Phi for All

I saw a video on how the big pig farms do things these days. It was pretty sickening but I have to admit I was anthropomorphizing a lot. There is no getting around the fact that these animals are being raised to be slaughtered. They have a floor grid so the fecal matter is removed almost immediately. The place was so pristinely clean that visitors had to be decontaminated before entering to avoid bringing in anything which might infect the pigs (they are highly susceptible to contamination due to being raised in this pristine environment). Most people react pretty badly when exposed to any kind of slaughterhouse conditions. There are no magic wands to wave that instantly and painlessly kill the animal and package it for your table. The pig farmers really have to go out of their way to keep the animals calm. The last thing they need is to have pain and suffering spread through a herd and cause any mishaps. They are making money and they lose money when things don't go smoothly. Ultimately you have to decide whether you like meat more than you hate slaughterhouses.

Let me be clear on this. There are subtleties involved in scientific debate that must be observed, especially on this forum. If I call you crazy it's an ad hom but if I call your ideas crazy and can back the statement up with evidence then I have a legitimate argument. If anyone started a thread solely devoted to ad homs or ridicule of another member it would be deleted and the poster would be given infraction points toward a temporary ban (which was EXACTLY what I was going to do when I saw this thread's title for the first time before I read the OP). What BenTheMan has done here is to use John Baez' Crackpot Index to do the same thing. He is using a measurement others have used to base his argument on. There is a distinction here. Why do you think no one has tried to retaliate by using Baez' index on BenTheMan or Spyman or swansont? It's because it wouldn't work on them. Granted that it's a gray area but I think BenTheMan has used it well.

... with an enormous lorry bearing down on you, air-horn blaring. I think the driver wants to perform a physics experiment involving impact, acceleration and freefall. We'll need to know your mass, mate.

This is the main reason. It's also a test of control, not letting frustration cloud your arguments. And we do want to show that ideas aren't summarily dismissed here, even though they run contrary to accepted science. There are limits though, and I think the coyote has maxed out his ACME card.

No need to move it, and as far as I'm concerned you've used a good litmus test to prove your point, rather than just throwing ad homs and flames everywhere. I really like your use of Baez's index here (he is Joan's cousin, iirc). No reprimand, have some reputation points instead. Gratz, Ben.

Why such an outrageous conclusion? Occam's Razor tells us that the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. If it became transparent wouldn't it be simpler to conclude that when heated the substance flows to the least complicated state, thus appearing "unscrambled"? Claiming the substance "went to a different dimension" is an indication of their lack of science knowledge. A dimension is a measurement of spatial or temporal extent, not a parallel universe. See above. Ding! Give that man a cookie! Many crackpot ideas have little or no testing that can pass peer review. If they did, you're right, you'd see it splashed all over the media, especially in scientific publications.

Describe your dealings with it to date, please. Tell us about why you are interested in mono-atomic gold.

... if you don't count the more than 30 deaths associated with GMO l-tryptophan supplements.

I wouldn't say it's the only real problem at all. Because GMO producers were able to force the FDA in the US to recognize GMO crops as "just like regular crops", a whole host of regulatory testing was averted. That's how they were able to get away with no labeling in the first place. Who knows what may "crop" up in the next decade or so now that FDA testing has been thwarted. The process is far from sound. The money making aspect is driven by patents which require GMO foods to practically be cloned, causing a homogeneity that threatens the biodiversity in our food supply. Allergies have been linked to the lack of diversity that happens when mass production limits variety, and many GMO foods (again unlabeled) contain genes from nuts to which many people are deathly allergic. It is the process itself which insures that problems will continue. Already there are "superweeds" which have gained resistance to natural predators and chemical herbicides through cross-pollination with GMO crops. Introduction into natural settings is inevitable and unavoidable. And GMO producers are making sure farmers destroy their non-GMO seed stocks so the changes are irrevocable. This is a combination of greed and bad process but I just wanted to show that this is not mere technophobia at work.

Of course not, people have been doing that for ages. But do you take genes from completely different organisms (like fish) and modify your crops that way? Your garden is bigger than most but it's not on a scale that's likely to jeopardize your immediate environment. You are also not breeding for longer shelf life or enhanced taste at the expense of nutrition (iceberg lettuce is the #1 lettuce crop in the US and has the lowest nutrition value as well; it is hardy and survives mass shipping better than other varieties). You also don't modify your crops to be toxin-resistant, then claim that they will need less pesticides to keep them healthy. Monsanto breeds crops that are resistant to their own pesticide Roundup, but then locked farmers into contracts requiring them to continue to use Roundup (even though their patent was about to expire). Since the crops are toxin resistant, farmers have to use more Roundup than with natural crops, helping Monsanto sell GMO crops AND more Roundup than ever before.

