Phi for All

This is what I was talking about earlier. Telling yourself things like this defeat the whole purpose of a downvote. You're supposed to take a hard look at the post that got the DV, be objective, think about how it was perceived by others. Do you seriously think someone reading your post said to themselves, "He knows too much, vote him down"? On a science discussion forum?!

Moderator NoteAs always, the focus needs to be on attacking ideas, not people.

It's important to have your perspective, though. I've been waiting for someone who uses AI successfully to explain why I should embrace it as well. My experiences have all been fairly negative. Besides some of the posters here using it to take the place of learning science, I have a gaming master friend who is using it for his D&D narratives, and they're frequently contradictory or confusing. Also, I've always prided myself on being able to write well, to put down persuasive or funny or meaningful words that might convince or tickle or enlighten someone, but now a program can take my place and do what I do at a pace I could never hope to match. I'm biased and snobby and I know it and I'd like to understand why this technology should be embraced. Right now it just seems like it's being forged as a tool to replace thinking people everywhere, and I want to be more than sad and devastated at that, so please continue to help.

Moderator NotePlease follow through with this, I don't EVER want to see you do this again. Man, that's annoying as hell. Why would you make people who read your posts work that hard?!

I don't think it's helpful to think of downvotes simply as people who disagree with you a lot. Most people will tell you why they disagree, and on this site they often back it up with good reasoning. In my experience, when someone gives out negative rep, it's post-specific criticism, aimed usually at correcting a tone (assertive, dismissive, rude, derogatory, etc), or at statements that indicate the poster isn't listening to replies (the early stages of soapboxing), or the poster has used obviously fallacious argument (everybody should know what a Strawman looks like and avoid making them). I think, in most cases, it's meant as a "you should know better" signal, perhaps one we should all listen to first before deciding somebody has it out for us. Also, I closed down the other thread on downvoting, since it seemed to be doing more harm than good. I think folks just really want to talk about science here. Weirdos.

Moderator Note Two pages is enough, thread closed.

This is another US problem, one that probably deserves its own thread, but we have zero continuity as a country. One side works for 4-8 years to achieve their goals, after dismantling what the other side did for the last 4-8 years. The the first side gets back in power and starts undoing things. Such a stupid, stupid waste of resources!

It has NOTHING to do with being "modern", and everything to do with the definition. Population (colony, settlement, assemblage, whatever you want to call it) excludes individuals because it's a word describing the people as a whole. You figuratively can't see the forest because you're so focused on the trees.

That's a bold move, Cotton. Too bad it didn't pay off for you, mostly because you don't understand what average life expectancy means.

Definitely the modern medical advancements. After all, in the Middle Ages, there was far less pollution and everybody was eating organic, yet life expectancy was under 50.

The OP mentions the Bible twice. And I have my doubts about a scientific idea that solves the problem with "black hole stuff". The cherry on top, of course, is calling it a theory like GR. I'm sure the paper has mountains of evidence behind it.

That's what my autocorrect suggested too. Dewey want such a card? It's long overdue.

And he was a Harvard mathematician as well, and incorporated a subtraction problem into his song New Math, solving it in both base 10 and base 8.

The DoJ is part of the executive branch, but it's supposed to be independent wrt law enforcement activities. POTUS isn't supposed to use it to get back at enemies or take the heat off themselves. Nixon tried that with the Watergate scandal prosecutor. TFG, being an enormous hypocrite, started this latest term by claiming Biden weaponized the DoJ, so he's going to weaponize it even more to root out injustice. So far, he's only investigating the people who investigated him last time, like Jack Smith. Not sure what makes this any different from Nixon. SCOTUS is supposed to be impartial, using legal knowledge to interpret the Constitution and federal law. They are NOT under the control of the executive branch. Nevertheless, they are horribly partisan right now, and have lost the faith of the American people wrt justice. Most see them now as part of the Christo-fascist regime in power currently, helped by the Heritage Foundation and lots of billionaires who want the majority of us to just die.

