Phi for All

Oh, believe me, I questioned evolutionary theory for quite a while. I did NOT find it very intuitive. I highly recommend Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker as a good source for understanding natural selection, because studying BEFORE you start questioning works better. You know more, you understand more, so when something isn't right it will nag at you, and when something IS right it makes perfect sense. You should try it.

This part intrigues me also. History shows us that virtually all fascist regimes end up taking guns away from the general public. It's fascinating to think about your average MAGAt proudly handing over his guns to comply with TFG's wishes. Then again, the southern ones have been listening to one of the biggest Yankee carpetbaggers in history, a rich dude from New York City. They might forgive him for shooting someone down on 5th Avenue, but I don't think they'll forgive him for taking away their right to shoot someone down on 5th Avenue. That's where the line might be.

It's clear you're using some kind of LLM, and I think swansont was referring to the fact that the LLMs often make shit up just to look good. We don't trust the list of references you're basing your ideas on. If swansont can't find the papers with his access as a former USNO physicist, do they exist at all? Great. Can you link me to their research or not? If not, then you don't get to make this claim.

It's difficult to find information about distilled water that isn't focused on past shortages, but it's always made me wonder why my local Kroger affiliate has quite a bit of shelf space devoted to distilled water. It's heavy, cheap, takes up a lot of shelf space, and can't be nearly as profitable as almost anything else in the store. Lots of folks need it for medical devices and such, but I don't think it's enough of a draw on its own. I suspect my store and others are being paid subsidies to stock such items, in which case the taxpayers are all paying to decrease the risk to these retailers. No evidence, but if anyone can find some, I'd love to hear it.

Humans wrote everything you think you know about your god. That rather points to them creating its image and likeness. Not sure what you mean by "by default". Our memories are stored all over in interconnected regions of the brain. And memories are classified, too. Explicit memories are about experiences and general facts, where implicit memories include emotions and what your muscles know through training. Working memories are relatively new to mammals, located in the prefrontal cortex, and hold our short term thoughts as well as our verbal and spatial working memories through the functional separation between the left and right sides. You may take these abilities for granted, but many folks take them seriously enough to actually study them. People did create gods, unless you think they ALL exist. And it seems to me that it's people like YOU who play god, thinking they know the mind of this supposed creator, and pretending that this worship is any different than thinking metal is smart.

Except evolution has no shaped outcome. It has no design, no motivation, no desires, and no intentions. It's just a mechanism that throws every kind of shit imaginable against the wall to see if it sticks (sticks meaning giving an advantage that leads to passing that advantage along to the next generation). That's all. That's it. But that plus all the time in the world leads to the biological diversity we see on this planet alone. It's pretty awesome to me too, but I sure don't need to give evolution some kind of mystic agency to view it this way. Perhaps I just use my imagination in differently. The mechanism inspires me where the agency sounds like wishful thinking.

I have friends participating in the NO KINGS protests where my mobility issues stop me from going, but I have a good speaking voice and an app called 5 Calls, where I make five calls a day to my Reps and Senators urging them to vote down this nonsense. For instance, did you know that TFG's Mean Ugly Bill eliminates the tax one has to pay for a silencer for your handgun?! I didn't even know they were legal! It also defunds the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which enforces federal financial laws and oversees financial institutions to make sure they aren't ripping people off. So much for law and order, right?

Urine is mostly sterile when it comes out of us, unless there is blood present. Storing it in plastic over time is just going to allow the small amounts of ammonium ions in our pee to create ammonia gas. Unless your long illness involved a urinary tract infection, and as long as there's no blood present in the urine, you should be able to simply flush your supply. Ammonia isn't a pleasant smell (at least to me), but it's not going to concentrate enough to affect you if you're just pouring the bottles into the toilet. Open the windows and wear a mask if you're still worried. Even better, certain plants enjoy some extra ammonium and nitrogen as part of their growth cycles, so you could water them using your bottles. I'm not a gardener, so maybe it would be better to mix the urine with dirt instead of pouring it directly on them. Don't do this with grasses though. I'm pretty sure it's the ammonium in a dog's urine that causes bald spots on a lawn.

It seems like any other fascist push to redefine bias and truth in media in a way that flatters them more, but TFG's narcissism keeps pulling the spotlight away from any actual agenda they may be working under. Still, if this administration puts any more Project 2025 plans into effect, our government infrastructure may not survive. The Heritage Foundation will have brought the USA to its knees better than any foreign adversary.

Not sure about PBS, but I remember reading that only about 1% of NPR's funding comes from the US government.