Here is the article I read about the ladybugs. It may be a bit biased but they have some good resources backing them up.

I agree that greed is the driver, but what about effects that are already being seen? I remember reading about declining birth rates in ladybugs that ate aphids that had eaten GMO crops. That kind of thing can be potentially devastating.

I think there is a huge potential for both solving the world's hunger problems *and* permanently harming our biosphere. The fact that foods are being designed like drugs on a massive scale really scares me. I think the organizers at Greenpeace didn't think this one through. There were probably stories in the Bangkok news about all the fruit from their first protest sitting there rotting. The reaction from the second protest seems pretty predictable.

NLN, you are working for the website you have mentioned in every single post you've made. Nice articles but this is inconsistent with our purpose. We're not here to market for you. Thread closed.

This goes way beyond persuasion, imo. It's dishonest in the extreme (if you had spent a lot of time in this thread trying to help the OP out and then found out they were paid to deceive you you'd probably be angry). This type of marketing was used in both the alcohol and tobacco industries. Good-looking people would be sent to bars and make a point of talking up their favorite cigarette or drink in order to influence sales.

I guess that's why I suspect there is more to Islamic terrorist tactics than meets the eye. They have no conventional army, the actual terrorists are comparatively few in number and they work from compartmented cells. They have no chance of removing western influence with their tactics but they continue anyway. I think the Islamic terrorists are seen as folk heroes and freedom fighters by their own and evil alien villains by their western enemies. I think these images are exploited by profiteers. It's cheap marketing to provide some weapons to fanatics who can spend $100 to produce a video tape that causes millions in troop redeployment and heightened security measures. If I were an arms dealer, keeping the terrorists fired up would be my cheapest marketing, and spending hundreds of thousands to make hundreds of billions is a good return on investment.

If fear alone was their goal they couldn't gain as much support as they do. The 9/11 assault on the World Trade Center was supposed to bring western business to it's knees (I think relaxing regulations to allow housing lenders to sell sub-prime loans has done more to hurt western business). They believe they will win or be martyred trying and that should be a very hard pitch to sell considering how ineffective it's been. One of al-Qa'ida's goals is to remove western influence in their territory, and they aren't EVER going to achieve that in the foreseeable future, imo.

Titles are pretty sacrosanct in forums. Can't let people post about one thing then have a title change make them look goofy. I see perceptions meddled with on all sides, mainly by each side's media. Information is presented differently depending on whether the country-specific media is driven by political, religious, or corporate agendas. Regardless of the reality, views and opinions are altered by these agendas no matter where you look. And I believe there is meddling from those who profit more directly from armed aggression. Supplying wars is extremely profitable and it would seem to be very easy for those with the skill to spin a very persuasive pitch on why defense by terrorism is a great solution. The terrorists are probably told they can win with these tactics, despite their history of failure. The true goals of terrorism seem to be fear and bleeding the victim country's economy, making them spend billions to your hundreds of thousands. Terrorism is money in some people's pockets, money on a scale that can buy the best spin available.

Assuming the terrorists you're talking about are fundamentalist Islamics, I think the closest answer is because of our presence and meddling. And I think their perceptions of our meddling are heightened by many factors, such as their leadership and clergy naming us enemies of their whole religion, arms dealers looking to grow their businesses by fomenting aggressive reactions, and the inability of both sides to understand each other's strange economic and cultural differences.

This is also known as a whisper campaign. One person poses the problem and the other one provides the solution. The best of them join forums and actually contribute so that they are taken more seriously when they begin to promote their agenda. The worst are people like these, who join and start spamming right away.

Since Tyra and sarah.jennif both joined to comment on this, one to pose the question and the other to supply the answer, AND they both have the same ISP from India, I checked around some other forums and found this is a marketing scam. They are promoting this "Institute" and have no intention of discussing anything. I will leave this up for the rest of today and then remove it formally so we don't help their Google rankings.

Doesn't your title give away the fact that you're working for the Institute?

I truly believe this. I think a few real questions get spun into a mass of... erm, questionable questions and then the whole thing gets labeled a conspiracy theory. It should be a logical fallacy unto itself.

Let's avoid the ad hominem arguments, please. Calling people quacks and inept in order to conclude that their ideas are wrong is extremely weak. Let's do better.

These are persistent Hasty Generalizations. The conclusions you are drawing are based on fallacious logic. Please stop attributing the actions of some Americans to all Americans.