits were disapproved of, he would have learned to suppress those traits and develop the ones that are rewarded. People to a different part of the world have to learn this in adulthood and are less successful, just as they are with a new language, but children do it automatically, without even knowing it. Then there is deliberate presentation of self in various situations: in the classroom, or doctor's office, or football pitch, people put on an appropriate personality, some of which is not entirely genuine. That goes triple for taking a personality test administered by a potential employer. They're not exactly hard to fake! Those categorizations have little in common. How many categories of and distinct characteristics do soft-drinks have? But it's easy to find similarities among all canines or all bovines and differences between canines and bovines. However, humans are a single species with going on 8 billion variants. Why do you need to classify them at all? For determining people's peronality traits even in a rather rough and not comprehensive manner. I got that part. But - What is the purpose of determining their personality type? If you need to know what somebody's like, why can't you just have a conversation with them? Body language, tone, facial expression, eye movement, word choice and inflection are infinitely more difficult to fake than a multiple choice standard form. In what language? How well does it translate? Yes, I can see its usefulness to the psychology industry and the personnel files of corporate offices. I just can't see its usefulness to people.

I question the value - and perhaps even the validity - of classifying "personality" in the first place. What, exactly is a personality type? Every intelligent entity has a personality made up of innate and learned traits, early childhood stimuli, experience, memory, associations, education, environmental and physical influences. I don't believe any adult character can be reduced to five or six vaguely defined factors. In comparison to what degree of calm is a person neurotic? Is the same behaviour agreeable in Manhattan and Sensai? In what culture is extraversion admired and in which is it seen as pushy? What I'm really asking is : What is this test for?

In tomatoes, those words refer to the growth habit of the plant itself. Determinate means it grows like a bush, up to a certain height - usually around 3' - and then stops growing upward and just makes more branches sideways. Indeterminate means it's essentially a vine: it just keeps growing at the end of its central stalk and can reach 20' or more. Only, unlike other vines, tomatoes can't clutch on to supports, so they need to be tied to uprights. They can be trained, within certain limits, to grow horizontally on a support, so that you can trellis them like grapes. Tomatoes are further categorized by leaf shape, and as heirloom/heritage or hybrid by whether they can breed true. If you get an heirloom tomato variety and save a ripe fruit, you can use the seed from it to grow the same kind of plant. The time of fruiting is when the plant reaches maturity and the weather conditions are right (generally: warm days and cool nights. The packet of seed usually say how many days to maturity (40-60) The actual taxonomy stops at species: Solanum lycopersicum L. – garden tomato, but there are thousands of cultivars or varieties within the species.

Not lobbying. (In any case, I suspect most corporate and special interest lobbying isn't aimed at persuading legislators to enact something new, but to ensure that they stay the course, refrain form giving into voter pressure, remember who buttered their toast and could snatch it away.) The powers behind the levers don't need to exercise their elbows by now; they can just blow the inaudible whistle. Corporate money may not be evident in this particular instance, but I can certainly see the hand-prints of Big Religion - which does a great deal of business and wields some very Big Money, as well as political clout, and has been intimate with Big Business for quite some time. Between them, they control most of the communications media in all the red states. Those voter groups didn't appear spontaneously; they were assembled, propagandized, and mobilized over many decades.

'kay - if you think they'll do some good.... I just hate the idea of hiring advocates to go after my legislative representatives and chivvy them to do the job they swore to do.

Don't mistake loss of illusion for nonchalance. And i ask again: How effective are these citizen lobbies, petitioning for a change that ever poll clearly demonstrates is the majority's desire, against the heavily funded professional lobbies of huge financial interests?

My earlier post was drafted in anger and fear. I have come to realize overnight that the advance of a new Dark Age won't affect me, so why care? Besides, it might all collapse under climate change, a super-pandemic or a nuclear war and ... well. I had been reluctant to elaborate off topic, given that the political mechanism, let alone the will or the power, is not currently in place to implement any of it. Oh, and i forgot to mention the #***!in:: electoral college. Burn that! One small quibble: They shouldn't need to! It should be sufficient to apprise their representatives in the legislative bodies of their needs, problems and demands - at no extra cost to themselves. If the government were doing its job, there would already be gun control laws: It's not exactly a secret that children have been killed or that most voters want assault rifles off their streets. How effective is their lobby against the NRA's? If the government were doing its job, there would be no heavily polluted waters poisoning the environment and its residents. How effective is their lobby against the weapons manufacturers'?

That's what the original constitution was - until the founders put aside their lofty principles in favour of unity and compromised with slavery. They had already put aside any scruples regarding the treatment of Native Americans, indentured servants, transported captives from debtors' prisons and imported women and children from sundry pits of poverty on the parent continent. Lofty idealized words, in fact, is what every constitution and bill of rights is. And they stay on the page, impotent ink, unless legislature is enacted to enforce them - with big, sharp teeth, not a "Tsk-tsk! Throw another useful idiot over the battlements and we'll call it even." How might one do this? With some intelligent (hence complicated) and bold (hence, impossible) legislation. Who ever thought it was a good idea to make jurists cater to the public whim in order to adjudicate the law? That uncoupling is the relatively simple phase. Just follow the British example; where judges are nominated by their peers and selected by a committee of senior jurists. Lots of competition among barristers, but no demeaning political campaigns, fund-raising and favour-currying with politicians or factions or interest blocs. It's a much less disruptive process, as well; allows the legal apparatus to present an unruffled authority to the public and thus retain its confidence in the system. That's a quite important consideration. The second phase is far more contentious: uncoupling representation of the polity from monetary obligations. It could be done with a series of reforms that those presently holding office are absolutely unwilling to undertake (just as, whoever was elected by the first-past-the-post format is unwilling to pass measures for proportional representation). Reduce the duration of election campaigning periods to a specific period before voting day. Prohibit all private funding and apportion the same basic travel and staffing allowance to each candidate for a particular office. Prohibit private advertising. Hold debates in public venues and on public broadcast media (which, BTW, require complete independence and robust funding). Let the privately owned news media print and broadcast events and candidate information, time and place of meetings or speeches, the accurate transcript of actual speeches - no editorials, commentary, selective quotes or other forms of political slant. Abolish all political lobbying.