Phi for All

3 hours ago, julius2 said:

How do we go from the first micro-organisms to the variety and diversity of the earth today. All plant species, trees, flowers, grasses etc.   Then life species, fish, whales, reptiles, humans etc. ? Sorry I don't have time to read detailed science textbooks - but a quick enlightenment might help.....

The microorganisms adapted to the environments they found themselves in, and each succeeding generation that survives passes it's genetic traits along to the next. Slight changes create different species after enough time has passed. Organic life tries different designs, and the ones that can survive their environments get to procreate. This is evolution. I'm also very sorry you don't have the time to read about it formally, it's one of the most fascinating areas of science. My "quick enlightenment" doesn't do it justice.

3 hours ago, julius2 said:

In a more "speculative" manner I propose "evolution" not just for this current world (Earth), but in Time. So beings evolved, other fundamental components of a human beings makeup. But this is just speculation and would be in the past. But a fascinating concept IF it is true.

I don't know, I have a hard time with speculation built on ignorance. No offense, but you're trying to guess about something you claim you don't have the time to study. You don't have very many pieces of the puzzle, but you're trying to guess what the big picture is. You seem very smart.

2 hours ago, nec209 said:

I’m not sure what they want may be they just want to go back to the way things where in the 90s and the extreme groups want to go back to the way things where in the 50s.

The problem with "going back to the way things were" is that it's entirely subjective. The 90s was the most prosperous decade of my life, and before 1996 we actually had rules about what constituted "news" used to inform the public, so I could wish we could go back for those things. But the 90s also means the Columbine shooting here in my state, the one that started the media craze over school shootings. The genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Oklahoma City bombing, and the first World Trade Center bombing.

And going back to the 50s?! Not if you're a person of color, or don't like cars breaking down on the regular due to vapor lock, or if you don't want actual ballot box tampering. Most of the folks I hear talking about life being better in the 50s mean it was before civil rights, when white people could do or say anything they pleased.

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

They tried communism and it didn't work. If you have a very rich country, with a big surplus of the basics, I guess a free-to-all would work. Elsewhere, people think it's right to reward work and talent.

I'd have no problem with capitalism if it rewarded work/talent equitably, but in its current form it doesn't. Work/talent combined with resources makes goods and performs tasks, and all involved should profit equitably, but the resource owners look down on work/talent, and overvalue their resources to the point where the resource owners make hundreds of times more than the talented worker.

And I'm not sure you need big surpluses to make some things free-to-all. If we'd been smarter about internet shopping, we could have made the big corporations pay to use our data to target us. And if we'd use public spending the way it should be used, with absolutely no profit motive involved, we could save a LOT on things just about everyone uses.

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

Where I am hard left, is I don't believe in the right to inherit capital. I'd like to see a 100% tax on your estate when you die, with the proceeds going to levelling up opportunity for all. Some people might view that as abusing their human rights. I don't. 

I think the right to equal opportunity trumps the right to inherit. 

Interesting. Generational wealth is a big problem. It might get a bit sticky for someone who just has a home and $30,000 in savings. That person's kids were hoping for a leveling up opportunity of their own. I'll have to think about this. I'm reminded that the modern narrative tells us to kick our kids out of the house at 18 and don't give them anything so it'll make them resilient, yet rich people do the opposite. They fund them fully, make sure they have a great education, and keep them close as they navigate through life. 

My hard left? I'd expand the US Postal Service, get them their own fleet of jets, and turn them into a hub of commerce and shipping, publicly funded. I'd have them set up an enormous website where anyone who wanted to sell anything and have it shipped could do so. IOW, I'd take care of the Amazon problem by competing with them using a socialist format that wasn't driven by profit. Shipping costs would go down, the USPS site wouldn't be trying to compete with its own vendors (like Amazon does), and both large and small businesses would see costs go down. To go along with this, I'd also add internet access in infrastructure bills. I think the US government using socialism to give every citizen access to capitalism is a huge investment in its People.

51 minutes ago, mistermack said:

But I think you are still viewing the word Centrist as the centre between extreme opinions, and ignoring the word "rights" and what that means.

No, it's because I'm NOT ignoring the word "rights" and what it means. I think human rights aren't something you can find middle ground about. We're all due a certain basic amount of respect and access to resources simply because we've agreed to live in a society and participate in its economy. 

And do you really think my position is that extreme? That says a lot.

3 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Well, there are all sorts of weird beliefs in the US, and people have a right to believe them. But seizing power adversely affects the rights of others, so has to be stamped on. In a democracy, nobody has a right to seize power, right or left. 

