Phi for All

! Moderator Note You aren't ready for discussion. Whether conscious or not, you're using obfuscating tactics and tap-dancing around the actual point of discussion, which is to learn. Here we choose to tap into the exponential power of communicating the results of mainstream experimentation and observation. Guesswork has its place, but it needs to be forged in the fire of a proper methodology. You are just waving your hands and expecting this idea to fly. Thread closed, don't bring this subject up again because you obviously can't support it within our rules.

! Moderator Note But it's not happening HERE. Your discussion style is evasive and unhelpful when trying to explain your idea. You quote some responses but don't actually respond to them. You "venture guesses" and later use that to assert some other point. You write like this is a blog rather than a discussion, and your presentation style doesn't lend itself well to asking the questions you really need to be asking. You've been told this A LOT. You don't change, and seem to double down on your biggest mistakes. You wave your hands and dance around the gaps in this idea, and it's frustrating to the folks who are taking time to help. You need to address the issues that have been shown, and please do so like we're at a table talking, not like you're at a podium or trying to talk your way out of a speeding ticket.

From the link: Those bastards are insane. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/15/politics/russia-anti-satellite-weapon-test-scn/index.html

We used shoestrings at first because you just couldn't get thin elastic after the craft/fabric stores ran out. I now have mad skills at tying/untying a bow knot behind my head, which should come in handy for future escapes and certain magic tricks.

Which is completely off-topic. If someone wants to know how to fix an LP record player, it's meaningless to point out how CDs work differently. Don't you think it's safe to assume the OP is looking at that "bare" HD platter? I don't think its existence is in question.

My sister-in-law found a good pattern and made up 3 or 4 each for family and friends over the last couple years. She used materials she had on hand (except the elastic, always had to keep re-ordering that), so I have some solid color masks as well as a couple that look like drapery or chair cushion material. If I'm doing more than a few errands, or going to the doctor/dentist, I have some disposable KN95 masks I wear beneath the homemade mask. When we were actively making masks, I stopped at a grocery store I don't normally shop at, and they had a big round container filled with colorful, jumbo anodized aluminum paper clips. I needed some clips that big, but it hit me they might be good for the nose bridge on our masks. They're a bit long, but that lets me curl the ends to fit, and keeps it from sliding down the nose.

I use a coated jumbo paper clip and some needle nose pliers. I curl the ends in a circle so they don't poke or catch, and it slips into a sleeve along the bridge of the nose. You bend it to fit the first time you put it on, and it keeps its shape well until you remove it to wash it. I don't think I've had one break yet, but I have multiple masks.

Asking questions in a science discussion forum is SO much better than making wild guesses to fill the gaps in our knowledge. Asking questions has a far better chance of yielding a trustworthy explanation. We get far too many folks who want to promote a wild guess but only support it with wavy hands and stompy feet. Thanks for the questions, they're so much easier to deal with!

Infamouse has been banned for being unable to follow our rules in their quest to improve science. We welcome improvement when it's well supported by lots more than wavy hands and insistent tones.

bangstrom has been suspended for 3 days for soapboxing, goalpost-moving, and depleting ocean resources with their prodigious use of red herrings.

I think this is a case where I'm imagining the outrageous horrorshow of insensitivity that would push my daughter to the brink of asking the courts to stop me from purposely causing her pain and anguish wrt how she is addressed by insisting on my own preferences multiple times a day, and you're imagining my neighbors getting perp-walked to a squad car just because they forgot to use my daughter's pronouns a few times. I don't think this argument is ever going to be meaningful in its present format.

Well, koti, if I didn't react the way I posted, if I refused to accept my daughter's feelings as valid, if I called her choices "ludicrous" or "ridiculous", if I insisted on using words she's told me are hurtful or uncomfortable or make her miserable, and if I insisted on MY terms for addressing HER to the point where she had to hire a lawyer to make me stop and recognize her wishes as valid, I HOPE THE JUDGE THROWS THE BOOK AT ME, or at least helps me see that this isn't about me. I would be a shitty father NOT supporting something that obviously means so much to my child. It's astonishing to me that you don't see it that way, but my child may be older than yours, so if she tells me something like this seriously, I don't assume it's a phase she's going through, or something she's doing for the PC reasons you see everywhere. I don't assume her choice is ridiculous. It's not like this is the 50s and I want her to hide her bizarre gender choices from society. I care too much to do something to turn her so firmly against me that it goes to court.

Either or, is it? I call False Dilemma, since my stance is neither. And your second option is a strawman. You see why it's so hard to discuss this with you? The way you frame your stance is murky and belligerent, and sets the whole discussion up as confrontational. Can we try something different? Since you make it personal, if my daughter told me she never felt right being called "she" or "her", am I supposed to tell her she can't feel that way because that's how she was born? If she told me she was gay and I accepted that, why wouldn't I use the pronouns she wants me to? Every person who talks about us during a day uses gender pronouns several times in each conversation. If they don't feel right to you for any reason, that's got to be quite a burden. Every conversation you hear words ABOUT YOU that you don't feel right, that point out to you that you don't fit what people call "normal". If I look through another person's eyes, I can see how different their world is from mine. I'm glad it's that way, since if everyone was like me, the rest of you would be superfluous.

! Moderator Note Topics merged. The question "can you learn it in a week?" is now the opening post.

