Phi for All

2 hours ago, JohnDBarrow said:

I focus on the human species because there is a cultural aspect of the sexes not possessed by other animals. Female dogs don't wear lipstick. 

You call them "cultural" aspects, but other animals do have them. Is there much difference between lipstick and some of the stuff crabs and birds and insects decorate themselves with? 

I also disagree that gender roles have become "confused". I think they've changed and adapted the way animals are supposed to. Our society needs to move past the horrible Abrahamic patriarchy that continues to stifle so many intellectual and creative pursuits. I think the answer has always been to cooperate more with each other in every role, and compete less amongst ourselves overall. That should go double for how men and women work together. Having both masculine and feminine perspectives to draw from seems like brainy, human behavior.

6 minutes ago, Maartenn100 said:

Think about it: the brain is nothing different than electricity flowing through wires. The brain is an electricity-producing machine. That's what we are. And electricity flowing through wires produces magnetism. And maybe, magnetism = consciousness.

13 hours ago, JohnDBarrow said:

It is my notion that if all humans could have babies, not just half of the species, that would pretty much double our reproductive capacity. Men can fertilize women much faster than women can bear children. Women are only about half the population within the age group of human fertility. In unisex species, reproduction rate and baby-making efficiency are measured in the female, not male, half. 

Think about what our world numbers might be if our species was 90% women!

https://uinterview.com/news/trumps-fundraising-agreement-with-rnc-allows-donations-to-cover-his-legal-bills-despite-concern-hes-using-party-as-a-piggy-bank/

Quote

 

Former President Donald Trump’s new joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee (RNC) allows donations to the party to be funneled to his campaign and PAC to cover his legal expenses.

Under the arrangement, Republican donors will see a portion of their money go toward helping Trump pay off his staggering legal bills before they are used for the national and state parties during the election season.

 

Looks like Republicans all down the line will be cash starved due to TFG's legal bills. The argument that the money will be used to fight "the illegal witch hunts" continues to work. The RNC is now funding TFG first, then the Save America PAC, and finally the RNC and the rest of the Republicans running for office.

When the campaign installed its own people, including daughter-in-law Lara TFG, they fired a lot of folks and invited the rest to reapply, and many didn't. The RNC is supposedly dangerously understaffed going into a presidential election. 

And, of course, if TFG is convicted of any of the many charges against him, he may not even be able to vote for himself.  

57 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

I heard that physicists only have five jokes...

#5 -- Einstein developed a theory about space. It was about time, too!

2 hours ago, Moontanman said:

Sorry about all my oil puns. They were crude. I promise to be more refined.

You slippery types know the drill and rig the system so it pans out well for you. It's a viscous cycle!

5 hours ago, Time Traveler said:

It seems I have disturbed many 'scientists' here. My apologies. I'll quit

It's disturbing that scientists have been accumulating human knowledge for quite some time now, but you refuse to take advantage of that, and prefer filling the gaps in your own knowledge with guesswork and jumped-to conclusions.

1 hour ago, NeptuneSeven said:

It took me more than a decade to cut the word salad down to this!

I'm so sorry for your loss. Just a couple of years of formal, mainstream study and you wouldn't have to make things up to fit the gaps in your knowledge. We can help if you're willing to listen.

Not sure what to do with the "Creator" issue, but I would ask that you leave it out of this discussion if possible. Much like infinities, all-powerful entities tend to remove our ability to measure accurately.

1 hour ago, Luc Turpin said:

So, why molecular-evolutionary biologists are sticking to their "guns"? A statement from one of theirs speaks loudly.

Why do you think this means we aren't good at poking holes in established theories? And if we aren't coming up with fundamentally new principles in molecular biology, can you show evidence that it's because we aren't good at poking holes in established theories? Maybe science is just not good at jumping to conclusions as fast as some would like. 

On 4/7/2024 at 8:46 AM, Luc Turpin said:

"We" is the scientific community as a whole; we are good at poking holes in individual research, but less so when it comes to poking holes in established scientific models. I retain that my last two posts speak loudly to this.

This is completely wrong. Established models are tested EVERY DAY in the course of their use. It's not that we're bad at poking holes in established models, it's that the established models are established because we can't falsify them. No place to poke, which means it's our best current explanation until someone using it finds a flaw.

Your argument is assuming that once a model is "established", we never test it again. That's absurd.

6 minutes ago, Sensei said:

C'mon. They want to use liquid Hydrogen inside of regular cars. I have here buses which run on liquid Hydrogen ATM...

Liquid hydrogen made from coal tars or gasoline? Are they using fuel cells to power the buses? They tried that here under Bush II, with cells that used petroleum for the hydrogen. It was about as efficient as our burning ethanol from corn to fuel our cars. Have they come up with a way to make H fuels not so dirty? Iirc, it used more gasoline than just burning gasoline.

12 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

I don't think Swansont used any capitalist leverage to pry his salary out of the government, but just as there are differences there are similarities.

If that's what he was getting at...he's still right.

It seemed to me that what Sensei "was getting at" is that swansont and Musk both work for the government and are "self-made men". If you want that definition to stand, you're welcome to it. It seems worthless to me as an argument about billionaires, almost as worthless as continuing to nitpick about it. Thanks for the input though.