You can believe what you like, but when it comes to power, it's obvious that that affects the rights of others. That's why you have laws. 

Well sure, but I'm asking why a Centrist solution to human rights has a better chance of being fair? 

14 hours ago, nec209 said:

I'm wondering why there is so much pain and suffering in the world and how do you define it as one person may experience pain and suffering but the other person not even with out people looking at animals there is pain and suffering there.

I think it comes down to selfishness. We've had the ability to take care of every single human on the planet for some time now. War for resources is obsolete. We have enough for everyone, so to deny anyone shelter, food, and water just boils down to selfishness, and feeling that some humans aren't as deserving as others.

1 minute ago, mistermack said:

Well, I was talking about a balance between rights, not a balance between what two different parties think. 

Rights are arbitrary to some extent, but I wasn't suggesting a balance between rights and wrongs, but between conflicting rights. 

Do you think a balance needs to be struck with the neoconservative fascists trying to seize power in the US, so their right to their beliefs is respected?

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

Well, what often happens is that one person's rights impacts adversely on another's. I would interpret the centrist view as trying to find a fair balance between the two. 

So if I think all people deserve to be treated equitably simply because they're humans, and a far-right Christian Nationalist thinks only Christians deserve equitable treatment, how is a centrist view going to find any type of fair balance? I think Centrism is misapplied when it comes to human rights and treating all equitably. If I think it's wrong to beat someone with a baseball bat all day long, and that's all the Christian Nationalist wants to do, the Centrist isn't going to appease me by suggesting we only beat people for twelve hours a day.

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

I don’t know if the democratic party took a more centrist or right view on LGBT and abortion if that will help or if there are some other driving factors at play here.

What's the centrist view on LGBTQA rights? Do they think those folks should have rights some of the time? I know the Democrats have been suggesting that rights belong to everyone all the time, and the right thinks only a few people deserve them, but what's the centrist view?

I hate propositions where people are seeking "truth" or "beauty", or judging which things are"ugly". Such subjective terms! There will NEVER be agreement between peoples. It's not nuanced enough to truly reflect human life.

And what about situations where lying or fighting are actually good things? When a child tells it's first lie, it's actually a developmental milestone. It shows the child is capable of thinking into the future in order to secure more favorable outcomes. Hopefully the child learns where lying is appropriate, but condemning all "lies" equally is a mistake. Obviously we can "fight" for positive things as well.

As for the rest, our minds look for patterns all the time, and I think that's what you're doing here, forcing one thing to look like another. For instance, envy can be a very motivating force, so it's not the opposite of progress. I might work harder to earn more money if I want a car like my neighbor has.

3 hours ago, mar_mar said:

I think that when there were no humans, there were no observation, or I'd say awareness of the world.

This is what's wrong with your idea. Matter exists in lots of forms, and the life we see around us on Earth has evolved ways to sense those forms. Things have certain shapes, things have certain smells, and things have their own colors. The various species have developed various ways to sense the way matter has formed. 

It's not the other way around, where the universe is some blank slate that human consciousness alone imprints with meaning, sensibility, and texture. Organisms sense their environments, this is very basic.

35 minutes ago, mar_mar said:

Something exists because it was observed and realized. And this is ability of a human only. 

Do you think there was nothing existing before humans?

8 hours ago, julius2 said:

Evolution happened earlier in Earth's time.

But there may be a bigger timescale.

Evolution is a process that continues from the first microorganisms through to present day species populations. Saying it "happened earlier in Earth's time" implies that it isn't tied to changes in allele frequency within populations, or that it can stop and start again when it wants to. I don't think you understand evolution, and I think it's pointless to speculate about substances nobody's heard of that affect it. You should study evolution first before declaring it's wrong and that it needs your substance to fix it.

1 hour ago, kenny1999 said:

No any professional cleanser is needed for most sneakers right? I have been thinking about if they are really useful.

I think they are useful for removing excess money from your savings. 

53 minutes ago, kenny1999 said:

Some told me that sneakers shouldn't require any delicate cleaning because it is supposed to get dirty, inside and outside,

I think assuming they're supposed to get dirty on the inside is a mistake. If you want to extend the life of your sneakers AND keep them clean, don't wear the same pair every day. If you swap out between at least two pairs, the shoes can air out in between time, so they don't get so sweaty/dirty. Couple this practice with wiping them down, as swansont suggests, and you're good to go.

1 hour ago, Chris Sawatsky said:

If anyone with a brain and knows basic math were to look at The Holocaust they would instantly notice that gassing and cremating 6 million people in 4-5 years is impossible, even today it takes approximately 40 minutes to cremate one body.