The big difference between you and them is you have actual reasons for your disgust. Most of the MAGA crowd I've bothered to listen to have the most ambiguous complaints about all the issues. They either call Communist/Socialist (neither of which they can define accurately), or Dumbocrat/Liberal (again defined however they wish to), or they repeat some nonsense they've heard but didn't bother to check, like immigrants eating dogs and cats. They've been so thoroughly misinformed by the social apps and their news sources that they can't be reasoned with unless you isolate them and make it personal. Some of the maggats are starting to hear about how their parents could lose their benefits, and they're realizing they're holding the gun that's shooting themselves in the foot. TFG just cancelled printing checks for beneficiaries, and now requires computer access for everyone. From what I understand there are hundreds of thousands of people eligible for benefits who don't have access to the tech required, and I have to believe some of those folks support TFG.

I remember looking into emulsifiers and being told they were biologically inert, but it never made sense to me since so much of our body's system relies on gravity for one reason or another. Keeping particles suspended when they normally would sink can't be good for the system. All so we don't have to shake the bottle, and so the product always looks better on the shelves.

I sure do hate when members feed these topics through LLMs. It seems a LOT like a programmed Gish Gallop. Ask a simple question and get a page of assertive and bold guesswork in response. Then we're supposed to read all this just to find the mistakes a computer program made. I miss being able to discuss these subjects with real people who have real knowledge, not a bot that's guessing half the time!

Your understanding is correct, but your idea is trying to include ridiculous parameters. A ToE isn't meant to explain EVERYTHING, that's a misunderstanding due most likely to popular science articles. When it comes to GR and QM, living organisms don't need to be considered. Physics happens without life all the time.

To save you some time, that's an early flux capacitor. It couldn't handle the 1.21 gigawatts needed, and DeLoreans hadn't been invented yet.

I got that right away. Ignorant lying felon who got his followers to storm the US Capitol trying desperately to redefine what "bad criminal" really means.

Sure, for now. If the system is successful though, how long before the other Big Applers demand lower prices? But you're right, the purpose is not to replace all the private stores. Still, these stores would compete with local businesses just because folks in these deserts still buy food, they just have to travel to get it, and often end up in the big retailer's stores. I like the proposal that cities stop subsidizing private grocers who are overcharging despite having their risks reduced. I was amazed to find out that most big private retailers, including Amazon and Kroger, get federal, state, and local subsidies to offset <insert trumped up reason>. Taxpayer funded city stores would be able to stock items people need but aren't very profitable to a private retailer. And in general, it seems more efficient to have the government use taxes in a way that helps taxpayers rather than retailers. There are also models for part private ownership/part city-run groceries, to help current bodega owners, who don't get subsidies, to compete, which seems similar to the arrangement Germany has for state gas/rest stops on the Autobahn. I find the concept inspiring, especially when compared to the taxpayers giving funds to big companies that overcharge them. Groceries are such a staple of life, it would be a real boon to the masses, who suffer when access to food is controlled only by private companies.

So Zohran Mamdani could be the next mayor of the Big Apple, and one of his proposals is to stop subsidizing private grocers and use the money for grocery stores run by the city. It would eliminate the need for increasing profits, and provide an actual benefit to the taxpayers funding it. Currently, those taxpayers subsidize private grocers, taking on some of the liability for the businesses without gaining anything for it (indeed, prices are even higher now). City stores could provide cheaper groceries, which benefits anyone who eats. I know TFG is calling him a Communist, which is horribly wrong, and even Zohran calls himself a Democratic Socialist, but this isn't even really Socialism. It's a socially aware business model injected into a mainly Capitalist society. Even the progressive outlets I've looked at seem doubtful or even outright against the concept, but I think it's a great step in the right direction to curb this unsustainable greed that Capitalism has led us to. There are many ways a system like this could go wrong, but if it's handled correctly, it's success could mean a big win for working and middle class families. What do you think of the concept?

Moderator NoteThat's unacceptable. Find it and quote it per the request. If you want people to understand your topic, please go the extra mile and help us out.

So you're ignoring Augustine? I'll assume he's right and move on to something else. Thanks.

Are you thinking like an explosion needs a starting point? I must admit, the idea that it's spacetime that's expanding, that the space between galaxies is getting bigger rather than the universe as a whole is expanding doesn't seem to match our everyday experiences. It's not what you'd expect, but we aren't talking about a balloon that expanded when we blew it up. The universe is all there is, it's not expanding into anything, so there is no center. There really isn't even an interior where you could measure. It's everything.

This seems to say, "The way we imagine god, humans look the most like him, even though we're not even close. That means it's our destiny to be just like him." Except Descartes mentioned thinking as part of his statement. Isn't your faith sort of the opposite of thinking?

Moderator NoteDo NOT quote another member and then change what they wrote in any way!

We've noticed that. You don't really make the effort to learn anything, is all I'm saying.

Moderator NoteYou won't get much traction asking people to open even a PDF here at SFN. We ask that you spoon feed us your idea, starting with an overview of this ToE. If it starts well, the members will keep asking questions so you can flesh it out for us. If you could start with the math, it would help others understand what you're doing. Thanks for understanding.