On 4/7/2024 at 3:49 AM, Sensei said:

I used the well-known Cambridge's dictionary definition of the word, and instead of approval ("acceptance of the statement") I got 4 negative points in this thread, for no reason..

I don't know anything about that. I was responding to the post where you conflated the financial aid Elon Musk got from the government with swansont's government salary. It was wrong when you said it, it's still wrong, and it really has nothing to do with how you define "self-made". It's about the difference between getting paid by an employer and getting financial incentives, tax breaks, and infrastructure help from a government entity.

I don't think you can defend this point, and I was really hoping you could admit you had this part wrong so we can move on to other areas in this discussion. This is NOT semantics, and it's not a translation error. Being hired to work for the government is different from being awarded government contracts, subsidies, and tax incentives. Does that make sense?

1 minute ago, Sensei said:

So your post is actually an accusation of many crimes on both sides, if the government builds someone else's factories with government money, so it's fraud.... Did you come to the FBI with your claim of a crime being committed by the government and a private company?
If they build a factory for $1B and sell it for, say, $2B to a private company, they will make $1B. So the whole construction of the factory was an investment.

Or you were simply wrong to conflate a private salary from the government with subsidies, tax breaks, and other economic incentives Elon Musk got from the government. I'm going to go with that rather than chase this red herring.

19 hours ago, TheVat said:

As for "self-made," my impression is that those who are truly self-made are more likely found in squatter cabins than penthouse suites.

Or in neighborhoods that don't necessarily reflect their income. I read The Millionaire Next Door quite a while back, and the folks they talked about were as close to self made as I can imagine. They lived in modest homes in modest neighborhoods, bought clothes on sale off the rack, drank beer instead of champagne, and basically avoided most of the extravagant behavior many wealthy folks indulge in. But most of the folks in that book were worth between a few million up to thirty or forty million iirc, nowhere near billionaire status.

17 minutes ago, Lucas Bet said:

We should respect each other: even if I am not correct, the long conversation means we are debating proper knowledge,

Not sure what you mean by "proper knowledge", but it's not disrespectful to correct someone's mistakes. It's what scientists do. You can't build anything good if the foundation isn't right.

19 minutes ago, Lucas Bet said:

and I am the one providing the full theoretical framework already, and a book full of explanations.

You talk as if your book is correct, but we've seen that you're mistaken about quite a few things. 

21 minutes ago, Lucas Bet said:

And if we are talking experiments, this means the theory is robust enough to question our current standards in physics.

No. Experiment is one of the backbones of proper methodology. You experiment and test your hypothesis to see if it holds up, long before anybody starts to call it a theory.

23 minutes ago, Lucas Bet said:

Or am I wrong?

Mistakes have been pointed out.

24 minutes ago, Lucas Bet said:

Therefore, if you're really want to help as an experimental physicist I would kindly ask for you to share this work with your references in the field.

Dr Swanson is trying to help. I think your work needs more work before it's shared with anyone, much less swansont's old work buddies. 

12 minutes ago, Lucas Bet said:

Hello, can I recommend you my own book?

 

33 minutes ago, Lucas Bet said:

I have developed a computational theory of the Universe recognizing what you call the "inner dimension", or the Mind, as a nested Turing machine inside the Brain.

On 2/7/2024 at 4:27 PM, Sensei said:

..I am surprised, and actually shocked, to see such a way of arguing from your side.. So, you are not self-made scientist, your wealth is not self-made, since you worked for the government too..

I am surprised, and actually shocked, to see you trying to claim that a government salary is the same as government subsidies. Subsidies for Musk, for example, include favorable loans, incentives, tax breaks, and environmental tax credits. They even built him factories. 

I haven't seen any good arguments about billionaires pulling themselves up solely by their own bootstraps. It's well known that billionaires can only exist if they steal the money legally from everybody else. Does anyone have an example of a billionaire whose employees love them as much as the stockholders do? All I ever hear about is how the people who do the most work get the least pay, and the person who gets paid most does nothing but figure out how to get paid more.

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

Another bogus cite

212 issue 1-2 is from October of 2017, and the article doesn’t match what’s listed.

That's not something I thought the AI would get wrong, and it seems obvious you can't trust it for even basic facts.

1 hour ago, NormaVega said:

As we endeavor to unlock the mysteries of habitability beyond Earth and explore the potential for alternative biochemistries, it is incumbent upon us to approach these inquiries with rigor and caution. The journey toward comprehending the implications of substituting water with ammonia is multifaceted and multifarious, necessitating interdisciplinary collaboration and a nuanced appreciation of the complex interplay between chemical, biological, and environmental factors.

Paraphrasing: "While trying to survive outer space and see if other organisms have different processes, we need to ask these questions carefully. Figuring out if you can switch water with ammonia is complicated, so we need experts in many fields to talk to each other to figure out how it all works."

This looks a LOT like what a language program would do, make something sound good to those who don't know any better. To those who do know better, it reads like you've taken something blindingly obvious (or patently untrue), glued sequins and glitter all over it, and now present it as science.