Phi for All

Where are the small government extremists now that the Feds are being deployed to do the work of local police against the wishes of governors?

Moderator Note Since nobody "gets it" and nobody has the patience to explain it well enough, I see no reason to keep this open.

If you spent more time on explaining your point in the OP and less time on admonishing those who don't understand it, we might be able to have more cordial, meaningful, and enjoyable discussions. You make this statement a lot, and it's akin to "go back and reread my posts". Not helpful, not even a little bit.

So don't say compare when you really mean judge. One looks for similarities or differences, the other seeks to form an opinion based on specific criteria. Comparing is more objective, while judgement is more often subjective, and science tries to remove as much subjectivity as possible.

This seems hypocritical, doesn't it? If science means to study and collect evidence in support of the work of the giants of science, doesn't it seem more probable that swansont's PhD studies and his work as a physicist on atomic clocks for the US Naval Observatory (GPS relies on relativity) represents a more trustworthy foundation for science knowledge? No offense, but you talk about "proof" and don't understand post-graduate studies and you make the same mistakes a LOT of people make trying to learn science from popular sources instead of taking courses.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

What an amazing display of hypocrisy! Admonishing others to study evolution in one sentence, and making a classic creationist mistake about evolution in the next! Bravo!

Insisting on some personal vendetta isn't helping anyone. Why would you think anybody is trying to scare you away? Do you think we want you to be wrong? Most ideas in science ARE wrong, but finding one that passes all the tests is exciting. We just want to discuss science. Mainstream offers us a hoard of accumulated knowledge that actually works, so we hold all ideas to that level of rigor. How else can we assess your ideas? Do you expect us to just take your word, or lower the bar just because you haven't studied formally? Even Mordred told you when your ideas went against concepts we already know and use. I know you don't want your ideas to be based on poor foundations, but you object when we use the only criteria we can. Please remember that we're attacking your idea like the wind attacks a stalk of corn, to make it stronger and better able to grow. Nobody is attacking you, or trying to scare you, or do anything to you personally.

Moderator NotePlease don't interrupt a mainstream discussion with this ever again.

For odious personal beliefs and actions? No, the people like you always break the rules in some way, usually standing on soapboxes making vile assertions like you. Your reasoning is flawed, it's pointed out in exact terms, but you don't accept the reasoning because you haven't bothered to listen. You just stand on your soapbox with your fingers in your ears. No amount of explanation as to the diversity we see in nature will persuade you from your hate and your objections to people who don't act like you. You and those like you are holding our whole species back with your insistence on religious and societal beliefs. You just can't seem to grasp that there's no single way of living with billions of people involved. In the US, people like you argue about their taxes paying to help those less fortunate. They pay an average of about US$37/year for welfare and bitch about it almost constantly. Meanwhile, they pay an average of over US$700/year for corporate subsidies, taxpayer dollars for already successful companies. How can we possibly "support you" when this is what's really happening, and people like you just keep handing our rights away to corporations? Lying isn't against the rules, actually. But when it's pointed out that you just lied, and evidence is presented, if you stand by the lie then you're soapboxing. Nobody wants to discuss anything with anybody who can't be persuaded by good reasoning. It's a science discussion forum, with a section for Politics. We have conservative members like you. It's not a problem until you start in with hard right propaganda, authoritarian posturing, and blatantly fascist points of view. Nobody sponsors us. Volunteer moderation staff. It's usually not a problem until we get paid provocateurs pushing non-science agendas.

And you obviously missed the part where it was an attempt by the government to prohibit 1A speech, and so it was struck down by SCOTUS. We aren't the government so claiming 1A rights here is just wrong, so you should admit that. Or are you talking about plagiarizing all those anonymous writers the AI copies from? Is that the anonymity you're trying to protect?

A reasonable person would have said, "Sorry, I was wrong about my first amendment rights, and thanks for correcting me." You? You double down on ignorance and admonish swansont for an "obvious error". You have more to overcome than your lack of science knowledge. You're your own biggest obstacle to learning.

This suggestion is ignorant, offensive, and represents the worst aspects of humanity. Disgraceful behavior, imo.

Build on what we already observe and have studied extensively, using theories that have mountains of evidence to support them. Take advantage of accumulated human knowledge. If you don't know these theories, you should study them academically. Discovery happens when someone who understands enough is able to add a new piece to the jigsaw puzzle. Science is like that, new knowledge stemming from a connection to the old knowledge. Sorry if I've said this to you before, but no matter what you attempt to do, if you only know a small part of how to do it, you have to make up the rest. You have to guess what the next step is, and like any guess, it's only as good as your understanding of the subject. We shouldn't fill large gaps in our knowledge with things we've made up; this makes us believe the explanation is "intuitive", since it makes perfect sense to us. Also, popular science articles are NOT a science education. Often, like the last link you provided, the authors propose mysterious sources or unknown forces at work in the universe. It's sensationalism, but it catches the eye. Every theory is limited in scope, and can't be used to explain every aspect of a phenomenon, so pop-sci writers can always find something "unexplained" about science.

Moderator NoteWhen you do have a summary that allows members to participate without clicking unknown links, start a new thread because I'm closing this one.

Once again, your assumptions about this subject are wrong. One of the current Admins (and part owner of the forum) joined when he was 12. He made a lot of bold assertions, had them picked apart by the members, dropped them to move on to other bold assertions. At one point, he admitted to me privately how old he was. By that time, he'd learned enough science that his assertions became supported hypotheses, so I told him it really didn't matter. If anybody thinks "you can't write this", it's not because you're 15. It's because you're generally trying to overreach your own education. You make a LOT of assertions that don't match up with mainstream science, mostly because you haven't learned that part yet. Filling in gaps in your knowledge with stuff you've made up is dangerous. The stuff we make up makes such perfect sense to us, because we designed it specifically to fill a gap in our studies, or to explain something we don't yet understand.

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.