41 minutes ago, swansont said:

This notion seems to underlie some of the bad faith arguments we see in politics: “if you can’t 100% fix a problem then I won’t support it” followed by standing/voting against incremental improvements.

Poverty (for example) will always be with us, but that’s not a valid excuse for doing nothing to improve the situation.

Couple the bad faith arguments with a complete rejection of the best solutions and it's a fascist one-two punch right in the liberals. I don't know of any major publicly-funded programs that haven't been tainted by private interests more focused on profit than on what the program is trying to accomplish. We need to collectively fund some solutions that are aimed at solving problems rather than making wealthier capitalist extremists, but the right clutches their pearls and rejects the attempts as "socialism".

19 hours ago, nec209 said:

Can you point me to cite where a government has done away of homeless population in a city?

Are you saying that, if the government hasn't fixed a problem, it means they've done nothing about it? 

2 hours ago, nec209 said:

When it comes to homeless the government has given up

I have a hard time with these generalizations of yours. I know you're referencing specific areas or populations, but you blame "the government" and claim every bit of it has "given up". It's not accurate, it's not objective, and it's not helping anyone solve real problems.

Housing is only part of the homelessness problem, and the current government understands that. Biden's approach to the mental health crisis that's fueled so much homelessness has a lot of potential to help millions.

Quote

This is the first time since the Carter administration that the federal government has taken such significant leadership in addressing mental health, says Dr. Thomas Insel, a psychiatrist and the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

6 minutes ago, swansont said:

Which all of the republicans voted against (and IIRC, have vowed to repeal)

And this, more than almost anything, shows us how the fascists have taken hold in the Republican party. The need for insulin isn't a partisan issue, yet somehow Republican commandership thinks they represent only diabetics who want to pay more for it than other countries. 

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

I’m talking in terms of social programs and economics is very conservative policies. What Americans don’t understand if the Democratic Party ran in Europe it would be Conservative Party.

But you said the liberals weren't pushing for economic improvement, which clearly isn't true. I agree that US politics is dominated by the right wing, and that our liberals are still right of center for the most part. What you don't understand is that telling a big group of people what they don't understand is almost guaranteed to be wrong. Generalizations usually fail.

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

In the UK and Canada you have a conservative party that supports universal health care and more regulations of businesses and banks than the US.

The Democratic Party is not supporting universal health care at all or even more medicare and medicaid, minimum wage increase at all, regulations of businesses and banks.

Having to fight to maintain the Affordable Care Act against multiple attempts to repeal it and replace it with something wonderful (too wonderful to actually let us know BEFORE they repeal the ACA) has been an uphill struggle against deep Republican pockets. How would you suggest the Democratic Party push universal healthcare when the GOP base fights so much against the first step towards it?

2 hours ago, nec209 said:

When it comes to taxes and regulations of businesses and banks it is very conservative compared to Europe.

The US has homeless and tent cities that are nothing compared to UK and west Europe in size

It's not liberal or conservative, it's what the uber-wealthy spend their money lobbying for. And they can pay to have it spun in the media to suit a liberal or conservative audience. Whatever makes them richer is where they focus, and many extremist capitalists want NO taxes and NO regulation for them whatsoever. Social spending to help the homeless situation is money that could be subsidizing their multinational corporations.

2 hours ago, nec209 said:

None of the parties red or blue are talking about out of control price of homes.

Sure they are, that's more generalizing on your part. 

Unfortunately, messing with the price of anything is a trap for Democrats and Republicans alike. Biden got away with capping the price of insulin, which was fantastic, but imagine him stepping in with a cap on housing prices. And that wouldn't fix the problem, since it seems to also be driven by the attractive AirBnB model. 

1 hour ago, johnsri said:

Hello

How neurological work how to make neurological work

2 hours ago, tmdarkmatter said:

I define it as "the environment"

If "the environment" has only one person in it, it's limited to the knowledge of that one person. Be careful you aren't making assumptions based on a single person's knowledge. That's not how science works.

21 minutes ago, tmdarkmatter said:

But I prefer to be stupid and say: "No, I have no idea." Because that would mean that I still have the opportunity to learn.

The opportunity to learn from who?

21 minutes ago, tmdarkmatter said:

because numbers and facts should convince on their own.

You'd think, but you're showing us this isn't true.

12 hours ago, nec209 said:

The problem is the liberals are not pushing for economic improvements

You should look at news sources other than the ones you're currently using if you think this statement is correct. Or it could be that you're using metrics others aren't using. For instance, our economic growth rate has been positive despite economists predicting the opposite due to inflation.