Well thanks for this. I let you know that a particular tactic was objectionable, you saw the merit in that objection, and you've agreed to make changes that will make our interactions more meaningful and help us both learn. I appreciate that, and it's the same spirit I try to have when I hear about what others find objectionable. Over the years, what I've found is that my perspective often overlaps with iNow, and where it doesn't he's usually got good points to make. They're usually so good that he defends them meticulously, and more than once we've scraped a topic down to the bone to get definitions and stances we can both accept. Trying to also deal with fallacious reasoning and misinterpretations from others, triple-refuting many arguments, and having to reiterate your main points ad infinitum often makes one look opinionated and intractable. I try to focus on the argument itself, and forget who is making it. None of this is personal, it should all be about the ideas, the science, the observations. Nothing should focus on attacking the person who's talking, only on the things they say and the way they're presented.

The whole thread I've felt like those supporting JP's claims are just trying to make up the most outlandish examples they can to support their view that the folks who're serious about this are delusional, with the caveat that they aren't suggesting people who actually deserve respect are delusional. Your posts in particular, koti, seem to reek of rolleyes and a lack of empathy for those interested in a serious dialogue. I was hoping to spin some of these more interesting topics off into their own threads since this one has become so toxic and boring. Right now, for some, the respect these people are asking for seems extravagant and ridiculous, beyond the basic courtesy we usually give to others. For some reason, this really pisses some folks off, but I think, like other efforts to be inclusive of more people, it will just take some time to show that what they're asking isn't that big a deal.

In koti's words, I think this is a primitive, dirty strategy where you keep bringing up refuted points. Here's what you and iNow said when he corrected you on this the first time: But now you're going back and claiming inference... AGAIN! Please stop.

! Moderator Note If you have any scientific support for your arguments, you should place it somewhere in the opening post, so members can assess whether discussing your topic is meaningful or not. Grandiose claims with no substance or support aren't interesting, nor are smug semantic tricks. To stay in Speculations, you still need to discuss actual science, because hey, Science Discussion Forums, right? You know the drill, please use more rigor when making assertions.

! Moderator Note You have a thread in Speculations for your pet idea. Please restrict your posts to that thread. Hijacking is against the rules.

! Moderator Note You need to present your case here. We have no way of knowing if you're simply trying to drive traffic to your YT channel, which is against the rules here. You need to support your assertions with mainstream science. Gut feelings aside, this is science discussion, so you need MORE RIGOR if you're going to persuade anyone here you might be onto something. We're rooting for you because it would be exciting if you're right, but you need to tick all the boxes and support your idea with evidence.

Personally, I think we should ignore the red herring. This is not about some cultural shift in sensibilities, or even about misapplied condemnation. This is about money and power influencing the optics of social media and news cycles. If I'm an A-list celebrity who makes $40M a picture, I have people who make sure my image is just the way I want it. If I do something insensitive or stupid, professional spin is at my fingertips. And if it was bad enough that folks want to boycott my movie, my publicist cries "cancel culture" and now I'm the victim instead of the asshat. This is one way wealthy folks/corporations cheat the system and stay in power. If I'm Chik-fil-A and I have hard, disapproving policies regarding gay folks or any religion but Christian, it benefits me greatly to shuffle off any guilt in the matter by claiming liberal bias and cancel culture is ruining my business. I can make a conscious decision to make myself the victim, in which case I lose the gay and non-Christian business (mostly), but all the folks who think the gays and non-Christians are ganging up on me are going to go out of their way to buy my chicken.

I think this stance is practically designed for confirmation bias. If you don't like the boycott, you can claim they're not serious, and are only jumping on the bandwagon. If I boycott your company, you can claim I'm uninformed. And if you don't agree with my reasons, you aren't going to accept them as evidence for boycotting.

I'm reading LOTS these days about extremists with access to technology that lets them take their marginal, radical views and multiply them to make them seem legion. But corporate spin has been much better funded for a much longer time. If anyone is weaponizing a social movement, it's between wacko loners with big gripes and internet anonymity, and large corporate machines cranking out propaganda and smear and sympathy for profit. It sure works out well for those folks if we feel too guilty to cancel them for reasons of our own.

Oooh, this should probably be its own thread. I'd like to know what the fuss is about. It makes no sense to me. Choosing something over something else is the basic definition of market consumption. The more choices we're offered, the more we're forced to choose. If something about that choice later makes us reconsider, we're free to choose something else. I really believe those companies/celebrities whose products or services have become objectionable are the ones calling it "cancel culture", and playing the victim card. To me, it's just part of how I choose between so MANY offerings. I've stopped doing business with companies that moved their HQ to foreign countries to avoid paying US taxes. I've stopped doing business with companies because I and others have been treated poorly by their representatives. I've stopped choosing old movies with Walter Brennan in them since I found out he was a horrible racist, same with Mel Gibson once he stopped trying to hide it. I buy shoes that aren't made by children for slave wages, because I used to, and I found out what was happening, and I cancelled my orders. Damn skippy I did. I don't see how this is some new kind of "culture", other than the fact that we now have more choices and options than humans ever had before, and more online groups that share their experiences. I've been doing this my whole life. I watched my father cut up his Monkey Wards card and mail it back to them after they tried to charge buyer's insurance without his signature. He wasn't the only one, and it wasn't long before that particular tactic was deemed illegal, and laws actually changed.

! Moderator Note We would prefer it if you'd focus on answering the science, and leave the trumping out of it. This might account for your past discussion forum failures, so let's approach this differently this time, shall we? If you're banned, it will be because you broke the rules, not because you challenged mainstream concepts.