My favorite line of his was from The MLF Lullaby: Once all the Germans were warlike and mean. But that couldn't happen again. We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they've hardly bothered us since then!

I think this is extremely detrimental to your learning here. Nobody, NOBODY is trying to make you fall. You are presenting an idea here, and it's being attacked rigorously because that's what science does. We're reviewing your idea, not you. You are NOT your idea. I know it's very encouraging to think positively about your endeavors, and turning bad into good, but this has nothing to do with you, really. We attack ideas here, not people. Nobody is trying to make you fall. Everybody is trying to show you how their own understanding of the science can help you.

This site isn't for everyone. Other places have different rules. Our are designed to facilitate meaningful science discussion using mainstream knowledge, and the word "meaningful" is important here. It's very important in science that you explain your idea in a way that allows others to understand it and test it. We don't like wasting much time on houses built of cards. Meaningful conversations are built on strong foundations. Why should anyone continue to talk to you until you explain what you mean by an assertion that isn't mainstream knowledge? And now we see that you were probably trying to sell a book on Amazon to "laymen" (aka, people who don't know better). We gave you many, many pages and almost a year of attention, and you couldn't help us "get the essence" so we could see the math that follows. You were told many times where you were going wrong. Since you ignored all that, I have to assume you weren't interested in learning at all. Soapboxing and bad faith arguments are also against our rules.

Reminds me of the meme: Tell someone you love them today, because life is short, but SHOUT it at them in German, because life is also terrifying. Um, relatively speaking, of course.

Moderator NoteMoved from Science Education to Speculations. What we need from you at this point is an overview of your idea. Let's start with baby steps, feed us some information so we can assess its accuracy and move on to the next bit. What we DON'T need is an idea run through a language model AI that tells you what a great idea you've had. We need some supporting evidence, a model of some sort, and perhaps some testable predictions. We love talking about science, but we want that time spent to be meaningful. Also, let me know if this concept involves your religion. If so, I need to move it elsewhere. In Speculations, we use mainstream science to assess hypotheses. Thank you for understanding.

Moderator NoteI'm not sure what you hope to accomplish with these posts. They don't invite discussion from a science forum membership. We just want to have a conversation with you about science. What is this, are you trying to stop a Stephen King novel from starting? Perhaps you should take a look at other opening posts as a guide to what we look for as discussion starters. Please and thank you.

You're moving the goalposts from "forcibly cure" to "treating" and from "psychopaths" to "antisocial people". In doing so, you created a strawman argument. Please don't do that. It seems you've gotten an answer, that this issue is too complex for force. Which approach do you favor?

From the beginning, by removing environmental influences that might trigger genetic factors. Most parents aren't equipped to deal with parenthood at the level necessary to prevent traumas from turning into psychopathic behavior. We need a much better education system that actively works to improve mental health. We also need better healthcare integrated into the educational system. This is something that needs finesse and time, not a forceful, quick cure. Forcibly curing an adult of anything is a real battlefield ethically. Who is the judge of when the behavior requires force? Which medical professionals are calling for the use of force?

Lack of evidence is a VERY clear critique. If your ideas are unsupported, then they're opinions. Hypotheses require a LOT of support before they can ever be thought of as theories.

OK, so that's a bit unorthodox, and is part of what bothers me about this. If an idea is sound, why do you need "a more well known forum member" to pave the way for it? And not to be disrespectful, but you have less than 100 posts here. You're not that much more well known, so it seems even more like you have an agenda. What needs to happen now is for anyone proposing this appeal to spell it out, tell us why it's so important, and to do so WITHOUT TELLING US TO CHECK THE LINKS. Members should be able to participate in discussion without going offsite or clicking links or watching videos. Forcing us to do so makes it seem like you benefit somehow from the views.

iNow's comment seemed perfectly on topic. He was explaining a perspective on downvotes. I think you made the mistake of taking it as a personal attack, rather than an attempt to explain certain behavior. We don't attack people here, we attack ideas. You are NOT your ideas.